PAGENET CHAMPIONSHIP

November 12, 1999

Ty Votaw

TY VOTAW: On the way out here on the plane, it gave me the chance because this is our last official money event of the year to kind of sit back and reflect and recall kind of the entire year of 1999 for the LPGA. And I am guilty sometimes of being a glass-is-always-half-full instead of half-empty-kind-of-thinker. I think the LPGA's glass in 1999 was completely full in terms of the kind of year we had; the remarkable vote from a competitive point of view and from a business point of view and just in looking back at some of the accomplishment certainly from a competitive point of view the year that has come down to the wire between Karrie Webb and Juli Inkster and the different types of years, but different types of accomplishments, but still very impressive years that they have both have had has really served us well throughout the entire year from a media perspective and from public awareness. You really can't talk about Juli and her year without talking about Karrie and hers, but we have also had certainly seven first-time winners on our Tour this year. We have had -- with Karrie's scoring average in all likelihood looking like it is going to set and all-time record; with a number of individual tournament performances - Karrie in Australia 26-under; Dottie at 19-under at the Nabisco Dinah Shore and certainly Juli Inkster's performance in the majors - it has been a wonderful, competitive year for us. From a business point of view, I think we have come through it extremely well; more television hours than any other women's professional sport this year; 35 of our 43 events are on television; new marketing partnerships with companies like Snackwell's and Century 21, Electrolux, that have used our logos and used our players images in national advertisements; whether it be in the WALL STREET JOURNAL or U.S.A. TODAY, and we are hoping to do more of those types of arrangements going forward. Certainly the fact that we were able to induct - this isn't business or competitive necessarily, although competitive, I guess, touches on it, but the induction into the Hall of Fame of Amy Alcott; Beth Daniel and obviously the competitive accomplishment of Juli Inkster giving the Hall of Fame performance this year. We -- in looking at this week and having the year culminate here, I am very pleased with our year and with what we have accomplished. In looking towards 2000, we are very excited about our 50th anniversary celebration for the year 2000 and many of you heard me say this, we are going to try very hard to make it a year-long celebration for women's golf and the accomplishments of all the great golfers that have played on our Tour for the past 50 years and all of the great teachers in our teaching club professional division that -- this year that organization or that division of our organization is celebrating its 40th anniversary. We want to take the entire year make it a year-long celebration for those people, with a special emphasis on our founders, the 13 women who have created the LPGA in 1950 and the eight founders who are, knock on wood, still with us and still going strong. We were with those eight women at the Women's Sport Foundation Dinner in New York where they were honored by the Women's Sports Foundation and they are -- they are just a beautiful set of women in terms of their minds, their memories, their recollections, their accomplishments and their personalities and it was great to see them come together and we are going to try do that on a number of occasions throughout their 50th anniversary next year. The first one being our kickoff gala dinner on January 10 at the Breakers in Palm Beach where we are going to be focusing on the founders in the '50s and '60s. We will have other functions later in the year that focus on the '70s, '80s and the '90s. So we are very much looking forward to that. In terms of our 2000 schedule, we are now putting the final touches on our 2000 schedule. Obviously we would have liked to have had the schedule out sooner than this, but we want to make sure that we get as many Ts crossed and Is dotted as possible before we do that. And we are anticipating having that schedule out sometime during, if not next week, the early part of the week after that, the week -- we are optimistic, again, the glass is half full, that the schedule will be out next week. When we announce our schedule, we will -- I think it will be one of the strongest in our history. It may not necessarily be apparent that it will be the strongest when we announce it because there maybe some TBDs that will be on there that won't be announced when we release the schedule but will be released in the weeks following that because those announcements didn't want to be part of an overall schedule. They wanted to have them staged themselves. But when the entire TBDs are filled in, and they are -- even though they are TBDs they are -- it is a question of timing, we don't want to delay the schedule two more weeks for those things to happen. When that happens I think we are going to have the strongest schedule in our history. We may have fewer events -- we will have fewer events next year than we will this year. But the fact that we will be playing for more money per event next year than we did this year; more official money than we did per event this year, and quite possibly more total purse amounts with fewer events, I think those answer some of our sponsors' concerns about the number of events that are out there; some of our players concerns about the number of events that are out there. And we are going to feel very good about that. We will also have some major announcements concerning our television partners and television series on ESPN, ESPN2 in the next week or so and we feel very good about that. But again, it is not going to be announced today, but something we are looking forward to saying in the next week to two week's time frame. Certainly looking back with respect to some of the elements of 1999 that may have been in the glass-is-half-empty-mode is that we have lost a couple of tournaments and tournament sponsors. Some of our -- by our own choosing; some by, I think, natural attrition; certainly -- and whether or not we are able to come back in those -- in some of those markets or communities, is what is delayed - I think the scheduled -- we worked very hard to try to get a couple of those replaced with different sponsors in those respective cities because those cities have supported us, in the case of Nashville twelve years and the case of Seattle, 18 years. We also are very positive about the fact that while our event in Orlando will not take place in 2000, we are very confident that an event in 2001 in January at Grand Cyprus will take place. So we are simply taking a year off in Orlando and feel very strong about coming back into 2001 in that market place. So we have lost a couple of tournaments, but I think again because of either our own volition or because of attrition whereas tournaments felt that they could not necessarily keep up with the purse escalations that have gone on in our Tour, that is going to be -- those are some of the factors that have caused some of them to be playing for fewer events next year than as compared to this year. But in terms of the purse growth, an interesting fact that we are projecting for our 2000 schedule is in 1999 we had nine events that had purses in either the 500,000 range or the 600,000 range. Next year we are projecting that we only have two tournaments that will -- there will be none in the 500,000 range and only two in the 600,000 range, so every other tournament in our schedule above that will be at least 700,000 above and we will have at least 13 events with a million dollars or more. So the purse growth, the purse escalation on a per-event-basis we felt very good about it. Of our returning events next year, over half will have increased their purses from this year to next year which, again, suggests that the partners and the business -- the tournaments that are staying with us see enormous amount of potential and value in what they are doing with us. That is my recalling of the whole year and a forecasting of next year. I will be happy to answer any questions.

