UBS WARBURG CUP

November 15, 2001

Arnold Palmer

Gary Player

ARNOLD PALMER: You want my first team?

ARNOLD PALMER: Okay. My first team, Scott Hoch and John Cook.

GARY PLAYER: I'll take Bernhard Langer and Frank Nobilo.

GARY PLAYER: Okay. I'll take Stewart Ginn and Canizares.

ARNOLD PALMER: Okay. My choice will be Tom Watson and Loren Roberts.

ARNOLD PALMER: Okay. The third match will be Larry Nelson and Curtis Strange.

GARY PLAYER: I'll take Sam Torrance and Ian Woosnam.

GARY PLAYER: Faldo and Aoki.

ARNOLD PALMER: Okay. My team will be Mark Calcavecchia and Hale Irwin.

ARNOLD PALMER: Okay. My team for five is myself and Mark O'Meara.

GARY PLAYER: Our team will be myself and Des Smyth.

GARY PLAYER: There's only one left (laughter).

GARY PLAYER: (Inaudible). Denis Durnian and Ian Stanley.

ARNOLD PALMER: Do you need me to pick?

ARNOLD PALMER: That is correct.

GARY PLAYER: Well, personally, my opinion, it's one of the best golf courses that I've ever played. I think it's an incredible golf course. It reminds me of a real Scottish links. You might as well be right in the middle of Scotland with the way the golf course has been designed. It's incredible. I cannot speak highly enough about the course.

GARY PLAYER: Well, the weather... The weather, it's a nice "wee" breeze, as they say. I don't know, the weatherman must have been on grass. I read about, "It's going to be sunshine every day." But... You better not write that (laughing). You better just tell him he needs a mulligan. Oh, it's live television (laughing). Well, I take that back. No, the weather is something that all these guys have played in all kinds of weather. Obviously, when you have a breeze like this, it makes the golf course very tough. But these guys all like a great challenge, and they're used to it.

ARNOLD PALMER: Well, I agree with almost everything Gary said (laughter). But, certainly, I think the weather is going to be a factor. I agree that the golf course is a good venue for this match, and I hope that it doesn't get sunny and bright all the days without any wind. I think that we need some wind and a little bit of a challenge out there. I don't want to go to extreme on that, however. I think we've got a great group of players. I am very pleased with the first day pairings. I've played so much with Gary Player, I feel like I'm a Siamese twin (laughter). But here we go again anyway... Everything looks pretty good to me. The golf course, the guys here with this golf course have done an excellent job getting it ready for the matches.

ARNOLD PALMER: Well, I had originally really thought that I would pair myself with Jack Nicklaus, and he heard that and left town (laughter). And, of course, Mark stepped right up and said that he could bear the brunt of playing with me. We've been pretty good friends for a long time, so he'll understand.

GARY PLAYER: Well, I chose Des, obviously, you know, pairings are really irrelevant to a degree. I mean, what you've got to do is go out there and hit the shots. There's only one thing that's going to win the matches and that's to play well. It doesn't matter who you're paired with. But Des has been brought up on a golf course like this. In fact, this is a very calm day for Des and it's a sunny day for Des. So I just thought he'd be a good partner in this kind of weather, having been brought p on links, living on links golf courses.

ARNOLD PALMER: Well, frankly, these people, there's twelve guys on my team. And eleven of them are, in my mind, equal. They're all great players. As far as age is concerned, there's no difference in my mind in those people. They are equal in that regard also. So I didn't even look to see how old they were; I know them all pretty well. I just went down the line and paired the guys that I thought would work together, have some fun playing golf.

GARY PLAYER: What was the question?

GARY PLAYER: Well, you know, I find there's a great deal of - if I may say this and not offend you guys - I find there's a great deal of naiveté amongst the press and the entire world about the Senior Tour. I mean, if you look at the scoring that is done, I mean, I'll give you an example. Nobody's ever said to me -- they always say, "Well, you won nine Majors on the regular Tour." Nobody has ever said, "Have you won any Majors on the Senior Tour?" That doesn't exist in their mind. Then you see them say, "Well, it's a Senior Tour." But I'll give you an example. We played at Sacramento about a month ago, however long ago it was, and Tom Kite went around on a very good golf course on 64.9 average on the three rounds. I don't care who you had playing there, anybody in the world couldn't score any lower. You can only go so low. The guys on the Senior Tour every week are scoring 15 -, 12- to 15- to 16-under. I mean, their scoring is not good; it's phenomenal. So to me, when I see these teams here, I don't see a great difference when I look at the guys. They're all, as Arnold said, they're all outstanding golfers and they've all had a lot of experience and are all playing very well.

GARY PLAYER: Well, I just sat down with our team. These are all experienced players. They don't want to be lectured to. I think it's more of a get-together and saying, basically, "These are the guys that I've worked out that I would like to see playing with each other." There will be no offense, is there anybody you feel you might play better with? Or you don't want to play with these guys? We discussed the ball situation, if one's a Titleist and the other one's a Callaway, what the situation would be. We had just discussions in general. But I think the one thing that I did say and that I asked our players to do was to really not make this a Ryder Cup where, personally, I've been very, very saddened to see people running out on the greens, wives and players and caddies, when a man has a putt. Basically, the man had a putt. If he holed, if I'm not mistaken, they would have won the Ryder Cup. But be that as it may, I know that Arnold and I and a lot of the guys in this room are not used to seeing things like that. To hear, "This is a war," and "This guy doesn't like this guy," "This guy doesn't like that guy," there's not time in life to say you don't like anybody, I mean, particularly when you see what goes on in the world. I think all these guys over here, I mean this man on my right here, when I play against him and he plays against me, we try to beat each other. But we love each other as friends and we have been for all these years. We can be competitive and yet still be great friends. That, to me, is a sign of - well, I think it's just a wonderful thing. This applies to all the guys in this room. We like to compete. We like to win. But we're going to win or we're going to lose. I said, "Please, let's play this in the spirit of the game," which they all whole-heartedly agreed. I mean, a man like Samuel Ryder, who invented the Ryder Cup, between two great countries, the United States and Europe - well now it's the entire Europe - he wanted the game to be played between these two countries. If you read carefully at what his original statement was, "a match between two great countries played in the true spirit." I'm sure that Arnold would endorse this, having been the gentleman that he has, that we want to just see this take place. If you lose, have a smile on your face. If you win, have a smile on your face. But we want to satisfy the sponsors here and we want to try to set an example to young people that will be watching this around the world instead of making them think, "Well, this is a hate game and you have to hate people and it has to be a war," and that's a bunch of hogwash.

ARNOLD PALMER: Well, of course at this time in our history, I think a lot of what Gary says is absolute. But we're trying to create good will; we're not trying to create a problem between the world and the United States or countries in the world. I don't know of any of these players that are angry with anyone else. It doesn't matter whose team they're on. The fellowship and all the other things that go along with playing golf is what we're trying to make an example of. I think that everyone should know that. And certainly that does not mean that you can't be competitive. Any one of my guys, I think they would all be competitive, but they would be gentlemen. That's the example that we're trying to set. It's an example that we need to set in the world today. I feel very strongly about that. And you just heard Gary, that's exactly what he has said.