SYBASE BIG APPLE CLASSIC PRESENTED BY LINCOLN MERCURY

July 16, 2003

John Chen

Ty Votaw

MODERATOR: Thank you, everyone, for being here. I'm Connie Wilson, Director of Media Relations. We have some very exciting news to share today. I would like to invite Commissioner Votaw to share a few words.

COMMISSIONER VOTAW: Thank you, Connie. We are very excited about today's match. This is the 14th year of the Sybase Big Apple Classic presented by Lincoln Mercury, and certainly I know that the future of this event has been something that's been written about and conjectured about for the past several months and weeks leading up to this year's event. We're very pleased to be able to talk to you today about some news about not only this event but the future of the LPGA and Sybase.

In that regard, that announcement is we're very pleased and proud to be able to announce today that we have a new national marketing partner for the LPGA in Sybase as the official wireless software provider. As part of that relationship, we will be showcasing Sybase's technology at this event and in other LPGA events around the country starting in 2004. As I am just now getting brought up to speed on any number of different technology issues, I will leave it to John to talk to you about what that entails.

Something I'm a little more qualified or at least at ease talking about is this event. We're also very excited to be able to announce Sybase as the continuation of their title sponsorship of this event with a number of improvements and changes that will take place over the next three years as Sybase continues its title sponsorship.

First, a new name starting in 2004; the Sybase Classic. It will move to new dates; May 20th to 23rd, 2004. Our players will be very appreciative of the fact that we will be increasing the purse to $1.25 million, which is an increase of $300,000 over this year's purse, and we are making a change in our television arrangements for this event. We will have in 2004 four days of golf action at the Sybase televised by ESPN. It will be the first time in this event's history that this event will be all four days on television, which we're very pleased about as well.

The LPGA has had a very exciting year so far and has continued the positive momentum that has taken place from 2002, the first year of our five-year business plan that has been written about quite a bit.

So, bits of information that I think is indicative of that momentum in 2002 are tournament attendance increased on average by 13 percent. Our television viewership increased. Our website traffic increased in the double digits. All of those are indicative of a growing fan base that we have continued on into this year with an average attendance increase so far this season of around 13 percent. Our broadcast network has increased over 45 percent in the three events that have been broadcasted on ABC, CBS and NBC. Our State Farm series on ESPN and ESPN 2, we've all seen the effects of more on our ratings early in the year that we are now seeing positive spikes in our television viewership brought on by the media attention on a many number of different things, not to mention Annika's participation in the Colonial.

All of that is a very positive momentum going into this year. Our average purse was the highest in 2003, and now that will be -- we will add to that next year with this event going to $1.25 million. All of these things are very exciting.

We're very excited about being able to come back to here for the 15th version of this event with a new name and with some added bonuses of increased purses and increased broadcast television coverage.

With that, I would like to invite John Chen, the Chairman and CEO and President of Sybase to come up and say a few words and to fill in all the holes of my technology ignorance.

John.

JOHN CHEN: Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is John Chen. I'm the Chairman and President and CEO of Sybase. On behalf of Sybase and all my colleagues and all my partners, we are extremely excited about this event. A little bit of brief history. We're a 19-year-old company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. We do about $900 million in revenue. We generate a lot of cash. We'll talk a little bit about all the technology that you are missing from Ty's comment. More importantly, this is -- it's a huge showcase for our goodwill to New York, where, as I pointed out earlier, a lot of my customers are on the Eastern Seaboard. We're one of the leading financial software solutions.

So, I hope that our involvement has brought help to the LPGA. I think we can bring some valuable partners to this. This year, we have we have a lot of these little HP devices running around that will be able to track your writing or the LPGA websites all the latest scores and facts and information just like anywhere in the world. We will have that technology over the next six months over New York City.

With that, look, this is an upcoming thing. I hope this is a trend, not a hype, because in our technology market there's a lot of hypes and trends. I'm going to leave that alone for now. The most important and enjoyable thing for us and me personally, I'm a big golf nut, and every final, I play a round, and I got some tips that I kind of rest up for six months and get back to whatever I'm not doing right.

We are very appreciative of Ty. For example, I've grown to like him a lot. The players, some of them just smile, so I don't know the history there. The players are great. My customers, my partners, I have a full roster and waiting list of people coming as far as the Former Prime Minister of Australia is here and his wife. The Former President of the Philippines is here, and we have a lot of guests in from Japan, et cetera. We have a lot of good partners that have very high levels of reputations here. It's a great showcase of our partnership with them and our return of value that was given to us by the market here, which is New York. We'll stay here in New York for sure. A lot of rumors about us going somewhere else. That is not true.

