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BUICK CHAMPIONSHIP

June 28, 2006

Joe Ogilvie

CROMWELL, CONNECTICUT

TODD BUDNICK: We have thank Joe Ogilvie for stopping by the 2006 Buick Championship course. Joe, a policy member, and with the big announcement about the FedEx Cup today, we thought it would be a nice idea for you to stop in and answer some questions from a player perspective and from somebody who sat on the board. Talk about the new system.

JOE OGILVIE: I think it's something we clearly needed to do. We have some holes in our schedule. We have holes and weeks that traditionally don't get a strong field. Last week was a pretty big gaping hole. Hopefully with a yearlong point structure I think some of those holes will be filled.

I also think from the end of the year you know, golf and tennis are the only two sports that don't own their majors. With the FedEx Cup at the end of the year, four tournaments being the closest thing we have to a playoff, we have four more compelling tournaments to show the public. The World Golf Championships, which we basically control, The PLAYERS Championship, and then you have got a lot of other good tournaments during the schedule. We don't have a lot of holes now. There are some weeks that aren't going to have all the major players, but I think top to bottom our schedule is a hell of a lot stronger than it was certainly this year and years' past.

Q. Instead of going 144, making it 100 or 80?

JOE OGILVIE: This is going to be somewhat of a fluid there's not a Constitution that says this is the way it's going to be forever. I think if next year the public wants it, I think we're going to give the public what it needs. We didn't want to do this the first year because we really wanted to think about playing opportunities for the players.

At the end of the day you've still on got to give the players enough events to really play. We're not sure how this is going to affect Q School or not. Some day we may have to cut out Q School if this works and go to the Nationwide only. We don't know how that's going to work. There's certainly talk about it. The players talked about it. A lot of the players were for it. Certainly going from 144 to maybe 120 to 90, or something like that.

At the end of the day, I think the first year, the first couple of years, to have 144, give as many playing opportunities as possible in the FedEx Cup season, I think that's probably best right now for the players and then we'll see how it works out next year. Hopefully I think the fans will embrace it.

Q. Pardon my ignorance, if there is some, but is the plan to stick to 30 players for Atlanta?

JOE OGILVIE: I asked that in the board meeting and they said under no scenarios in fact, Tom said, "Not in my lifetime" was the direct quote, that there is a chance that anyone outside of 30 he said there is only really 15, 20 guys that could really win. I didn't see that, but if that's what they're saying. I mean, they ran countless numbers. But I thought the same thing. I thought if I'm 35th and I've got a chance to win the Tour Championship, I should be involved.

And that's something that we may go next year and if it's really tight after the first three events and the 40th guy on the money list has a chance, that's something the board could certainly say, okay, let's give everyone a chance who has a chance. But from what they tell me, it's just not going to happen.

Q. Theoretically, it's fairly impossible mathematically?

JOE OGILVIE: Yes.

Q. How much are you going to talk about making changes over the next year and what's working and what's not working?

JOE OGILVIE: The PAC, the Player Advisory Council, and the board will constantly bee looking at it. And the TOUR will constantly be looking at it. If all of a sudden the fans say it's way too complicated and the press say it's way too complicated, it will be changed. No doubt about it.

We didn't really bring the press into this a whole lot like I thought we would. It will be changed if it doesn't you know, if people are having a hard time following it. We think we have a pretty simple scenario. The only thing that's not real simple, is with the majors we go up to 2,500 points, above the 25,000. And with the World Golf Championships, we're 1250 above the 25,000. And with the off site events we're 12 well, whatever it is divided by two. That's where it's a little bit confusing. It's not a straight line. We thought we had to do that. Obviously the majors, you need to give the majors a little bit more points. But they're not too much. They're not crazy number of points. They're just a little bit more. And we think that's probably the best system for right now.

Q. Majors weighted higher?

JOE OGILVIE: The WGC events are probably the most controversial events out here. Talk among the players, should the WGCs count more. I think that was the biggest debates. The majors, they didn't want to give them too many points, they just wanted them a little bit more. Then you guys can say the majors are weighted more. They are not crazy but they are weighted more.

Q. The sliding scale in regard to the reshuffle, obviously the increments get smaller as you go down the list?

JOE OGILVIE: Right.

Q. Are you concerned that if the No. 1 seed has a 4,000 point lead or several thousand point lead over the 60th guy, and the 60th guy wins Westchester, takes a big leap forward, that's an example of the volatility the Tour seems to be pursuing, are you concerned about the negative ramifications of that?

JOE OGILVIE: Well, it's one of those things where if you get a normal playoff, and if the Miami Heat go up 3 1 against the 1996 Chicago Bulls you know what I mean? The best teams sometimes go down in the series, but generally speaking, the best teams also end up winning the series. I think that having over four tournaments, usually the cream is going to come to the top.

Tiger has played well in at least two of those courses. He hasn't played great at Westchester. But I think that's what you guys are going to like. I think that's what the fans are going to like, the big jumps, and that's why we made them big. 9,000 points for the winner.

If the 100th guy goes from 144 or the 100th guy wins the first tournament, he's going to go from 100 to around 10th.

JOE OGILVIE: He wouldn't go to one the 100th guy will have around 87,000 points. He will go somewhere around to the 10th or 15th spot. Now, we also think these tournaments will add a little bit more pressure, because I think media is going to be a lot more. We think the fan base is going to be a lot better. From a fan standpoint we'll have a major type atmosphere at the tournament. It's going to be more difficult for a guy at 144 to win these tournaments than a normal tournament, we think.

TODD BUDNICK: Thanks for stopping in, Joe.

End of FastScripts.

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