KRAFT NABISCO CHAMPIONSHIP

March 24, 2004

Ty Votaw

THE MODERATOR: I'd like to welcome everybody to the Kraft Nabisco Championship. We traditionally start off with the State of the Tour. I would like to introduce Commissioner Votaw to share with you some news about the LPGA as we head into our season. I would also like to make note that today is Commissioner's Votaw's fifth anniversary as commissioner.

COMMISSIONER TY VOTAW: I can't have this person be in the room without recognizing her. It was one of the great things about coming to Palm Springs every year, is that we see a lot of familiar faces that were so integral to the success of the LPGA, and certainly today with Shirley Spork, a Palm Springs resident and founder of the LPGA, a member of the Teaching Club Professional Memberships Hall of Fame. I saw Marilynn Hagie yesterday, another founder. It kind of puts the five years I've been commissioner in perspective, when 54, 55 years ago is when 13 women founded the LPGA. Shirley, it's always good to see you.

Welcome today. Speaking of time frames, it's hard to believe this is the 33rd year of the Kraft Nabisco Championship. In terms of traditions, in this day and age where traditions are not necessarily thought of in the best of terms and how we've always done things, the fact that we've been at the same place, same golf course, for 33 years on network television, when at the time Colgate Palmolive and now Kraft Nabisco have supported women's golf in the way they have for that time period is very impressive.

And certainly, as Connie said, as the first major of the year this event has traditionally played host to what has been the State of the Tour. We hold one at the end of the year at the RDT Championship, and now at the beginning of the year, the first major championship, the Kraft Nabisco, I hold another one.

Before I give you a brief update of the business of the LPGA, as well as a few highlights and compelling story lines for the 2004 season, I'd like to give a little bit of a recap on 2003. You can't start any discussion about 2003 without talking about Annika Sorenstam and what she did in capturing the imagination of the public, not only in playing Colonial, that was certainly a jumpstart to a lot of discussions about the LPGA and women's golf last year, but certainly if you look at her goals and her objectives in playing in a men's event, she did it to make herself better and to test herself against that level of competition.

The fact that she won the very next two events after Colonial, our event in Chicago, and our second major, the McDonald's LPGA Championship, subsequent to that completing a career Grand Slam by winning the Weetabix Women's British Open, leading the European Solheim Cup team to the Solheim Cup in her hometown crowd in Sweden, and then getting inducted into the World Golf and LPGA Halls of Fame, clearly 2003 was the year that Annika Sorenstam and the LPGA won't forget and its impact on women's golf.

Far be it from Annika being the only story line in the LPGA. Korea's Se Ri Pak had another impressive season, winning three times, taking home her first career trophy for lowest scoring average, and we had a host of new bright talent on the LPGA, lead by Lorena Ochoa, winning the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year.

And beyond that, we had leaderboards every week, jammed all season long with names of veterans players who made their presence felt at every tournament with the likes of Beth Daniel, Julie Inkster, Rosie Jones, and Meg Mallon, all players in their 40s still not only being competitive on the LPGA Tour, but winning championships.

Again, Annika aside, the fact that we had 19 different winners representing six different countries across the LPGA landscape in 2003 shows you the depth and breadth of talent. It's the strongest it's ever been.

We also had several LPGA members, including Suzy Whaley, compete with men in men's golf events throughout the world, showing casing their talents to a wide and varied audience all over the world. And, I said this in an interview a few weeks ago, if you looked at all the predictions of how well Annika would have done at Colonial, how well Suzy Whaley would have done at Hartford, how well, even this past January, Michelle Wie would have done at Sony, I think to a person, and probably just about everybody in this room, were woefully wrong in their predictions of how each would have played. They all did much better than the predictions and created an enormous amount of credibility and awareness for women's golf, and that provided us an enormous amount of momentum coming into 2004.

Our 2004 season offers three key story lines as we move forward from this first major championship. Certainly the LPGA's growth and momentum, the depth and breadth of talent that I've just mentioned, and the LPGA's global appeal. I'll walk through each of these three key story lines in some more detail for you and then I'll open it up for some questions.