TY VOTAW: On a couple, it is all of the above. On some it is -- we think that there will be some purse increases that we won't be able to announce -- we are not going to focus on that -- we are not going to hold the schedule for purse increases. I don't know if the women's U.S. Open is going to raise their purse but they have raised their purse in the past; we don't typically know that until the annual meeting in January, so when it is announced we will keep it at 1.75 million like it was, but if it does go up it will be yet another event in January so we are not going to putt a TBDs there, we are going to put 1.75 million which is what this year's purse was. With respect to some other, it will be just announcements of either a new event that is going to take place or reconfigurations of other events that we will be announcing. So it is either site -- in some cases it is all three sites, purse or sponsor.

TY VOTAW: For example, Seattle was an interesting week for us this year. That was a situation where from the way the schedule played itself out this year, a World Championship event, the Samsung event that was played a week before and typically was never played a week before, that took some players who played that week choosing not to play Seattle. You had a situation where Seattle is 18 years on our Tour. I don't know if there are a -- there aren't that many relationships in sports that cover 18 years; whether it be an athlete with a team or whether it is a company with a sports organization. The fact that they stayed with us for only 18 years, but saw if they had to continue, their escalation of their purse would have to go at least another 150 or $200,000 and then probably be on that in the next year or so as well. You combine that real vision on their part with the fact they made an excellent deal for themselves with naming the Safeco Field in Seattle Baseball Park and they came to a balancing act and they felt that they had given the LPGA 18 years of support. It was going to take a huge amount of further support to continue at competitive levels on -- and they decided to go. We are disappointed that somebody like Seattle or Safeco after 18 years of support chose to do that, but we thank them for the 18 years that they were there. The same exact thing I can say about Sara Lee in Nashville except instead of 18 years it is twelve years. That purse had not gone as high as, year by year, and it's rarely been on television. Seattle had only been on television regionally until this past couple of years on the Golf Channel when they televised it. So the cost to television, they realized, the cost of purse competitiveness they realized, was something that they felt that they could do some other things with and they go with our banks, with a tint of disappointment. But we are going to work very hard to try to get something back in Seattle and in Nashville if not in 2000 then down the road, but hopefully in 2000.

