THE PRESIDENTS CUP

September 15, 1996

Brian Allan

Shoichi Asami

Greg Chalmers

Tim Finchem

Ken Schofield

TIM FINCHEM: Yes, thank you, John. Thank you for coming. And thank you for your participation in the Presidents Cup this week. We got the weather straightened out and the International Team cooperated yesterday. Let me start with the reasoning for the timing. We had scheduled a brief announcement tomorrow on an update of the activity of the five Tours. Some of that has leaked out to members of the media and to others. As a consequence, some of the players in the competition have been approached in the last couple of days with information based on pieces of information, innuendo, which has created a distraction in the competition, in my judgment. I felt given the importance of these matches that we might as well get the information out so that if you want to talk to a player this week, at least, you know the facts. Let me address two things, then. First let me say a few things about the Presidents Cup. Many of you have asked in the last week about the future of the Presidents Cup; where it will be played; what the schedule will be, et cetera. And we appreciate the level of interest. We, the various Tours involved, everybody here with the exception of Europe, have discussed that and we have concluded fundamentally, as we assumed when we began the event, that an International rotation on some basis would be appropriate. What we have not determined is the nature of that rotation. The first question is when. The second question is where. Now, we will entertain those questions over the next three months. We have no preconceived notions and we will interview and discuss with all the participants of this event, all the players and both Captains, their suggestions, and input as well. Obviously, if we're looking at International venues, we will be looking primarily at Japan, South Africa and Australia. And those gentlemen that are representing those Tours will be looking at specific sites for each of those areas for all of us collectively to consider. The more difficult question is the when. One scenario would be for us to play again in the United States and go overseas in 2000. Another scenario would be to play overseas in 1998 and then rotate; come back here in 2000. There are pluses and minuses to either scenario. We want to get the input of the players and think through all the potential before we decide. The other thing we're going to be looking at doing is extending our planning out about six years, so we'll be talking about 1998, 2000 and 2002. So in those areas where we're going to play these matches, we can get the proper preparation and buildup. I'll be happy to answer questions further about that when we conclude. The second item is an update. We have a press release that will be giving you that update, the activity that the five Tours began two years ago. And I want to stress that this activity began two years ago. We had a meeting of all the Tours at the first Presidents Cup here in Washington, about two years ago. We recognized at, and prior to that, that some increase in International competition would be appropriate. We began that increase with the Presidents Cup and we began to discuss the future after 1998. Since that time we formed the world form of Tours to give us a more structured environment for discussion and we have considered a variety of concepts over the last year, but always within the context of the three fundamental parameters we set forth two years ago to guide us. Those parameters are that we were seeking to improve International competition; do it in a way that enhanced the prestige of golf and maintained the integrity of golf, but improved the position of the players; and third, did not take away from the basic Tour structures that we felt had worked so well. What we're announcing today is that we are going to commence a discussion period along the lines of some specific concepts. And what we're announcing is really three initiatives. (1): That the Tours have agreed to come together in the form of a federation. That is to say, each of the Tours maintains its own integrity and organizational structure, but we form together a federation for the purpose of jointly sanctioning certain events. Secondly, that we will now commence a period of studying the tournament event structure after 1998 with an eye toward jointly sanctioning some additional events, probably in the form of two or three world championship events in different formats to go along with the Presidents Cup and the Andersen Consulting World Championships that we've already started. When I say "discussion period," we have this in general concept, but we will now invite the input and discussion of players and sponsors to discuss it. The third point is and we are in discussion with the Sony Rankings related to a restructure of the rankings in a way that we think might enhance the credibility of the rankings to a point that we can more heavily use them as part of the eligibility mix for world championship events and perhaps for the major championships. One of the things we're focused on is to protect and preserve the integrity of the major championships. Now, I would like to stress and make very clear, here, before we take questions, two major points. (1): We are at a point of beginning a period of consultation and discussion with players and sponsors. There will be an enormous amount of discussion over the next three or four months about how the specifics of a tournament schedule might be structured to accommodate two or three of these new events. The second thing I want to make fundamentally clear is what we are not talking about, here. We are not talking about a World Tour if your definition of a World Tour is a small group of players playing against themselves, isolated from competition on a regular basis in opposition to or in competition with our basic structure. That is something we are not interested in. We are not proposing -- and I see reference to perhaps what we're talking about today is another step toward a world tour. If your definition of a world tour is that, this is not a step in that direction, because we have concluded that that kind of a structure in our judgment is not in the best interests of golf. It is not consistent with one of the key things that has made professional golf, at least in this country, so successful, which is the concept that you're not paid anything until you earn it, based on competition. What we are advocating is that through the course of the year, there should be a significant number of times where the best players, significant percentage of the best players in the world are in the competition. There should be a good mix of competitions between team-play, medal-play and match-play. There should be a good chronological mix from January to the end of the year. There should be a mix that relates appropriately to the interest level of the various places in the world that have interesting golf. And there should be a mix that it fits the interests of the players, the spectators and the fans, and that's what we're after. As a matter of fact, as we go through this discussion period most of you, many of you have followed this game closely for a long period of time, we welcome your comment. And I know I don't have to make that suggestion, because I'm sure we're going to get plenty of that. With that said, these gentlemen and myself, Ken Schofield on the conference call, would be more than pleased to accept any of your questions.