With respect to the LPGA's growth and momentum, our strategic business plan that we announced two years ago, we're now entering our third year of a five-year business plan, but in March of 2002 we announced at the Players Summit in Phoenix our first business strategy, and now that we're into it two years and now into our third, the highlights since 2001 when we started our planning for that business plan, our attendance is up 14 percent, our network viewership is up 26 percent since 2001, our cable viewership is up 19 percent with increases in the key demographic areas of ages 25 to 54 on broadcast 42 and on cable up 37. So our audience, which was traditionally skewed a little older, 55 and older, is now growing at remarkable rates at the 25 to 54. So golf, with the advent of younger talent coming onto the LPGA Tour, it's also driving down the average age of our audience, which is also something that our advertisers are finding appealing.

In addition to our attendance and our network and broadcast and cable viewership, LPGA.com traffic is booming, our page views our up over 130 percent since 2001, and our unique visitors are up over 140 percent since 2001.

Some other growth and momentum highlights, in an environment where our fan base is growing, that also portends very well for our sponsor satisfaction. If you look at an industry leader in this sports marketing objective reporting perspective, the Sports Business Journal recently sponsored a survey, it's the second one since 1999 when the LPGA was No. 1 in the following categories amongst 15 or 16 other sports properties, including the NHL, the NFL, NASCAR, the PGA TOUR, on and on. The LPGA was No. 1 in being client centered and being responsive to client and sponsor needs and protecting its sponsor's investment. What that has resulted in is all of our sponsor satisfaction being as high as it is, resulting in our -- all of our sponsors for 2003 returning to 2004, which is only the second time in my time at the LPGA time, the 14 years that I've been here, that that's happened.

It's our strongest schedule ever. We're at pre-9/11 numbers in terms of our prize money, total prize money of over 43 million dollars, our average purse of 1.3 is the highest in our history. Week in and week out, we offer the best economic opportunity for women professional athletes across the board up and down our money list.

I mentioned 100 percent renewal rate among our renewing tournament sponsors. 10 tournaments increased their purses over 2003 levels, with the highest being the Michelob Ultra bumping their purse from $1.6 million to $2.2 million. I know Shirley, when she hears those numbers back to when she was playing, sometimes shakes her head in wonder.

The Evian Masters increased its purse from $2.1 million to $2.5 million. So in 1999, when I became commissioner and we had 12 events at a million dollars more in prize money, none over $2 million in prize money, today we have 28 events over a million dollars in prize money, and now three LPGA events over $2 million, and the U.S. Women's Open is among those at over $3 million.

We were very gratified last week to return to Phoenix in a bigger and better way than we did before, and that was as a result of the Safeway company expanding their LPGA investment beyond a title sponsorship in Portland to also include a title sponsorship in Phoenix, with a second event, and that event last week that Annika won in very record fashion. A great golf course in Superstition, great sponsor support with Safeway, and their investment in LPGA to two events is also a reflection of increasing sponsor satisfaction amongst our sponsors.

We're also very much looking forward to returning to Nashville this year with an LPGA full field event. We had taken a one-year hiatus in that marketplace after being there for over 15 years and we're very excited to be coming back there with a new title sponsor, a local sponsor with a local organizing committee benefiting the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, the Franklin American Mortgage Classic, benefiting the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital and hosted by Vince Gill and Amy Grant, which I think will set records for the longest title in LPGA sponsorship history.

We also are very happy and looking forward to being able to announce last year -- were happy to announce last year at the Solheim Cup, the addition of the Acer Women's World Cup of Golf in the 2005 schedule next year, bringing women's professional golf on the LPGA side of the globe to South Africa for the very first time.