TY VOTAW: That is one of the things we are working through right now and hopefully we will have some good news about that next week. But if we don't have that good news, we are not going to give up on Nashville because it is such an important market and we will come in 2001 hopefully big and better.

TY VOTAW: I think there has been some hope that they can build upon the momentum of the Women's Open at Old Waverly and figure out a way to -- but we haven't had any discussions with George about that. We had a couple of discussions during the week of the Open and in the aftermath of the Open, but they did a great job with the Open this year. The crowds, on a per capita in the State of Mississippi that turned out for that event, was extremely impressive. Whether they can do that on a year-by-year basis with an annual event, who knows. But I think -- but we haven't had any substantive discussions in four, five months.

TY VOTAW: That is an interesting question in terms of what the resources against it have to be to do that. We are not a consumer products company where we have a huge advertising budget to create our -- promote our players per se. What we really have to do is convince our own sponsors who want -- what we have done is I think a much better job over the past several years of finding sponsors who are -- that have multi-level involvements with us. Best example could be Snackwell. Snackwell is the official snack for the LPGA, sponsors Juli Inkster; uses Juli Inkster in their advertising in congratulatory ads after her (inaudible) in U.S.A. TODAY and in some of the golf trade publications. Annika Sorenstam, I don't think it has been announced, but she is going to be involved with one of our title sponsors and they are going to be using her in their advertising going forward; that is going to break next year. We understand that Subaru is also thinking about using either Juli Inkster or Meg Mallon in a either TV or print ad next year. Those are the types of arrangements, just like you saw the Gatorade, the Nikes and the adidas is using (inaudible) some of the World Cup soccer players in the ads leading up to the Women's World Cup. As far as our campaign is concerned, as to hey we can play, we are looking at that right now in terms of how we use that; how we -- whether we can continue that thing or let it go with something else. In our 2000 year, in our 50th anniversary -- in how ways we use those ads rather than just in our own tournaments or whether we have arrangements with our television partners that help us use those spots in other programming; whether be other women's sports or whether it be early round coverage of PGA TOUR events, for example, on a USA or ESPN. So those are things we are looking at but again, our emphasis, I would submit to you, that our 250 hours of television coverage is 250 hours of commercials because that is what our core product is. The fact we are able to have that many hours of television coverage on a variety of different outlets admittedly, but that many hours does help promote our players; does help the frame, if you will, the competitive fight between Karrie Webb and Juli Inkster for Player-of-the-Year and those types of things this year. It used to be, you know, I hesitate to say this, but a tag line in some context might be the LPGA is never enough. In 1991 when we were on 15 times we were criticized for not being on TV enough. Now that we are on 35 out of 43, the comments maybe that, well, you are not on network. You are not on more national coverages, as opposed to-- we are on network a third of our time; our television time we are on ESPN, ESPN2, third one on Golf Channel, so pretty good balance. There was an article in the local paper this week: Growing pains, LPGA struggles to keep up with PGA TOUR's booming popularity. I read that headline and I thought they put that headline a little bit -- should say PGA TOUR struggles to keep up with NASCAR. It is all about perception. It is all about -- it is all relativity in terms of PGA struggles with the NFL, or NBA. I think that it is all about -- I am -- my biggest objective is to make sure we are as successful as we have been and we have been extremely successful in the past ten years. That is -- they took us to task a little bit in this article about marketing our players. I think that is a valid a comment to make, but there has to be recognition that we have attempted to address those issues by taking more risks in our television; taking -- allocating resources towards our sponsors to say help us use our players in your ads --

