U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 1, 1999

George Bryan

GEORGE BRYAN: Thank you, Rhonda. It was probably two or three times that we had thought about it in the early 90s. But we hosted the Sara Lee Classic up in Nashville for 12 years. And Bill Cecil, who is here today, I think he and I were talking about it, and we talked about bringing it here and thought that would be very difficult to do. And I thought maybe we could bring the Sara Lee here one day and rotate it, and I said: What about the Open? And he looked at me like I was a little bit crazy at the time. And then it kind of went on from there. We met Catherine; grabbed him from Nashville, and talked to her. She introduced us to Judy Bell, and that's how it took place.

GEORGE BRYAN: Judy and Catherine came down with us back in 95, and we had lunch here at the club. And they looked at the properties, and we walked down on the 18th green and stood and looked up over the lake. And I think Judy, she could kind of see it in her eye that maybe we could host this tournament here.

GEORGE BRYAN: It's unbelievable so far. To see all the people come out and see all the ladies coming from all over the world and media, it's an exciting time for us. The staff, the people in the community and all over Mississippi. It's just a great time of excitement.

GEORGE BRYAN: I don't know the exact year. I think it was back in the 1840s, something like that. This was sort of a railroad town. There was a north, south, east, west railroad running through here. Just sort of the way most towns were founded then. And it was in the most western part of the county, and that's how it received the name West Point. Back in those days when the county was a little bit different, it's not in the most western part of the county today. It's in the southeast part of the county. In the community when I was growing up was about 5,000 people, 4,000, 5,000 people, and today there's probably 300 or 400 golfers in the town, maybe 500 golfers, people that play golf. But there's a 9-hole course here in West Point that was built in 1958. It's on the west side of town and actually our family was involved in building that course in 1958, and that's sort of how I became interested in golf, really. I think the town is very excited about it. I saw some friends out here this week that I had not seen in 20 years that came out to the golf tournament. That's a good sign.

GEORGE BRYAN: Well, obviously I grew up here. I was born here and raised here and lived here for the years before we moved to Memphis. Our family was here. My father lived, our grandfather lived here. We had always talked about maybe in the 70s building another golf course, and we looked at a lot of different pieces of property and we really wanted to do a course more toward the waterway of the airport, came and looked at some property and selected this site. This was an old hunting club, and it has a lot of deer and turkey and a lot of quail. It was a hunting preserve kind of back in the 70s, and a lot of people came from a lot of places and hunted it. They just thought it had a lot of natural beauty. We had a lot of beavers or beaver dams, several ponds and creeks. When we were building the golf course, the engineers came in and had to put in the different levees to control the water, and they went down to where the beaver dams were, and they didn't need the engineering. We didn't have to play a lot of engineers to do a lot of work.

GEORGE BRYAN: Old Waverly is named from the home four miles due east of here. It was built in 1848. Started construction in 1848. It was an antebellum home. It took four or five years to build the home. It was from a gentleman from Scotland, Colonel Young, he was from Scotland. Our ancestry was Scottish. Our mother was a Cameron; so we sort of gravitate toward that. And Waverly is a very Scottish name. But the home that was built in 1848, it had 50,000 acres on the home site, and this property was on the site. So when we were building the course, my brother-in-law and I were out here and we were thinking of all different kind of names and one Saturday afternoon I sort of jumped out of my chair and rode out and said: We'll name is Old Waverly and try to have that kind of theme of an old home. And the clubhouse is sort of like a home out there. We strive to make it into a home kind of atmosphere, not like the Traditional clubhouses. There's where the name came from.

GEORGE BRYAN: We didn't really think about it. Jerry is a native from eastern Alabama, went to the University of Alabama. We primarily used Jerry because of his contacts. We thought he would be a good public relations person to help us build the club up, and he was. He really pulled Bob Cupp into the project, because Bob had done a lot more designing work than Jerry. Jerry was just starting out in 1985 in design work, so he brought Bob with him. But primarily we brought Jerry, because he had a great personality and knew a lot of people in the South, and that's the reason we hired him.

GEORGE BRYAN: I think when Judy and Barbara McIntyre were here back in 95, they liked the bunkering, they liked the naturalness of the golf course. They liked the amphitheater of the last five holes where you can sort of sit up, and then a lot of good sites to see the golf tournament on this golf course, and I think they liked it. We didn't really think about that, or I didn't when we were building the course, but probably Jerry and Bob did.

GEORGE BRYAN: The property itself is 360 acres. We have a 45-acre lake. It was originally about 32 acres, and we enlarged it to 45 acres as we built the different holes out here. We did a residential development out here. We actually built the lodge and the cottages before we ever built the clubhouse because we need to have a place for people to come and stay from out of town. So we built these 24 rooms on the lake over there to bring in 24 guests a day to supplement the rounds of the members. We have about 250 local members, and then members from Tupelo, Jackson, Tuscaloosa when is within driving distance. We play 5,000 guest rounds a year. That's really all the golf we want to play. We are not really looking to enlarge the amount of play or increase the amount of play on the golf course, because we want to keep it in good conditions; so, we limit the guest play to about 5,000 a year. But we need the guest play because it helps us with our revenue, with so many, so few local members. And like I said, 250 is all we have in the Golden Triangle area.

GEORGE BRYAN: A member can represent you. If you stay on the property, you do not have to be a member to play here. You can play here twice a year. And the green fees are 120 per round. On the weekend they are 85 and 90. But that is a good source of revenue for us.

GEORGE BRYAN: Well, we sort of break even. It's hard to make money in private clubs, because you're trying to take care of your membership and give them, a value for their money. It's just difficult. We're not really in it to make money, but we're not in it to lose money, either.