We continue to have a very healthy corporate sponsorship base with 20 national marketing partners, one of the healthiest in all sports, and a solid and growing licensing business of LPGA logoed merchandise and apparel, with over $20 million in international sales of LPGA licensed goods in just the first three years of our business together. And now we've just announced that Golf Smith will be featuring an LPGA collection of apparel at retail beginning in May of this year, which will only add to the $20 million in international sales of LPGA logoed merchandise. So clearly the growth and momentum that we have coming into 2004 from a business perspective, makes us feel good about the health of the organization.

Another thing that is extremely important to that health is the depth and breadth of talent that's on the LPGA Tour. We are very much looking forward to 2004, seeing just what lies ahead in terms of the story lines that develop amongst that talent pool, but we're already off to a great start with first-time winners, Karen Stupples, winning in Tucson, and certainly Annika Sorenstam becoming the winningness active player by passing Nancy Lopez's 48 victories and winning her 49th last week at the Safeway International in Phoenix.

I'm confident that our momentum and excitement will continue this week and throughout the year. I talked about earlier the breadth and depth of talent on the LPGA is the strongest it's ever been, even with Annika dominating. Our 2003 featured 19 different winners. Young rising stars, along with seasoned veterans, are already grabbing the leaderboards this season. If you looked just this past week, names as varied as Cristie Kerr, Lorena Ochoa, Shi Hyun Ahn, a 19-year-old from Korea who is a rookie, Grace Park and Laura Davies, were all very competitive in chasing Annika on Sunday.

Other players we'll be hearing from this year include rookies, Aree Song and Meredith Duncan. Along with reigning U.S. Open champion Hilary Lunke and emerging star, Candy Kung, not to mention a deep field of veteran players like I've mentioned, Beth Daniel, Julie Inkster, Rosie Jones, Meg Mallon.

A strong rookie class this year with 29 players from 11 different countries, including Aree Song and Shi Hyun Ahn from Korea, Meredith Duncan from the United States, Laura Myerscough from the United States, Isabelle Beisiegel from Canada, Katherine Hall from Australia, Amy Hung from Taiwan, just to name a few. The global appeal of the LPGA, as well as the depth and breadth of talent is something we'll also be following as a story line this year.

The international players make us a true world tour. And in the past decade, we've often said that the LPGA is that world tour, the first of its kind in professional golf, and we continue to have that this year. It's all the more evident when you look at the roster and our ADT official money list week in and week out. There are 96 active tour members representing 24 countries outside United States. Players from Korea, Sweden, England, Australia, and now Thailand and Mexico. We continue to expand our international presence and that creates an enormous amount of opportunities, many more opportunities than challenges. In the past decade we've seen a doubling of the international membership, which makes us more compelling to multinational brands and global companies who want to associate their brands with the LPGA. We celebrate our diversity, which allows us to showcase the very best of women's professional golf, which is, in essence, our brand promise on a going-forward basis.

As part of that global appeal, and as part of that international diversity we felt the time was right to convene in May of this year the World Congress of Women's Golf. With the interest in the LPGA and women's golf accelerating around the world in recent years, we're bringing together all the leaders for the very first time from all the major women's golf tours from around the world to gather in New York City in May for the World Congress of Women's Golf, the heads of the LET, the heads of the JLPGA, the KLPGA, the Australian Ladies Professional Golf Tour, as well as all other sanctioning bodies that influence or support women's golf from around the world, will convene at this World Congress in May.

Topics throughout the 3-day event will include sponsorship, television and professional development, how we fuel the pipeline to continue the growth of women's professional golf around the world, fan development, market research, tournament development, and professional development, as I said, in terms of our teaching and club professional side of the game.

The key purpose of this event is to bring together the leaders of women's professional golf, manage our sports growing popularity on a global basis and share different perspectives from all corners of the world so we can all benefit from what is becoming a truly global impacted sport, women's golf.