TY VOTAW: I think our arrangement with Snackwells is a good example. Shell, for example, the official gasoline of the LPGA also sponsors Beth Daniel. We had Mercury as an official sponsor of-- in a car category and they used Annika Sorenstam in their print advertising. Those are the types of things we typically encourage. If there are dollars that -- we don't want this to simply be an official sponsorship and they spend no other dollars to leverage it. If they are going to leverage it, we'd like it to leverage it with our players because again that is more marketing opportunities for our players and hopefully more economic opportunities for our players and we would love to be able to attract ourselves to companies who reach a lot of consumers like Snackwells or Shell, which people pump gas every single day, we'd like them to use that imagery or that leveraging, if you will, for our players' benefit so are players are better known. But if you look at where we have come, where we used to be in that area, how many dollars are being used -- I am not talking about the endemic golf side, that is a whole other equation - the non-golf equipment side of things, more and more of our sponsors are not only sponsoring the LPGA as official category, but perhaps sponsoring the tournament, a player, having on-site involvement in a number of events throughout the year to help leverage it and that is all very positive; that is all very good for us to ride the wings of other peoples' spending if you will.

TY VOTAW: We are talking to -- I think it has been reported and we are in discussions with JC Penny that they are the ones who, after their pulling out of the JC Penny team event, our shared even with the PGA TOUR, when the PGA TOUR decided to take that in a different direction, JC Penny decided to come with us and not go in the direction that the PGA TOUR suggested they go in. Which I think is -- you got a sponsor of the stature and status of a JC Penny; the fact that they chose the LPGA over the PGA TOUR, I think that is -- I mean, I sleep a little better at night when those types of things happen. We feel very good about that. The fact is that we got caught a little bit in a timing perspective because the JC Penny Classic is in December, and our event in Orlando is in January and that identified that as a pretty good market for them, but they couldn't turn it around from a timing perspective in six week's time and do a January 2000 event so they delayed it 13 months instead of 12 months and put it into January 2001. While we don't have a firm commitment, a signed deal, things are moving very positively in the direction of having that event at Grand Cyprus in 2001. Whether it -- and if it doesn't happen, I will be very surprised and disappointed. But we think it will.

TY VOTAW: Well, the fact that it is our -- if you define Daytona Beach as Central Florida -- yeah, I think we'd like to have one in central Florida; whether it is Orlando or whether ultimately it in our hometown in Daytona Beach. But the fact that we have had an event in Orlando at a quality facility like Grand Cypress for the past seven, eight years, Tournament of Champions, full field event, and the fact that Grand Cypress is probably one of the best golf courses to play is very popular to the players and certainly it is popular to Kelly Robbins, she won there two, three years in a row there. It is important for us to come back to -- I am not sure I want to come back to Orlando just to come back to Orlando, but if we can come back to Orlando at Grand Cypress that is important, that is why we are working to take a company like JC Penny there. Then Daytona Beach, I think when the announcement about the Titleholders not staying in Daytona Beach, I think we are pretty clear that maybe a full field million dollar network TV event is not the right type of event to have in our hometown given the corporate infrastructure there and eventually we'd like to find another format whether it is a special event or a limited field and maybe something other than network TV might be the kind of event that comes there. There is a discussion about a new event or a special format that we have (inaudible) it won't happen in 2000, but maybe by 2001 or certainly down the road.

TY VOTAW: I think it is both. I think -- 17 of 30 players are foreign, we have averaged, I think over the past four years at this event for three years, roughly half of the field has been U.S.; the other half has been foreign. I think we are always going to be right around that. But I think that diversity of our players, the number of international players coming out, but also every year we have got younger kids coming out on Tour that are beginning to reach their potential, certainly a Kelly Kuehne the year that she has had to enable her to be in the top-30 this year, she hasn't been here in the past, last year, that type of evolving of the Tour and the spectrum of players that are here, players in their 20s, players in mid-20s; players in 30s and even players in their 40s - you look at Jan Stephenson and Beth Daniel the year that they have had this year to be in the top-30. I think it is a testament as to just how -- how deep it is and the fact that they have had their years in such a deep competitive situation; makes their confidence and their years that much more impressive. That, I think, speaks to the depth. But the Tour continually energizes itself with new faces and new players and certainly the rookie class next year will including a Kellee Booth and Grace Park I think we will continue to do that.