TIM FINCHEM: Unclear. On the one hand we think -- one of the reasons we chose the Robert Trent Jones Club to begin with, two reasons; its proximity to Washington because of the ties into the Heads of State. Secondly, we thought it was a good golf course, but it had beautiful pictures and we thought the pictures were important to underscore the beauty of this event. And both of those things have played very well. On the other hand, we have an enormous amount of interest in other parts of the country who would like to see this tournament come and be played there and we're at the time of the year, we have the luxury of playing anywhere in the country we'd like to play. So that will be one of the issues that will be under discussion as we go forward. I would add that the club here has worked extremely hard to help make this event a success and, regardless of what decision is made in the future, this event will always have a major debt to this club for helping it reach the pinnacle or point it is today.

TIM FINCHEM: I think I addressed that early in -- at the opening ceremonies. The responsibility of any event, any match, any championship in golf becoming successful eventually lies with the players, because it's the players that have to make the commitment. They're not under contract under our system to play anywhere. They have to make the commitment. The only thing we can do is create the vehicle or suggest the vehicle or sanction the vehicle, but fundamentally the players make the determination. So subsequently, if you're talking about untested event structures, untested formats, new events like this one, the players need to be involved in determining how that's going to come about because in the final analysis, it's going to be up to them and their commitment level to make it a success. So I would say, on the other hand, it's not, in the final analysis, a player decision in terms of things like venue. That has to be with the administrative bodies, that system has worked well. So it's a combination of player input and then the administrative bodies making the best determination they can in the interest of the game and the interest of the rest of the competitions on the schedule and certainly in the interests of the players.

TIM FINCHEM: Well, we have had some discussions with the club. I think certainly the club is open to that. But the totality, of when and where, is up for discussion over the next 90 days.

TIM FINCHEM: Yes. Possibly. But there's a whole other exercise going on at the same time that we're talking about as far as the United States TOUR is concerned we are slated to talk with the television partners, post-1998 television agreements end of next year, leading up to that we are evaluating our own schedule. So we are doing this, really operating on two tracks. We're going to be soliciting player input and comment, sponsor input and comment what we're doing with the International competitions; at the same time, we're reevaluating our schedule with our television package domestically and somehow we're going to fit all that together. That may result with some changes in the structure of our existing schedule. I don't think we have time today to go into that. But there's a whole range of issues and these relate to the nature of the 4th quarter events we currently have. They relate to the juxtaposition of our current tournament schedule, that relate to the issue of the Players Championship in March or May, that relate to the position of some of our events early in January. There are a whole range of issues that are not for discussion today but are under review before I could intelligently answer that question.

TIM FINCHEM: I'll pass the mic on. To answer your question, to be determined. One of the difficulties here is that in the United States we think about the golf season in terms of the United States money season, it's different in Japan and Australia. And you have to put on a global hat to think scheduling. So there isn't any determination yet. When we develop scenarios over the next 60 days and we've scheduled some working sessions to do that, we'll be evaluating different scenarios as we go back and forth talking to affected sponsors and players. I'll pass the mic to these gentlemen, I think, who want to comment on the Federation.