Now, when you have the global appeal that we have and the global diversity that we have, we also have certain challenges. As I've stated before, the face of the LPGA has changed in that regard. The days when all of our members look the same and talked the same and all come from colleges in towns from across the United States or come from similar experiences in American Junior Golf, those days are over and we're not going to go back to those days. What that does is pride us with enormous amounts of work to do in making sure that all of the receptive cultures and perspectives are respected and appreciated by all of our constituencies, be it us our sponsors, our fans, the media, our staff, et cetera. We've done a number of things to try to do that. We're embracing that change, the changing face of the LPGA, and we're celebrating our diversity as we continue to learn from the different personalities and cultures from around the tour.

Some things that we have done in that regard, we have added Grace Park as a nonvoting member, to bring a young player's perspective, an international player's perspective, a top young international player's perspective, to our LPGA Board of Directors. She sits on the board in a nonvoting capacity as an international member. We have just hired a Korean speaking coordinator to assist with player and sponsor relations and assist in our tournament business affairs, which creates a greater diversity amongst our staff.

Next week in Los Angeles we're sending our staff to a Korean culture teaching seminar that will take place in Los Angeles next week, and we're also taking a look at our rookie program and our rookie orientation so that the expectations of the organization to young players when they come on the LPGA, as well as those young players' expectations of what they want to accomplish when they come on the LPGA Tour are better understood.

One of the things I'm most proud of is the reinstatement of our Big Sister program, where veteran players are paired up with rookies to mentor them throughout the year on their first year on Tour and help them get acclimated to the challenges of being a professional golfer.

Now, before I open it up for questions and looking ahead, there are two items I'd like to remind you of that can make this week even more special. Certainly in the weeks leading up to this event, we have heard a lot of discussion. Annika has not been shy in mentioning that one of her goals this year is to win all four of the majors and create what some of you have termed the Soren Slam. Whether she can do that or not, this week will be a telling point in that happening. She has done just about everything in the world of women's golf, but as she tees it up tomorrow she has one goal in mind, to one all four majors in the same year. And certainly for those who know her, who have observed her over the years, she does set her goals high. She strives to achieve them, and there's no reason to underestimate the abilities of Annika in trying to do that.

But having said that, we have playing this year, at this event, the person on the LPGA Tour who has come closest to that, Pat Bradley winning three major championships and finishing fifth in the U.S. Women's Open. Right now that's the closest that's ever come to anyone winning all four major championships in golf in one calendar year. And that story line and Pat Bradley's perspective on how that can be done is an interesting one to follow.

Another topic and story line from this week that I want to make sure you're all aware of is that Se Ri Pak is just one point away from earning the required 27 points needed for entry into the LPGA Tour and World Golf Hall of Fame, and we'll just have to wait until 2007 when she finishes her 10th year on tour to satisfy her 10 -year membership criteria, but if she wins this week, she'll pass -- or if she wins any event this year, she passes that criteria for performance that is required for LPGA and World Golf Hall of Fame. And Laura Davies is just two points away from that performance criteria. And a win this week would qualify her. Also, a week this week for both Se Ri Pak and Laura Davies would complete a career grand slam for both of those players.

So we're very excited about 2004. We think the momentum we've had over the course of the past two years is leading us into even better territory for 2004, and I look forward to seeing all of you out here covering the LPGA over that time frame.

At this time I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Q. Run through how the numbers show that this Tour is stronger now than it was five years ago because of a shorter schedule.

COMMISSIONER TY VOTAW: Well, I think that certainly when you have a greater percentage of your top players playing a greater percentage of your overall schedule like we had in 2003 when seven of the top ten and 15 of the top 20, and 23 of the top 30 were our average field quality for each week of our domestic full field events last year. That elicited an enormous amount of sponsor satisfaction in the course of the year, and that resulted in a record number of purse increases, a record number of sponsors returning, like I said, 100 percent renewal rates from all of our sponsors this past year. Sponsorship satisfaction is extremely high. All of those things, I think, contribute to the success and the growth of the LPGA.

Q. Just continuing there on the sponsors, apparently you've got four majors which are all sponsored by companies who provide food and so on. Isn't that the very traditional way to look at women's golf? You haven't got a car manufacturer as a title sponsor of any Tour event, if I'm correct. Why is that?

