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LPGA NW ARKANSAS CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY JOHN Q. HAMMONS

September 9, 2007

ROGERS, ARKANSAS

ASHLEY CUSHMAN: We have Doug Brecht, he's the vice president of rules and officials for the LPGA. Here on the left is Andy Bush, the Executive Director of the LPGA Northwest Arkansas Championship Presented by John Q. Hammons.
We'll open up to Q&A for everyone.

Q. Obviously it's great weather today.
DOUG BRECHT: Great weather today.

Q. Why didn't you wait to see what the weather did today?
DOUG BRECHT: After trying to play for a day and a half yesterday with the rain and the course conditions that we were dealing with, what yesterday presented us when we delayed was obviously not the opportunity to play anymore golf.
We looked at from a maintenance standpoint what we had to do to get this golf course back in a playable condition; and the forecast and how it presented itself at that time over the next two days as far as our opportunity to play 36 holes, and it was agreed by all parties concerned making the decision that our chances were very limited at that time to finish 36 holes by the end of the day Monday. We thought all things concerned that the best plan of attack for us at that time was to finish 18 holes and be done with this.

Q. Was Monday always an option, to look at going to Monday?
DOUG BRECHT: Monday is an option with every LPGA event. That's written into our contracts. Obviously there's a lot more that goes into it than just a contract situation, but it's an option that we always try -- that we always have that to talk about as far as trying to finish an event.

Q. How is this tournament going to be viewed? Is next year going to be the first annual Northwest Arkansas Championship?
DOUG BRECHT: From the LPGA standpoint, this is not a tournament and it's extremely unfortunate obviously for a lot of reasons. But we have to finish 36 holes to have an official LPGA event. And the fact that we did not do that, we don't even consider this -- it's obviously not official and we just don't consider it an event at all.

Q. So you won't have a defending champion?
DOUG BRECHT: We won't have a defending champion. It's a non-entity as far as we are we're concerned.

Q. So next year will be the inaugural tournament?
DOUG BRECHT: As far as we're concerned.
ANDY BUSH: As far as we're concerned the foundation was built. We've had incredible support from Monday through halfway through yesterday. There were a lot of extremely positive things that happened regardless of the weather this week. From our standpoint, it's our second year here, and it will be an event that we look forward to obviously.
Our volunteers worked extremely hard all week. The maintenance staff from that point deserves a lot of credit. It took us 36 hours to get 18 holes in. They did an incredible job there.

Q. When you promote next year's tournament, will it be the inaugural --
ANDY BUSH: It's not the re-inaugural tournament.

Q. Will the winner keep the trophy?
ANDY BUSH: That's more of us to her as our first round leader. She is not the unofficial champion or anything like that. She was the leader of the first round, and she's our champion from a tournament standpoint.

Q. Last night you said there was not going to be a trophy presentation; yet she received one today.
ANDY BUSH: Yeah, we wrestled with what to do and it was everyone's best interests, our best interests, to have some sort of informal kind of conclusion; especially for our volunteers for this club, for the staff and for our sponsors.

Q. There's obviously some talk from people around the course today about if the Solheim Cup played a role.
DOUG BRECHT: The LPGA looks at each event we have individually. Our goal for being here was to finish 54 holes and play this event to its entirety, and that was our main concern as we went forward.
Looking at all this, and that was all our discussions as we went forward, were to try and get that accomplished. Anything to make this shortened was a direct result of what was happening here and nowhere else.

Q. In the discussions, were Pinnacle Club members part of that, too?
ANDY BUSH: As we had our discussions yesterday, we considered the Pinnacle Club members, the volunteers, the players, the caddies and everybody was here and how it was going to affect the sponsors; how it was going to affect each one of those entities as we go forward and all of that was talked about I think in coming up with this decision.

Q. Have you made a decision as far as what you'll do with prize money?
DOUG BRECHT: We are going to reward some money to players and that's all I'm going to say about that.

Q. What about sponsors? Will some be returned to them?
ANDY BUSH: We'll make a statement as far as what we'll do with ticket holders. Sponsors will be addressed individually after the event. I would imagine that some of it is returned based on certain things that they paid for that we were not able to deliver.
But our sponsors have been extremely supportive. We talked to a lot of them as we were going through this process, and, you know, the recurring comment was, "do what's in the best interests for all of us," and they have stood by us. So we'll have announcements about the tickets.

Q. Will the amount returned be made public?
ANDY BUSH: That will not be made public, no.

Q. Next year, are you looking at the same dates next year?
DOUG BRECHT: As of right now, yes.
ANDY BUSH: Right now, the Tulsa event, we'll make an announcement by the end of September as far as what changes in date and format will be coming out. That was part of our original thought process but we had an extremely successful year. It was nice to kind of kick off the golf season in Tulsa and with the PGA Championship at the bookend of the golf season, it worked very well for us.

Q. If this was unofficial, why was it important to finish today?
DOUG BRECHT: I want to reiterate it's not an official event. It's a non-event. And it was important to us today because we had finished the majority of the round. We felt like it was in the best interests that we at least get one round in for all of the constituencies concerned.

Q. What's the difference between unofficial event and non-event?
DOUG BRECHT: The way you want to say it. In our looking, we do have unofficial events on Tour. And without looking at my regulation, I would rather not comment because I don't have the regulations right in front of me, and there's specific definitions that set that out.
We played 18 holes. This is in no way, shape or form any type of an event that we would call official by any means.

Q. So other than the satisfaction of beating 143 of the best players in one day, will Stacy get anything else or will she be prominent in the promotion for next year?
ANDY BUSH: Unfortunately we can't because she's an amateur and even using her likeness goes against NCAA policy. But she will be invited back whether she's a professional or amateur from our standpoint next year. She's been a great ambassador for us here, especially with the university and obviously the young lady can play some incredible golf. So she will definitely be back next year.
DOUG BRECHT: I'll reiterate, Stacy is great person. She's played a lot on our tour and has had a number of sponsor invites and showed herself very well from a competitive nature; that she can play the game, and she's an absolute delight to be around.
ASHLEY CUSHMAN: Thank you both for your time.

End of FastScripts

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