BRIAN ALLAN: I think I'd like to take us back a little bit and there's a point that needs to be made here that none of this would have been possible without the foresight of Tim and the support of the PGA TOUR in this country. And I think it's important that that goes on the record. From our point of view, when you're talking about scheduling events, we're really in the same situation as Brent Chalmers is in South Africa, without summer season or our window of opportunity is from October through to February. Japan have a slightly different situation. They probably need to look at a period of time a little earlier than that. But I think we can work this whole thing through. There's certainly compromise required all around for it to work successfully, but there's the will to do it.

BRENT CHALMERS: I want to support what Brian has said. This has been a project in the making for the last two years. These are the kind of questions that we have been faced with. We're used to these sort of questions, being South Africa and Australia and Japan. These the sort of issues, like the World Cup and the Johnnie Walker World Championship, trying to get dates with for courses, what times are best, your television schedules here, these are -- this is the environment that we deal in all the time. I think it's important, what Brian said, that the prime world weeks are from the end of October to the end of February, which, in fact, if you think about it, really suits the European and the U.S. schedules, because those are fairly slack times on those two Tours. And I think that we can do something where we could really come up with 12 superb months of golf throughout the year.

TIM FINCHEM: I believe Ken is on the phone. Ken, did you want to make a comment at this point? Ken Schofield? Mr. Asami, did you want to make a comment?

SHOICHI ASAMI: I think the other Tour gentlemen have said that they support this idea and I feel that the main problem will be the scheduling of this event but I feel that with this International federation the players level will go up and the overall golf itself will be a better -- will be better, Internationally.

TIM FINCHEM: Other questions?

TIM FINCHEM: Three. Our focus is on three at this point.

TIM FINCHEM: Medal, match and team. Team meaning two-man team. We feel that the big team matches are now for purposes of the next ten years, 20 years, covered with the Presidents Cup and the Ryder Cup. We think that's an adequate amount of team match.

TIM FINCHEM: Well, if we're successful in -- well, let me just say that while what would hope to effectuate is first of all a restructure of the Sony Rankings in a manner that we can employ the Sony Rankings and we would use the Sony Rankings, the PGA TOUR's world federation money list and our individual money lists in combination of an eligibility mix to insure that the top players play. Now, the size of the fields in each of these type of competitions is going to differ somewhat. And then we go into -- there are other issues related. If we're talking about match-play, most of these other Tours have at least one matchplay event on their existing schedule. We currently don't. But if we were to have a world jointly sanctioning match-play tournament it may be that we want to have one of our regular TOUR events in match-play format which would get certain number of spots into the world match-play level. Each of these four match results in a different kind of discussion. If it's the team format, one of the things we're looking at is perhaps restructuring the World Cup and we're in discussions with the World Cup. But if not we would favor a team championship that allowed the top players in the world to come together as two-man teams to play in that competition. So the eligibility mix is enhanced if we have a highly credible ranking system but it would be a piece of some other eligibilities that -- now, to further answer your question, one of the objectives here from the United States' perspective is any scenario we're looking at we want to increase playing opportunities. We have more and more good players. We added the NIKE TOUR, but we have more and more good players, and we want to increase, not decrease playing opportunities. So one of the things we're going to be looking at is more playing opportunities regardless of how these three events are structured and quality playing opportunities, not just playing opportunities, quality playing opportunities. So the concept that we advanced this year was playing a million dollar purse event in Vancouver against the World Series of Golf is something that we might add a couple of, as well, because the Vancouver event turned out to be a first class event for us. Is Ken on? Would you like to make a comment at that point?

KEN SCHOFIELD: I'm happy to be here with you guys and to Brian and to Shoichi and Brent, the very best, congratulations on a wonderful day yesterday. I viewed it last evening and I can't wait until 6 o'clock our time. Good luck to both teams today. My brief comment is to add the fact that I think our meetings over these last few years have started to continue to put in play a structure that will maintain and build upon the game's strength and the direction that you've seen over the many years, where the four majors remain pivotal of individual competition, and the five Tours are important in tournament golf.

TIM FINCHEM: Thanks, Ken. Other questions?

BRIAN ALLAN: We have to agree with Tim. We've been discussing this for quite sometime. There are some changes that need to be made, if those changes are agreed to the credibility will be established. So providing that happens we'll support it.

BRIAN ALLAN: It's more complicated than just the events. I think what we're doing with our players is we're giving them the opportunity to play golf at the best possible level in some cases where they don't have the opportunity of playing in the U.S., which is certainly the standard setter. Our better players play here, they play in Europe, some of them play in Japan, but they're basically spread all over the world. This is really going to give them an opportunity, there is a clear pathway for them to qualify to play against the best in the world and it's really the combination that we put together of the Sony Rankings, our own money lists and so the quality can always rise to the top. There's an easier path.