COMMISSIONER TY VOTAW: A couple of presenting sponsor situations were auto manufacturers. Certainly the fact that -- I give this event an enormous amount of credit in that regard. I don't see that as a problem, to have the food industry support the LPGA. In fact, when you have a recession like you've had over the past couple of years, one industry that is unaffected by a recession more than others is the food industry. And the fact that this event, for example, has brought in representatives from a number of different grocery store chains for the past 30-plus years has resulted in a number of CEOs of those grocery stores going back to their hometowns and title sponsoring LPGA events.

The list -- Safeway with two events, Shop Rite in Atlantic City, Kroger in Toledo, John Eagle in Youngstown, Longs in Sacramento. This event, arguably, could be responsible for seven, eight, nine, 10 million dollar plus tournaments on our schedule because of the experiences they receive right here at this event. All of those things, I think, are a testament to our audiences and to the quality of the experience that our players give to the sponsors of those companies when they come out to an event such as this and then they take that back to their hometown.

Obviously the quality of our sponsor base is something we look at a great deal. If you look at the last several years, when I became commissioner, we only had one sponsor who was an official sponsor of the LPGA and a title sponsored event. Today we have over six that are official sponsors of the LPGA and title sponsors of tournaments. In many cases, those sponsors also sponsor players. So the investment level amongst sponsors has grown not just from sponsoring tournaments, but also sponsoring the LPGA, sponsoring players, and in using the association with the LPGA in their marketing efforts. So I think all of those things are progressive ways to look at the quality of our sponsor base.

Q. Do you believe that having your major the third week in the season is ideal? And if so, can you tell me why?

COMMISSIONER TY VOTAW: Well, ideal is a perspective that is framed by the circumstances that you're dealt. Certainly the fact that it's the third event this year is certainly not a downside for us in terms of the quality of play leading up to this week, and certainly the media exposure that we've received over the past several weeks in anticipation of this event. Having said that, we would probably like to add a couple of events so that we have a few more events leading into the first major of the year. But we also recognize that doing that depends on what the market will bear.

In that time frame, all of our events come back, we've added a full field event in Nashville this year. Having all of our sponsors come back is, as I said, only the second time in my 14 years that's happened. The sponsor satisfaction is there. We also have to look at where we are in the calendar with respect to where you can play events, where the PGA TOUR is or isn't, where the Champions Tour is or isn't, and all those things are things we look at every year in determining our schedule.

Is it ideal? I think it's the circumstances we're faced with right now. We've had two years where this situation has taken place. In the course of this past year with all the positive I just laid out, I don't see a negative necessarily in that happening. Our headquarters are in a town in Daytona Beach, Florida, where they have a little bit of a major stock car race, the first event of the year, called the Daytona 500, that is the Super Bowl of racing, that's the first event of the year. So it's not unheard of to have a big event relative early in the schedule in other sports, and certainly that's the situation we face here.

Q. Bearing in mind the conservative political nature of Corporate America, what if any impact do you think Rosie Jones' statement about being a lesbian, how will that impact, if at all, your relationship with business?

COMMISSIONER TY VOTAW: I don't think it's going to impact our business at all. Our approach is that if you can play great golf, we don't care what your sexual orientation is, we don't care what your background is, we don't care what country you come from, we don't care what other characteristics you have, if you can play great golf and can represent the ideals and values of being a professional golfer on the LPGA Tour, we welcome you with open arms. I think Corporate America increasing wants to market itself to a diverse customer base, to a diverse audience, and we certainly have that in spades on the LPGA Tour.

Q. Given Annika's dominance and how much you talk about her in terms of what the LPGA is doing, is it a little scary for her talking about walking away after a year or sooner than expected?