GEORGE BRYAN: I think when we talked to the USGA, their concern was could we get the people in here. Could we manage the crowd and how would we market to the audience in this market? How could we do that? And we planned some other activities around this event to bring in nongolfers, because we don't have within 200 or 300 miles of here enough of really what you call avid golfers to support the tournament. So our marketing strategy has been to bring in some nongolfers who have been around the Open. And we had the housing pretty much worked out, because you know with private housing and hotels and then the roads that have been improved in the last couple years was a big plus. Four-lane highway to Memphis and just the roadwork done around here. But I give a lot of credit to the State of Mississippi for helping us bring the event here. They saw a chance to spotlight Mississippi. They have the largest budget they ever have, and they invested that money to bring people into the state. So it was good for us to approach the State of Mississippi in 1996 to help us and it came through. It's been a big plus for us.

GEORGE BRYAN: I met him at the Open last year. He's a very nice man. Good businessman. I've always respected their products and probably bought their products over the years. I was in the construction business early on. I always thought they made some of the best products in America. And you know, the name is outstanding. If you see the quality of what he's done there, I've not even seen the new course, but that's the kind of course I like. I like the Scottish courses. Unfortunately, we didn't get to play it the day after the Open last year. I was invited to do that, but I didn't do that. We have some friends that live up there and we have a company right north of Appleton, Wisconsin, Hillshire Farms. So I get up to Wisconsin quite a bit, and it's pretty up there. But I didn't really get to spend a lot of time with him. He was awful busy that week, had a lot of people. But they had a host Wednesday night at the showroom I guess you call it. Our future host dinner is going to be a little different. We probably won't take people down to the meat plant. In fact, we're going to the Waverly Mansion tomorrow night. But I probably should have called him and invited him down here. I'm anxious to go back there. I'm anxious to go back up and play. They say it's fantastic.

GEORGE BRYAN: Well, Heather came here and Bill helped me a little bit. I guess she came here in '88. You probably heard she played the first round, the opening round so to speak with Crenshaw, Lopez, Jerry and Heather. And I never met Heather before in my life. Bill had met her because he had signed her up from the Sara Lee prior to that. But I never met her until she came here that time. We got to know her and she loved this golf course, and she liked the children's home in Columbus. That was the charity we had for the Pro-Am every year. She got to know a lot of the kids over there and got in with them, and they loved her and her mother and father are coming tomorrow. They are coming from Phoenix and we are going to pick them up in Atlanta about two o'clock tomorrow afternoon. And we have the dedication at five on No. 7 tee. That's the hole that we call Heather's Heaven. And I was talking to Bill Cecil about the weather yesterday, and he said Heather is going to take care of us on the weather. I thinks we all feel like she is here, and she's here to see this, and I think she would be proud.

GEORGE BRYAN: Well, Rhonda and I were talking about that before we came in here. I sat with one of the players last night, a delight full girl from Scotland. She is from Glasgow. We are fortunate enough to go to Scotland every year and play in August. So I really enjoyed speaking with her, and she thought with a 10- or 12-under was going to beat it. She thought somebody was going to come out Thursday and shoot a 5- or 6-, 7-under and make it 10 or 12. She thinks the fairways are a little wide and the rough is not deep enough, but I don't think she understands Old Waverly yet. When the pressure gets on and the wind picks up and the greens dry out, it can be a different golf course. I don't think it's going to be that high.

GEORGE BRYAN: She's saying 4. I say 7 or 8. I think that's the thrilling part about it is it sort of builds up to the first tee off on Thursday, and then you start posting those scores and they start coming in. That's when the excitement really starts.

GEORGE BRYAN: No. We never really thought about moving the tournament here. A lot of people used say: Why don't you move the Sara Lee to Waverly? We don't believe that we could do an annual event here. We don't have enough huge corporate support and you have a large Pro-Am around those events that Nashville is a great city. It has a lot of entertainment. A lot of factors. We were there for 12 years and we put on a good tournament there. We worked very hard to help continue that tournament. Bill Cecil and a lot of people, and of course Nancy Lopez, and they have got two or three sponsors they are talking to right now. We hope it continues up there. We told them we would do everything we could to support it. And they are working on it. I talked to a couple people yesterday, and they are getting a little closer to some things happening up there. We just don't think that here we could do an annual event like that.

GEORGE BRYAN: Well, I know you think I'd say Nancy Lopez, and you're probably right. I've had dreams about her. When she was up in Portland up at -- what's the course? Pumpkin Ridge. That was an exciting finish, and of course last year was equally exciting. I've had a lot of dreams about her coming down the 18th fairway, and her hands in the air and people just screaming and hollering. I really don't have a favorite other than her, I guess. Some of the pros I know better than others. I think last year was exciting to have two foreign golfers there. I think the world really -- you know that was one of the highest TV ratings that they have ever had. I just think -- I sold somebody yesterday, you know, these are the greatest women athletes in the world. Golf is a very difficult game for those of us that play it. And they are great athletes. And I think there are a lot of them out there that can win. I think a lot of them can win here that maybe not could win on a much tougher golf course. And I'm not saying Waverly isn't tough, but I think this course brings in more players. And a lot of it depends on the conditions. It could rain later on in the week. The wind could pick up. If the wind picks up around that lake, it is very difficult, 10 and 11, 12, even 17 and 18. We have got about six or seven really good par 4s. Par 3s, none of them are really easy. I think the greens are excellent right now. They are putting as good as they have ever putted. If they keep the ball out of the rough, because the rough is growing now, it's coming on up.

GEORGE BRYAN: We're trying to get it to two inches and it's at about an inch and a quarter, something like that. Inch and a half.

GEORGE BRYAN: Thank you.

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