I would like to make sure that we have the best field possible in working with LPGA, so we changed the date to early May. I hope the time is right.

But at least probably, other than that, our people have a great time. We have a lot of people involved here. You will be able to see your devices, and we are a leading provider of that, and we're going to attempt to be No. 1 in the year.

With that, I'll give it back to Ty.

MODERATOR: We would like to open it up for questions now.

Q. John, this is just a question in general. As a title sponsor, what attracts a company a corporation to be involved; not necessarily the LPGA or PGA or Senior PGA, but what is the attraction and what are the benefits involved that you can either get from it or give back to it?

JOHN CHEN: Well, I think the number one most important thing is showcasing a lot of commitments. Especially in today's age, and people talking about why you're spending this type of money, you have to be able to establish a brand and image. And the other one is hospitality. Our relations with customers, I am very busy this week normally with dignitaries around the world. We talk about going forward with business. To us, this is a high-touch event.

Q. Ty, can you tell us about how much discussions -- what kind of discussions there were with changing the venue?

COMMISSIONER VOTAW: Well, we -- I would say if you polled the LPGA players, if this is not their favorite golf course they play, it's not third or fourth either. It's in the top two or three of the golf courses our players play.

So we were very interested and wanted to work very hard to come back here if going forward a mutually beneficial relationship could be achieved, and we're very happy to be able to come back for three years, because that mutual beneficial relationship was desired on both side. There was some media speculation. I know a resident of this fine state was quoted as saying they're interested in going to Trump National and other golf courses. I think that was part of the due diligence process that we looked at in looking at our options. I know there was some challenges, but at the end of the day, the fact that we could come back here was what we were always hoping to be able to do. We were only able to do that because we reached a mutely beneficial relationship that we did.

Q. It doesn't seem to say that you're coming back here beyond next year.

COMMISSIONER VOTAW: It's a three-year relationship. If that doesn't say that, we should probably make that clear. It's a three-year relationship.

Q. I'll ask you about your opinion on this. This is only considered the fifth major and why do you think the top money winners are not here this week, and why the field is maybe watered down a little bit?

COMMISSIONER VOTAW: I'm not sure any field in which you have the players that we have here is watered down. I think the fact that 12 of 17 events of this year have been won by 12 different players demonstrates the depth of talent, and anyone can win on the LPGA in any given week. Certainly one of the most exciting wins in recent memory was last week in Canada when two Hall of Famers came down to the last hole. That's certainly something we feel very good about relative to the quality of product getting better and better.

As far as the fifth major is concerned, I'm not sure I've heard that characterization of this event. Maybe you have. I think that we would like to think that we had 33 major championships on our schedule. This is certainly a significant event, and I also think where it is in the schedule this year is probably one of the reasons why we may not have had as representative of a field as we had in previous years sandwiched between the geographic flow of Vancouver and France, and I think going to May next year will certainly aid the geographic flow of the players and contribute to a full representation of a field than perhaps this year or previous years.

Q. (Inaudible)?

COMMISSIONER VOTAW: We have no discussions at this point of changing the McDonald's date for 2004. We pencilled that in for the same week it has been in the past two years.

Q. (Inaudible)?

COMMISSIONER VOTAW: It would be this event, Corning, Chicago, then McDonald's.

Q. Were you guys concerned about the viability of the tournament in the coming years? Is that the reason why so many changes right away? How do you view the long-term future of the tournament?

COMMISSIONER VOTAW: I think one of the best friends the LPGA has developed has been the relationship that's evolved over the past three years with Sybase. I don't know if the word concerned was ever really in your mind-set, during the first three years of this relationship, because through John's leadership and support and the commitment of Sybase and how the event worked for Sybase in customer entertainment and branding perspective. The relationship got off to a great start and we thought the best place to announce a three-year sequence was this event. We weren't sure all of you guys would show up if we did it earlier. Having you all here as a captive audience is probably the best way to do it from our high-powered public relations advice that we received. Clearly the fact that you're here and writing down everything I'm saying is indicative of that.

JOHN CHEN: First of all, one other comment is why would we stay here? I understand the ladies's locker room is better than the men's locker room. This is probably the only one in the nation where you can write that. We at Sybase intended to sign a much longer relationship commitment, but because of the club and so forth, we decided the right thing to do is put our heads together and hopefully make this the fifth major. Anyway, but, we have a very long-term commitment. I love what the tour is doing personally. It really works for Sybase, and business practice says you probably should look at a situation every few years, but I have no intention to do that. We're not going to renew all these details, but in our contract, we have extension rights.

MODERATOR: Thank you.

COMMISSIONER VOTAW: Thank you all.

JOHN CHEN: Thank you.

End of FastScripts....