TY VOTAW: I don't know if the World Golf Village has made a formal announcement about that. There have been discussions about pushing it later in the year so as not to conflict with the PLAYERS Championship and Nabisco Championship like it has the past several years. Whether how late in the year they do that, but we would induct them in the World Golf Hall of Fame; that tournament would be the same time.

TY VOTAW: Well, I don't know fairness, I think they have realized no matter how fair or unfair it was, that decision was misguided because they thought they would be able to get the senior event that was going to be completed on Sunday, some players and media to stay over for it and then the THE PLAYERS Championship arriving on -- starting on Monday of that week. They thought internally that would have been the best time to do it. It turns out that very few of the seniors stuck around and very few of active Hall of Fame members on the PGA TOUR came. So I think they are trying to look at -- and that is a busy week for all three Tours, our major championship, especially, for us. If they can move it to later in the year where it is a little bit slower time from a golf competition perspective, maybe a little slower time in a sports perspective, they can get more participation both from the Hall of Famers who come back and the media who cover it.

TY VOTAW: Well, I think we will over the next couple of years when we induct Juli and Beth. But we are talking -- we have form this veterans committee that is going to look into whether or not veterans who have dominated their era will get in through that process. You also have a player like Annika Sorenstam who is one point away from qualifying and she still has to wait, I think, three years after that if she wins - to get the point, to get in, but I think we are pleased with the way the LPGA Hall of Fame is -- the members are represented there. Patty Berg is right next to Byron Nelson. I think that -- there is no differentiation; the crystals are the same; certainly the exhibitory is an evolving process that we try to evaluate and look at along with the World Golf Village staff to make sure if there is a valid historical context or a meaningful way in which the LPGA or Women's Golf can be reflected in a particular exhibit, we are always having that discussion and that voice with them to say: Let's not just make this a men's Hall and I think we are an integral part, we are on the Board of Directors on the governing board of the World Golf Hall of Fame and World Golf Foundation, but it is an evolving process for us.

TY VOTAW: No, I had conversation with Don Brown, Chairman of du Maurier last month and the government in Canada is moving very slow in addressing the tobacco industry's challenge to the legislation against sponsorship. There are certain procedures they have to go through, I think, to see if the challenges are going to be met or overcome. They also have a choice of continuing the event with the regulations of probation in place. Whether they think it is economically viable for them do that and to have a sponsorship even and not have the branding if you will associated with it, I would be surprised that they went that route. But they have that option. Where we stand right now we are certainly going to have a du Maurier Classic in 2000 and we will know probably the first quarter of next year sometime the first three months of next year where that challenge is and what their thinking is on whether they want to continue or not.

TY VOTAW: We would. What that contingency plan is I think we would crank it up at that time. Certainly I don't want to take anything away from du Maurier, and if it is going to be their last year, we want to give them as much limelight as we can, if it is their last year, and not take away from speculation in terms of other Major replacement. So that is why we have been pretty careful not to speculate as to what other tournaments could be potential candidates. Maybe the press has, but we haven't.

TY VOTAW: I think that is what they are thinking through and saying what would that mean. I think that -- it has become an icon event in Canada in terms of its longevity, in terms of the level of support and commitment they have had and the level of media support that they have had. So they are trying to find creative ways to see if the government challenge doesn't succeed, what are their options. They may look at maybe a five-second decision. They may say can we do it, but without the branding and they may say that it just doesn't make any sense to do that. But -- so it not an option. It is a business option for them. It is simply going to come down to a business decision as to whether or not they think it is worth it to continue that icon, cultural type of event that it has become in Canada. And regardless of whether they are a tobacco company or not, it has become that. Players are very proud of the fact that one of our four majors is held in Canada and there is a patriotic pride in that we get from the players and from the sponsor itself. (inaudible) everything they can to continue, but if the government legislation does not get overturned, it may be very difficult for them exercise to make that decision.

