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WGC ACCENTURE MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIPFebruary 22, 2005Steve CarmanMark RussellCARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA JAMES CRAMER: We have our tournament director, Mark Russell, and our advance rules official Steve Carman joining us. Mark wanted to make a brief announcement about the status of play. MARK RUSSELL: After looking at the golf course and checking the weather report, the committee has decided to cancel golf for tomorrow and give the golf course a chance to drain a little bit and allow people to get out there and Steve and the golf course superintendent here at LaCosta to get his work done, and see if we can give them a little bit better golf course to play on Thursday. Tyler Dennis, one of our rules officials that was at the Riviera Country Club last week, once he saw this yesterday he said that Riviera looks like a kiddie pool compared to this. But it's gotten a lot better, and we think it's going to get a lot better. We're scheduled to get some rain this afternoon, possibly up to an inch, about there's a possibility that a lot of it could miss us. But after tomorrow morning the weather forecast is a lot better for the rest of the week. So with all that in mind the committee decided that we would not play golf tomorrow, give the golf course a little chance to recover. And we feel like if we play 32 matches on Thursday, and we'll play 16 matches on Friday, and we'll double up that day, and play 8 more in the afternoon, and then we can get back on schedule. Fortunately we do have the leeway here at the Match Play Championship to do that. With that in mind, that's the plan right now, and we just hope the weather cooperates. MARK RUSSELL: 36 hole final on Sunday. Q. Will the course be open for play tomorrow? MARK RUSSELL: Yes, we're going to allow the players to practice. We're letting them practice today. But the conditions are not very good, and we feel like that if we get lucky that they will improve dramatically and we present a lot better golf course by allowing an extra day and allowing Steve Auckland and his folks to get out there and do his work on it. Q. Any position on lift and clean? MARK RUSSELL: Yes, we'll make that decision right before we're ready to go. Q. Steve, coming into the week there was three or four fairways that were earmarked as being so saturated that they were probably going to be areas of relief, will that be the same even if we get play on Thursday? STEVE CARMAN: If we play rougher lies, that will make things a lot better. But there are some situations where we might have to mark areas because of the silt that has been deposited by the water that's sat there for a couple of days. Q. That would be the little white line? STEVE CARMAN: Yes. Q. What's the problem right now? MARK RUSSELL: The whole golf course. They had so much rain in Southern California and the rain they've gotten the last couple of days, you were in Los Angeles yes, and it's just been difficult. It's totally saturated. But based on this weather forecast, it's going to get nothing but better. If we get a day of sunshine and breeze on it, it will get dramatically better, and we're going to present a better golf course for the players, and the Accenture Match Play Championship is a World Golf Championship, and we want the golf course to be as good as it can possibly be under these conditions. We're extremely fortunate to have the leeway to do this. Normally in a golf tournament we would not be able to do this, but once the committee got together and we all looked at the golf course, we decided that we could lose a day and get back on schedule by the weekend with good weather. Q. The latest forecast for tomorrow? MARK RUSSELL: Is improving dramatically in the morning. We're supposed to get some weather late this afternoon and overnight. But in the morning it's supposed to get much better, see some sunshine much like today, but not have that chance of rain in the afternoon. Q. Mark, if there were a forecast between now and then, would you be able to play it tomorrow? MARK RUSSELL: We would have had a different thought process there. We would have done everything we possibly could have done today to play, but if we got rain this afternoon, like it's forecast, we probably wouldn't have been able to. If we get lucky and don't get the rain, that will be a bonus, get the golf course ready to go having a day to work on it. If we had a rain forecast, I don't know if we'd have been able to play at all. Q. Forecast for later in the week is good? MARK RUSSELL: Forecast for later in the week is good. STEVE CARMAN: All the way through Sunday. MARK RUSSELL: With that in mind, we thought that this would be the correct thing to do for the Accenture Match Play Championship, the players, everyone involved. Q. Riviera was almost exclusively bunker problems. Is it everything here or is it fairways? MARK RUSSELL: Actually the greens are high and dry. The greens are good. They're soft, but they're good, but you have bunkers and fairways STEVE CARMAN: These bunkers have a history of washing somewhat, but not as severe as Riviera. It's mostly the casual water, the water that's outside the creek right now is the problem. Q. If this was the first round tomorrow of a stroke play event, would we be playing? STEVE CARMAN: That decision would probably be made tomorrow morning. MARK RUSSELL: That's right. We would definitely hold off until tomorrow morning to make that decision. It would be difficult to play out there today. We definitely would be lifting the ball, if that was the case. But hopefully we won't get any rain, and we'll get another day. It improved dramatically yesterday, from yesterday to today, and we feel like that will be the same case if we can miss most of this rain. STEVE CARMAN: The history of this golf course is that it drains very well, once we get the water back in the banks. The surface water has some place to go. We look promising because of that. Q. Is there a road closure out there? Has that been cleaned up, the access off the interstate, or is that still an issue? MARK RUSSELL: I'm not sure about that. We've got our hands full with the golf course, no traffic reports. JACK WARFIELD: They've got standing water, and they've closed it off and on the last couple of days, and we've got our hands full on this side of the street. Q. Will they be able to do much mowing at all, do you know? Do you know what you'll be able to do? MARK RUSSELL: Possibly tomorrow afternoon if we don't get another large amount of rain this afternoon and this evening, yeah, hopefully. Matter of fact, Tom Brown, our agronomist, and Steve Auckland, were trying to get more lightweight mowers in here, so we can do some mowing. Q. It seems like it would disrupt the flow of the match, but was any consideration given to starting late Wednesday to get half of these matches in and then just buying a little more time in case you need it? STEVE CARMAN: That was part of the discussion, yes. It was an option. Q. Not a very long discussion? STEVE CARMAN: No, it was. But with the forecast for the rain, any kind of rain from now until we start playing golf is going to put us out of business. And so with that pretty positive forecast that we're going to get some more rain late today and overnight, we didn't feel like that was the right way to go. MARK RUSSELL: We waited, too, until we got an updated forecast at 11:30, so that's what we were waiting on to see what they had. Q. Because of the postponement, is there anything you'll be able to do on the course tomorrow that you normally wouldn't be able to do if you didn't have that extra day? MARK RUSSELL: Well, let Mother Nature take its course is what we're looking at. They're pumping some water out of some fairways, and we've been assured that if we don't get this rain that this creek is going to get back in its banks, and that will help tremendously, too, with drainage. Q. Is there any discussion that because some of the holes might be under water that you can play a truncated golf course and play those holes twice, that because it is match play, they would play the same holes? MARK RUSSELL: Well, we haven't discussed that yet. I certainly hope we don't have to do that, but we want to present them 18 holes of golf where we can play golf under the rules. But, no, we have not discussed that. Q. You said obviously most of the golf course has some water issues, but are there a couple of holes more than others? What are the ones that are the key factors? STEVE CARMAN: Obviously the ones right here in front of the clubhouse. And the 11th hole, which is a par 5, there's a pond just adjacent to the green that has overflowed completely across the fairway. That's the primary ones over in that area. MARK RUSSELL: All of them are saturated, but those are the worst. |
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