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FEDEX ST. JUDE CLASSICMay 29, 2004Robby WareMEMPHIS, TENNESSEE JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Robby, for joining us for a few minutes. I think they have a couple questions about the weather situation and you're in charge this week. Q. I guess obviously the determination was made early today that it's going to be rough tomorrow afternoon, I guess. ROBBY WARE: Correct. Q. I guess just kind of go through what you saw. ROBBY WARE: Greg Quinn started working on this situation yesterday. He informed Arvin and myself about this system that's out to our west. He worked all afternoon yesterday and a good part of the morning, and we've basically got some severe weather that's going to be in our area sometime tomorrow evening with a strong possibility of some severe thunder storms before that. The tournament is concerned, FedEx is concerned, and our concern is to finish early to beat that to get all the spectators to safety so that we can kind of button down the tournament with the severe weather coming tomorrow night. Greg is saying that he's estimating winds of possibly up into 50 miles an hour with some tornado conditions late in the evening. Q. At that situation, is it just basically then knowing that forecast, just trying to figure out how to get things done and finished tomorrow in time enough to get everyone off the course? ROBBY WARE: Right. Greg's recommendation is any time between -- any time after 1:00 o'clock tomorrow we have got that strong potential for those thunder storms to spark up. It was basically -- the best case scenario for all parties involved, we're going to try to finish at around 3:00 o'clock tomorrow. Q. But that would be an absolute latest time of 3:00 o'clock? ROBBY WARE: We hope so. Q. I mean, ideally the last group will go off at 9:00 a.m.? ROBBY WARE: Approximately 9:00 a.m. There's some other factors involved, too. We haven't quite set the exact tee times tomorrow. Tomorrow we're going to have very strong winds, even stronger than we had on Thursday. ROBBY WARE: All day long, right. So he's looking at anywhere from 20 to 30 miles an hour winds constantly tomorrow. So Thursday the winds were 15 to 25, so that's another factor that we're going to -- Q. And it took the last group almost six hours to play. ROBBY WARE: And that was in the second wave. We've been doing some research on the first segments in the last few years, how long it's taken those first groups to play since we're dealing with 74 players tomorrow. Q. So you haven't made a final decision on tee times? ROBBY WARE: We have not made a final decision yet, but approximately 9:00 to 9:15 would be the last starting time. ROBBY WARE: It is, off both tees. Q. If the weather comes in quicker, does that make the decision tougher at that point? Would it be lightning in the area that would stop play at that point? ROBBY WARE: It would. That was Greg's main concern is with the pattern that we're in, that he perceives if something happens it is going to be a severe thunder storm. It will not be just your local area average popup shower like Memphis can have. This will be -- if it does happen, it is going to be a very large and severe storm. Q. With this storm system there's been some Monday finishes in the last month. Is it just better to try and get everything done as soon as possible tomorrow and just avoid the whole situation and any worries about finishing on Monday? ROBBY WARE: That is our Monday date from PGA TOUR regulations is to do everything possible to complete 72 holes by Sunday. Q. Is that because Monday is a holiday? ROBBY WARE: That is a Tour regulation. That is a regulation made by the players. That is our first priority each event we go to is to complete 72 holes of play by Sunday or on Sunday. Q. Has there been more weather situations than the typical year? ROBBY WARE: It seems like it's been -- I wouldn't say more weather situations, but more difficult situations. The past few years we've dealt with a lot of weather, but we've always seemed to somehow by Sunday get finished, whether coming out on Saturday morning making the cut, finishing the third round late Saturday evening and finally getting back on track on Sunday, but this year it just seems like we've had so many long and lengthy delays, we haven't been able to get back on track. Q. I would guess, though, you've been -- up until what you're having to do tomorrow, there's been a chance of rain, but so far we haven't had any delays. I would imagine you've been pleased with that. ROBBY WARE: We were extremely lucky yesterday. If we were 25, 30 miles south of here yesterday we would not have played very much golf. We were very fortunate to make the cut, and this afternoon we've been pretty fortunate so far. We've got another hour and 20 minutes to go, so we'll keep our fingers crossed. |
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