TIM FINCHEM: Ken, did you hear that question?

KEN SCHOFIELD: I think the European team would be added or presumably have a separate competition against the rest of the world? The first thing is that today we're addressing the addition of International competition with very successful Tours. And getting an additional week -- I mean the Presidents Cup has arrived now and it's a very big success, and in the even years taking pretty much the place of the Ryder Cup competition in the odd years. And I think that the situation or the idea to add another match, I think the question of dates would be the first one. My understanding also is with the addition of the Presidents Cup was very largely to give the best, the very best of the rest of the world players, excluding our own European players, an opportunity to have this wonderful International venue. And it so happens that the United States TOUR and the United States players in this moment have two opportunities and the European players in the rest of the world have one, that's the way it is.

TIM FINCHEM: If I could add, I think from our perspective we're comfortable with allowing this particular rivalry to gel for a period of time. We're not anxious to rush into any change in format. Ryder Cup rivalry is terrific, we wouldn't want to upset that. And I think we're looking for more history in the Presidents Cup. But I understand Peter's suggestion, I think we're comfortable where we are for the next 10 to 20 years until after I retire. (Laughter.)

BRIAN ALLAN: I'll add one thing to that, at the time that Peter made that suggestion, he was unaware of the problems we announced today.

TIM FINCHEM: I think it would be, in the medal play they're representing themselves. In the individual match-play would be representing themselves. In the team play there might be some more of an International flavor to that. I think we would want to preserve some way for a team from one of the lesser golf countries to advance, but we would see the -- as well, the bulk of the tournament being composed of the top players of the world, but it would truly be a global -- so it would continue to increase interest in the game everywhere. So there may be a bit nor nationalism to that one.

TIM FINCHEM: I think credibility is the major question. I think very few people understand the inner workings of the Sony Rankings. You debate certain things about the inner workings but it works fairly well. There is no perfect system. So you're always going to debate the results. Making the Sony Rankings even more current than they currently are is probably going to be important to determine the extent of their use and eligibility for major championships. So there's some fine-tuning to be done, but clearly the structure of the rankings has to be, in our judgment, altered in order to enhance the credibility and therefore the usage of the rankings and we're in discussions along that line. We hope to have more to say about that in about 60 days.

TIM FINCHEM: We did have golf in the Olympics I guess twice, one was at the turn of the century and once was about three or four years ago. It just wasn't in there very long. We would welcome discussions with the IOC, but I must tell you that frankly it's hard to imagine golf in the Olympics creating as much excitement as golf at Augusta or golf at the Ryder Cup or golf at the Presidents Cup or golf at the U.S. Open, et cetera. We have premiere events in golf that are always going to outstrip an additional competition in the Olympics. In any of the other Olympic sports the Olympics is the ultimate. Having said that we're certainly not closing the door. It causes us enormous scheduling problem every four years. If there's a way that golf could be added to the Olympics and could enhance the position of golf, if the Olympics agreed to treat golf as a first tier sport at the Olympics, if the television carrier agreed to give significant distribution, if the players wanted to go to play, if all those things came together, we would certainly be open to it, but at this juncture it would be conjecture on my part to say how serious we would be.

TIM FINCHEM: Some of them would rotate and move around.

TIM FINCHEM: Well, I think that we're comfortable with that for a period of time. The joint sanctioning issue, there's another question here which is if you -- if you have an unofficial money event, it's not generating dollars for our money list, is there a way that it could generate points for the Sony rankings, and there's some of those events out there. It maybe could be enhanced and jointly sanctioning and have an impact in terms of a player's position in world rankings or world money list and those are some things that we'll get into and look at as we go forward. Another issue down the road, after we get through this next couple of years will be player movement. One of these we want to do on our TOUR is evaluate conflicting event release policies, we think some of our policies are a bit outmoded in terms of home circuit rules and things of that nature. We want to reevaluate those. We have to reevaluate those in the context of the realities of appearance money, however. And the future of the appearance money is certainly something all the Tours have agreed to talk about over the next two or three years as a future objective to deal with that issue down the road. So all of these issues are out there. Right now, however, we want to focus the attention of our players and sponsors on the tournament structure after 1998, get through that period and then one of the nice things about coming together as a federation is that we now have the ability to look at issues like the Olympics, like worldwide scheduling, like player movement and like appearance money, issues like that on a collective basis. And hopefully that in combination with our joint involvement in the World Golf Village, where we're going to be working together on long-term problems affecting the game will, with the major championships, will bring organized golf closer together to start to impact on some of these questions.

