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BUICK INVITATIONAL

January 22, 2005

Mark Russell

LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

JOE CHEMYCZ: We welcome Mark Russell, tournament director at this week's Buick Invitational, maybe just give everybody a scenario of where we are and what the possibilities are for rest of the tournament?

MARK RUSSELL: Can anybody stop the fog from coming in tomorrow?

We'll resume play at 7:00, 7:30 in the morning, and we are not going to re-pair. We are going to finish, and then we are going to turn the players right back around and hopefully we can finish before it gets dark tomorrow.

Q. How confident are you that you can finish tomorrow?

MARK RUSSELL: Oh, optimistic. If we get good weather, I can think we can do that, finish the golf tournament tomorrow.

We'll tee the leaders off the first hole tomorrow in the final round.

Q. Will there be any time between the third and fourth round?

MARK RUSSELL: Yeah, but there won't be a whole lot. We're just going to have to look at it tomorrow and see how long it takes them to finish and what time we can start back.

We're going to have about an hour in there where we're going to have to make some decisions and put some starting times in the finishing teams for the players, and turn right back around and see if we can finish this golf tournament tomorrow.

Q. Monday morning would be the option, to go on to Monday morning?

MARK RUSSELL: Yeah, we would go into Monday morning. If it means getting 72 holes, yes.

Q. How big is the window tomorrow if you don't start at 7:30?

MARK RUSSELL: We haven't got much of a window. Maybe an hour or so.

Q. So we could start at 8:30?

MARK RUSSELL: Maybe, maybe. I mean, it's all kind of touch and golf. We don't got have much time to deal with it all; that's why we are going to try to turn right back around and send the players out without taking the time to re-pair.

Q. How unusual is that?

MARK RUSSELL: It doesn't happen very often. The thing about this, there's no two scenarios that are the same. Every time we have a weather situation like this, it's different. So you kind of have to take the equation the way that it is and work it the best you can.

And in this situation, where we find ourselves Saturday night without having the third round finished, we're going to come back until the morning and get everything started as early as we can and see if we can send the players back out there and finish the golf tournament on Sunday.

Q. What's the forecast now?

MARK RUSSELL: There's a good chance of some fog. (Laughter.)

You know the, the thing about it, it's like a microenvironment; up the road, it's clear. But there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. You have to deal with it.

So we'll see what happens. You've got to have a plan. No matter what the weather forecast is, you've got to have a plan and if that's the plan tomorrow, hopefully we get good weather, we can pull it off.

Q. What's the rule on the final round?

MARK RUSSELL: If half the field finishes the final round, the round must stand and we could possibly go past Monday, but that might be a decision that the Commissioner might get involved in.

But as far as regulations, yes, we would.

Q. Would Tuesday be -- inaudible?

MARK RUSSELL: You know, Alex, please, don't let's go there. (Laughing.) But, yeah, theoretically, yes.

Q. Do you have any word or contact with ABC and what they man to do, will they cut off?

MARK RUSSELL: Yeah, we've talked to ABC. They understand the situation. They are just going to, you know, try to get as much as they possibly can in and we'll see what happens there. We reached a point, we did everything we could possibly do to try to accommodate television, and now we are doing we can to finish the golf tournament on Sunday and have 72 holes in.

Q. Inaudible?

MARK RUSSELL: Well, it wasn't a situation that -- when we cut the field to 60, nearest to 60, is when we were going to play 36 on the day. We haven't been in that situation.

JOE CHEMYCZ: We checked with that, regarding television tomorrow, ABC will take the live scheduled feed as it is from 12:30 to 3:30 Pacific time. They will possibly stay on until 4:00 PM local time if play is extended past that, ESPN will pick up the coverage until the conclusion of play on Sunday. Should coverage be necessary on Monday, ESPN2 is available to take the telecast, and those times will be decided if and when that point comes.

Q. The responsibility of scorers in the trailers, what other responsibilities are there with regards to signing of cards?

MARK RUSSELL: Are you talking about the person that checks the score cards?

Q. Right.

MARK RUSSELL: Their responsibility? They want to make sure there's a score on every box and there's two signatures.

Q. Well, in the case of a situation where Dean Wilson --

MARK RUSSELL: He left the scoring area before the person had a chance to check it. He was checking another one. He didn't wait around to see.

Q. And if he had, how much time do they have, to grab Dean Wilson before he's wandering away?

MARK RUSSELL: Well, if he has -- if he has both feet outside the trailer, he's deemed to have left the scoring area. And he would be disqualified, scoring violation.

He didn't sign his score card. I talked to Dean. He was sick about it. He said, "You know, that will only happen to me one time."

And I said to him, "I would sign my score card when I get on the first tee; that way you never have to worry about that."

But, you know, our person in the scoring area said that, you know, he was checking another guy's card for that exact situation, and Dean left before he had a chance to check his.

Ultimately, the player is responsible for knowing the rules of competition, and unfortunately, he didn't sign for his score.

Let's hope we don't get that fog in the morning.

End of FastScripts.

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