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FBR OPEN

February 3, 2005

Slugger White

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Slugger White, PGA TOUR tournament director. Thanks for joining us for a couple minutes. We had some unusual weather this morning. Maybe just touch real quickly on what happened and any remedies you guys used to try to get the situation rectified.

SLUGGER WHITE: Well, thanks, Joel. We got a call at 17 green early where the wind was howling. We couldn't get the ball to stay on the green. And after talking to the guys at 17, we also found out that balls were rolling on 15 and 16 but we didn't get that call until later.

So the superintendent, Jim Broughton, was contacted, and we wanted to get some water out there as quickly as we could to hopefully get some friction on these things. We weren't expecting that much wind today. We were looking at 10 to 15, but it gusted up to 25. They were talking maybe even to 30 plus.

So that's unfortunate, but it happened, and we got it where we felt like it was under control in about 30 minutes. So it was difficult for a little bit.

Q. How much water?

SLUGGER WHITE: It was just light surges. We tried to go for about the first probably 45 minutes, about every second group, because it didn't last very long with the wind, so we tried to do that.

And then we didn't want to get to a saturation point. There's a fine line there. We didn't want these greens getting too soggy.

There were two that we were concerned about, 17 and 15, and we backed off on that a little bit. And then before the afternoon started we did just a little light dusting in front of the second wave and got everything done, and I think we got it under control, like I said, pretty quick.

Q. So before you resumed play, you watered which greens?

SLUGGER WHITE: Tomorrow?

Q. No, before you resumed play today --

SLUGGER WHITE: We pretty much tried to get every green. We had two greens that were open, but we did 17. 18 was probably one of our last ones. We did 14, 15, 7 and 8, and then we tried to get to where we were doing every green. Jim did a hell of a job out there.

Q. All during that 38-minute period?

SLUGGER WHITE: Right.

Q. In your experience how unusual is this kind of a situation?

SLUGGER WHITE: Most unusual. I haven't been here in about five years, and usually we just fight frost here. I haven't seen this. Frost is a lot easier to deal with than this wind, but it is most unusual.

Q. What was the last tournament that you recall anyplace where you had wind that halted play?

SLUGGER WHITE: It was in Vegas 20 years ago maybe. I don't even remember. It was when we played the Showboat. You can go that far back (laughter). And we had balls blowing off the green there. But that's been a long, long time.

I mean, I was at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock, but that wasn't -- it was wind, but it was also the greens got a little out of hand.

Q. Stewart Cink mentioned at Birkdale in 98 there was a delay because of wind.

SLUGGER WHITE: I wasn't there, I don't know. Was that the PGA?

Q. No, British Open.

SLUGGER WHITE: Oh, I'm sorry. That could have very well been.

Q. What about Pebble Beach in 2000? Was that more because of rain than wind?

SLUGGER WHITE: That was rain, and we did stop Pebble Beach 10, 12 years ago. That was Cypress Point, and we couldn't keep the ball on the 17th green there.

Q. But 2000 was because of rain, not the wind?

SLUGGER WHITE: Right.

Q. If you had known the wind was going to be 30 or 32, would the greens have been prepared differently?

SLUGGER WHITE: Completely differently, yes, indeed. We would have probably just single cut, we wouldn't have rolled. I mean, they were double cut and rolled this morning. Yeah, it would have been a completely different situation.

Q. What's the outlook for tomorrow?

SLUGGER WHITE: The prediction tomorrow is about the same wind we had this afternoon, about 13, 14 and gusting to 20, but not as -- I don't think the 30, 35 that we had today at times.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Slugger, thanks.

SLUGGER WHITE: Thanks, guys.

End of FastScripts.

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