TIM FINCHEM: No, spread them through the year. Again, we just don't -- our research -- our own research tells us that it just is folly to think that you can have a series of premiere events, one right after the other and expect the public to get -- what we're looking for is during the course of the year a steady, steady flow of significant, strong playing opportunities for the players, punctuated during the course of the year by some premiere events. We recognize the position of the major championships, we recognize the position of the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup. One of the things I'm delighted about this week is the players speaking fervently about wanting the Presidents Cup to rotate and issues like that. That is great, because the players have now accepted this as a very, very important event. But those two events in September, Team Championship, our own TOUR Championships, match-play championship and world medal championships during the course of the year we now have punctuated 12 months with a significant series of premiere, quality events. But events based on the fundamental concepts of competition, outside access and no guarantees.

TIM FINCHEM: I think we have to be concerned about that. When the Ryder Cup -- after Kiawah, a lot of people and commentators said this is the greatest thing since Swiss cheese, let's play tournament championship in match-play, let's play match-play this and that. I think there's a reasonable amount of room for match-play. I don't think we want to lose individual match-play from the landscape. And we can't expect to have 8, 9, 10 events that are all going to be a pinnacle of interest. So if we do, and if we try to force that, we are going to face a dilution issue, we have to be careful about that. We have to maintain a reasonable balance of different kinds of competition that it can test the players in a way that reflects their skills, determines the best match player, determines the best team, determines the best two-man team, and just balances it out. And I think the fan wants that kind of balance, at least that's our sense. And at the same time do so in such a way that reflects the global nature of the game going forward.

TIM FINCHEM: The Andersen Consulting in our judgment would be a candidate, perhaps with some restructuring, of becoming the basis for the world match-play championship, perhaps at a different time of year with a different kind of regionalization in terms of qualifying. We're looking at two different scenarios there. But Andersen has been a wonderful sponsor for that event. It's brought match-play back. The players have responded nicely to it, and we certainly would talk to them first about reordering that event in some fashion.

TIM FINCHEM: I wondered why you were asking.

TIM FINCHEM: We just organized television to enhance the regional qualifiers. That is the reality today. We're blessed with the kind of International coverage we have here with five International groups on site. But that is one of the reasons we're pleased they made the investment to make that possible. We're going to have to bring this to a close, because we need to get to the first tee. And I'll be available in my office tomorrow afternoon to take calls, I'll be around later this afternoon, tonight. I'll be at the clubhouse all afternoon. I would hope the focus for the rest of the day, there's not going to be anymore news on this subject, I hope the focus for the rest of the day is the matches. I must say we couldn't be more delighted with the progress of this event that we've seen to date. And we expect a great conclusion today. A couple of more.

TIM FINCHEM: If you look at a players' schedule closely, players are out there playing golf. Our competition is what they're doing in golf the rest of the time, it's not really whether or not they're going to play or not, they're just doing other things. What we have to do is make a season, an event structure strong enough to command the interest and attention and dedication of the players at a reasonable level. If we don't, they can make an income, a very nice income doing other things, it just doesn't happen to appear on the television screen. That's the way the market is today. That's really a big chunk of our competition. We have to be careful as we approach that, and we just have to have the support of the players. We're looking in the United States to enhance the quality of our fields the next five years. And what we're doing here, we want to make sure that doesn't detract from our goal of having enhanced fields on the PGA TOUR the next five years.

TIM FINCHEM: We haven't made a move yet. What we've said is that we think there are some concepts here that can fit with our tournament structure that can make our tournament structure stronger, that could make our overall television packages stronger. And if that happens everybody gets stronger. So we haven't made a move. Now we're in the process of sitting down and talking to players and sponsors and crafting -- testing these concepts and if the concepts make sense, moving to detail some of the concepts out. With response to your first question, none of the events we would be involved in would have appearance money. If you're going to play any of these events overseas and expect players to come, yes, they would have to have significant purse amounts. Thank you very much, have a great day watching the matches.