WGC AMERICAN EXPRESS CHAMPIONSHIP

September 11, 2001

Mike Bodney

MICHAEL BODNEY: Thanks, James. I believe that everybody in here has had an opportunity to read the release that was sent out from Tour News, related to what we are tentatively planning to do with the event, not only here in St. Louis, but in North Carolina and the BUY.COM event, as well. Right now, what we are currently planning to do is to cancel Thursday's round. We will participate and have 36 holes of competition on Friday and Saturday, and Sunday would be back on schedule again, and exactly the way that they were scheduled to be, at the beginning of the week. A couple of little notes that I'd like to pass along here. We've just had a general committee meeting, and in deference to what has happened today, we are giving the volunteers an opportunity to make a decision on whether or not they want to stay the day. If they feel more comfortable being with their families or if they have concerns about people they may or may not know in New York, giving them the opportunity to kind of take the afternoon off and do what they feel is the proper things for themselves to do, related to their families. This is obviously a huge tragedy. It's something that fell upon us all in a real quick period of time here this morning about 8:00. We are trying to be as reactive and proactive as we can. Taking a look at the bigger scheme of things, this is obviously a very important event for our friends at American Express and everyone here at Bellerive and the PGA TOUR and the Federation, and has huge ramifications around the world. We are trying to -- we are trying to and will make decisions that we believe are in the best interests of everyone that would be involved with the competition here this week.

MICHAEL BODNEY: There are 21 players that are currently not here. Of those, I believe it's 18 that are coming in on private aircraft and three that are scheduled to either drive or are on commercial flights.

MICHAEL BODNEY: Sure it would, depending at the end of the day, trying to understand what we can or can't do, from a competitive standpoint, that's one of the major issues. If you don't have a field here, it's difficult to play an event. But we are monitoring all that. I think that players have already kind of changed or altered their travel plans, but what we don't know is what the FAA is going to do in regards to allowing flights in the air at all.

MICHAEL BODNEY: I have not, no.

MICHAEL BODNEY: Yeah, we'll talk to all the players. You bet.

MICHAEL BODNEY: I can't answer that question right now. I don't know. It just depends -- if there are two that can't get here or manage -- there are a lot of scenarios that we'd need to discuss and understand exactly what the situation is before make a decision.

MICHAEL BODNEY: I just got off the phone with Commissioner Finchem who has spoken with John Lennon (ph) who is the vice chairman of American Express. Obviously, they are in -- you know, to use the easiest word I can, "Chaos", what John and Tim said was that they were going to speak again tomorrow after some of this settles down a little bit and they are able to get their feet back on the ground. This is going to be -- just so that everyone here knows, this is going to be an ongoing situation. We're going to have updates with this, and as things unfold, and, you know, the President of the United States has a lot to say about what we are doing here as well. He is obviously going to direct us, as a people, and a nation, to understand and how best to react to all of this. All of those things are part of what we will be taking into consideration.

MICHAEL BODNEY: Right now, nothing has changed. We are going to allow the public in. Unless something extraordinary happens in the next 12 hours or so, we don't expect to have any changes in that. The only real change, again, would be in the competitive nature of the event. Thursday would become a practice round and Friday would be a 36-hole competitive day.

MICHAEL BODNEY: I don't know that, Jerry. I really don't. I don't know what's going to happen an hour from now in regards to what's going on around the rest of the country. It's pretty difficult to answer that question, I'm sorry.

MICHAEL BODNEY: Personal opinion? You know, it's a tough call. It's a real tough call. I think that the leadership of our country is going to dictate the way in which that all of us are going to react to this. You know, this is a tragedy. This is something that's never, ever happened before, short of 1940. That's a tough question to ask.

MICHAEL BODNEY: If you've been following the sports at all, you already know that Major League Baseball, they have cancelled all their games for tonight. They have not gone on and said anything more about their schedule. Again, we are dealing with something that's three more days away for us. Time is what it is, and you take things one step at a time, and that's exactly what we are planning to do.

MICHAEL BODNEY: Here or around the country?

MICHAEL BODNEY: Obviously, Bob Combs, who is the Senior Vice President of Communications for the Tour has been in contact with Tim. Ed Moorehouse has been involved with it. We have had a committee of 15 or 20 people, including the tournament director and the rules committee here. The tournament staff and the chairman of the event, Jerry Ritter from Bellerive, a lot of people have been involved in this, yes.

MICHAEL BODNEY: Well, obviously it's a possibility. Whether or not it happens, I can't answer that question.

MICHAEL BODNEY: Interestingly enough, there's only one player that is international in regards to the tour that he plays, which is Mark McNulty with Nick Price, and he is the only non-American player that isn't here currently, non-American Tour member.

MICHAEL BODNEY: I believe that Mark is with Nick in Florida, yeah. That's not confirmed. I don't know that for a fact. I'm assuming that.

MICHAEL BODNEY: We are -- through the course of the week, we will explore all of the scenarios and try to understand exactly what will or won't happen in the future. I think we want to get through today, get to tomorrow, understand a little bit better of what is going to happen this week, and as things unfold, make those decisions as they come to us.

MICHAEL BODNEY: The players won't make the decision on the competitive aspects of the event.

MICHAEL BODNEY: Interesting question. Given that this happened four hours ago, I really haven't given that much thought, and it's obviously something that we do need to consider and think through. But as of right now, I would not even venture a guess on that.