COMMISSIONER TY VOTAW: I was talking to someone yesterday about the fact that five years ago when I came onto the LPGA Tour as commissioner, many members of the media were talking about, gee, what the LPGA really needs is a dominant charismatic star that captures the imagination of the public, that's what the LPGA really needs, and now that I have that in Annika Sorenstam, the question is, well, how long can that last and aren't you concerned about her retiring. I think the waive that we've had over the past five years of growth, the depth and breadth of talent I referenced earlier, certainly Annika playing as long as she wants to play is certainly something that is in her mind as to what her time frame is, but I think the LPGA -- no one is bigger than the game, and I think the depth and breadth of talent on the LPGA is the strongest its ever been, and if she were decide next year to retire and start a family, I think there would be players who would win events that she won six times last year and 11 times the year before and new story lines and knew dominance and new charisma would be on the forefront. No, I'm not all that concerned. Certainly she's been a great face for the LPGA and I think when the time is apparent to her that her goals are no longer capable of being established and stretched in the manner that she feels comfortable with, she'll make a decision that's best for her, but we'll be just fine.

Q. You talked about the corporate community not being turned off by a player discussing their sexual orientation, are there other ways do you think the LPGA could market to the gay community even more? Is that an untapped market for the tour?

COMMISSIONER TY VOTAW: I think before you start going down identifying niche markets, we need to do a better job of bringing our sport to the masses and in saturating the golf audience. I'm not sure that the 26 million golfers in the United States that currently exist are all LPGA golf fans. We have a lot of work to do in that regard. When we have the tent as filled as we possibly can, we may look at ways to look at niche markets, but I think our bigger goal right now is to market to the broadest audience as possible. If you want to see great golf on the LPGA Tour, we don't care what background you come from, we just want you as a fan and to market it to niche audiences may sacrifice a broader audience, we think the better approach is to go a broader way.

Q. Why would one come at the expense of another?

COMMISSIONER TY VOTAW: It's not, they come along with it. It's much more efficient for us to go on a broad-based approach than it is to go on a niche approach, no matter what the audience is.

Q. Is there still an interest in bringing events back to Hawaii and any activity in that direction?

COMMISSIONER TY VOTAW: There is some activity. Certainly the excitement that's been brought about by Michelle Wie on the island at the Sony Open, and the fact that she is a native of Hawaii has probably generated a little bit more, but we've had discussion over the past 12 to 18 months with parties interested in bringing the LPGA back and we are hopeful that we'll be able to do that. That very well be one of the ways in which we start our year, if not in '05 then in subsequent years, but there are activities right now going on in Hawaii where we're cautiously optimistic we can come back there.

Q. You talk about increasing marketing to the broad base. Do you do that through more events? Do you do that through more network exposure, as opposed to cable exposure? How do you expand on the momentum you've had over the last five years over the next five years?

COMMISSIONER TY VOTAW: Well, the LPGA today is a much different and better product than it was five years ago and I think in the next five years it will be a much different and better product than it is today. Certainly when you've got broadcast and cable numbers in the manner in which we have them and growing viewership over the last couple of years in the way we have, certainly the TV landscape is something we evaluate on every front. We like to have all of our majors on broadcast network TV because I think that is the best way to showcase the talent.

Having said that, you also have to look at the landscape of what television is doing. The NBA has gone from primarily being a broadcast sports property to being a cable sports property. Cable properties, with their ability to get revenues from both advertising and cable subscriptions provided an enormous amount of greater revenue opportunities for sports properties than do broadcast cable networks. When it costs a women's sport so much more to get on broadcast network events because of full-time buys and full productions versus what it cost to get on cable, for roughly 80 to 90 percent of the cable -- or the broadcast homes being reached it's much more efficient and I think that's going to be the trend.

So our TV perspective, the fact that we have roughly a third of our events on broadcast, a third on ESPN and ESPN2, and a third on The Golf Channel, I think it's a very diverse portfolio of offerings for TV. We doing a number of other things in terms of marketing. We sponsored a car in the Daytona 500 where we reached an audience that we might not otherwise have reached. We have got a program coming up. In four events this coming year we're going to have the LPGA Fan Van, which will come into a marketplace in the weeks leading up to an event and the week of event, and bringing an enormous amount of local awareness to our events and our players in those markets, with appearances at grocery stores and kind of grass-roots marketing, grocery stores, car dealerships, civic and cultural events, in the weeks leading up to it, bringing greater exposure to our players.

We're talking about a number of other things that we'll hopefully be able to roll out over the next year or so that will make our marketing a little bit different than perhaps other sports properties. But simply looking at it from a -- the only way we're going to succeed is to be on broadcast network is not the landscape that we're dealing the right now.

Q. Could you comment on sort of the awkward position that you're in that arguably you're most marketable star is 14 years old and cannot be a regular part of your Tour for, I believe, four more years? And as such, are there ways that you're trying to get creative about maybe maximizing more appearances that she can make on your tour, that Michelle Wie can? There's currently a limit on your single most marketable star. Could you comment on the awkwardness?

COMMISSIONER TY VOTAW: You have to be mindful of the fact that she's 14 years old. There's a reason we have an 18-age limitation. You can have the physical attributes to succeed on the LPGA Tour before 18, but you also have to have the maturity and the family support and financial support and the ability to deal with failure many more times than you can deal with success. Because as Shirley can tell you, you deal, in professional golf, with failure a heck of a lot more than you deal with ultimate success of winning tournaments.

Michelle Wie is a very impressive young woman. I give her parents an enormous amount of credit for making her as grounded and as impressive as she is as a person. And as I've said to anybody who's asked me, if she continues to develop as a person and a player, she has the potential to achieve many great things in golf, not just necessarily women's golf.

We have a limitation where we only allow six sponsor exemptions per player per year if she qualifies for the U.S. Women's Open, or perhaps the Weetabix Women's British Open, she could potentially play in eight LPGA events this year, through those Open qualifiers. We have to do everything we can to make sure that, not only for Michelle but for every other player that comes behind her, that we make the dream of playing the LPGA Tour as good as the reality of playing the LPGA Tour and have a set of circumstances where, whether it's Michelle or any other person, has the ability and the potential to have as long of a career as possible without the prospects of burnout or other interests coming into play. And certainly the fact that we have a process by which someone between the ages of 15 and 18 could petition the commissioners office for consideration of membership is a way in which we can deal with those circumstances where a player has demonstrated not only the performance skills but the maturity, education and support of a family that could sustain yourself for a long time on the LPGA Tour.

Q. Jan Stephenson came out and said there are too many Koreans on the Tour and they're killing the game. What are your feelings about that?

COMMISSIONER TY VOTAW: When those comments came out, we were pretty quick in saying, one, we weren't sure her quotes were accurate or, two, not taken out of context, but we clearly didn't agree with those comments and repudiated them when we found out that they were accurate quotes. It also said to us that we still have a lot of work to do as an organization to be a better -- to be an organization that has more cultural diversity sensitivities and is doing everything we can to make sure that everyone that plays on the LPGA is made to feel welcome and is made to feel appreciated for the contributions that they've made.

As I said in my remarks, we should celebrate our diversity and not bemoan the fact that we're never going to go back to the days in which all of our players looked and acted and talked and sounded the same.

Q. In your mind, what would be the wisest course for Michelle Wie to take over the next three to four years?

COMMISSIONER TY VOTAW: That's really not for me to say. That's for her parents to decide. I think that if you listen to them, I take them at their word when they say they want to have her stay as an amateur for as long as they can. They want her to go to college. I would encourage that. There's something to be said for people who don't look like you and come from different cultures and have difference interests than you, and she gets that six times a year when she comes out and plays on the LPGA Tour. But I think that what's best for Michelle, only her parents and Michelle herself can decide. It's not for me to do that.

As I said, I think if she continues to develop as a person and as a player, the sky is the limit as far as what her potential is, but she has to continue to develop as a person, as a player, to reach that potential.

Thank you very much, folks.

End of FastScripts.