TY VOTAW: I think if you look at the individual foreign players that play I think they typically play more than 15 events on Tour. I think you will see some that don't but I think for the vast majority of players who are eligible to play on our Tour, they are already playing more than 15. So it is not a situation where they are only playing 10 or 11 or just 15 and no more. They are typically more, so if we raise the level to 18, it is not going to necessarily make them play 20 or 21. It is -- they are playing typically about 17, 18, 19 events themselves already. We have looked at that a little bit to see if that -- but I am not sure we will do very much if we would raise the limit. I think since 1988, all but two of the rookies-of-the-year have been foreign players and so it has been a little bit longer than ten years that we have had an influx of foreign players; just used to be with -- the Japanese contingent was there; then the Swedish; now the Australian, and now I think next several years you are going to see several Koreans coming on board.

TY VOTAW: Our field strength hasn't shown that.

TY VOTAW: But I think they had a pretty quality representative field outside of the -- Dayton is a 650,000 dollar purse event, so it in a summer where the average purse is about a million, so that is a week that people are going to take off, I think, in the summer months so I think it has much to do about getting out of a pretty intense purse run, as it did the foreign. They are going to benefit both ways now. They will have the European Tour gets heated up there in May and their positioned with a few more liked size purses, which is something we try to do to help their field strength. Next year when we are -- for the months of June, July, and August, we are looking at having an average purse of in excess of a million one or a million two in those events, so it going to be a pretty hectic 12-week period in terms of player choices and which events they are going to play even if a purse is a million bucks or more.

TY VOTAW: Well, I don't know if you blame the college or the junior college system.

TY VOTAW: Well, I think if you go to the David Leadbetter Academy and you see Korean young Korean girls just pounding balls all day long, it explains a little bit of the fact that has become a passion in that country and the success that we have seen with Se Ri this year and maybe Grace Park next year that that has become a cultural type of -- in America, young U.S. girls have a lot more choices to make in terms of what they do with their athletic endeavors or their free time. I think baseball is seeing the same thing in terms of Latin American influx of talent. But at the same time there were a number of college scholarships that went unused last year in women's college golf teams. I don't know what the numbers are but it is a number that surprised me. I think the perception tends to be that you got to shoot 72 or better to get a college scholarship and the reality is you don't need to do that. I think that is something that the junior system could perhaps let parents of young girls know that there are playing opportunities beyond high school and beyond the college ranks and maybe the fact that those many scholarships has made it possible for the foreign players in Sweden, Korea or Thailand --

TY VOTAW: Not too dissimilar to our Olympic movement several years ago when East Germans were dominating swimming and other events because the state system there -- that was their jobs whereas in our Olympic athlete process, they were trained every four years for the Olympics; then going back to having regular jobs. In the year and a half or two years leading up to the Olympics, that would be the same thing. I think it is a different cultural type of experience in this country because there are so many different choices that people now have with Title 9, with basketball, soccer and other things and I am not -- certainly we are the beneficiary in other contexts. Again the glass is half full. International revenues for television represent about 25 percent of our overall TV revenues five years ago. Today they represent 45%, probably represent well over half of our TV revenues next year because of the demand for our product in Korea, in Australia, and we are the beneficiary of that if there are tradeoffs in terms of having more international players playing to the detriment of our American players, I don't think that is an issue now and I am not sure it will be an issue for the foreseeable future, but it may be and we will have to take some steps in trying to grow the game on the American side so that that can be rebutted. But you look at a Kellee Booth or Cristie Kerr or a Kelly Kuehne that are coming out, I think and a Beth Bauer in a few years, I think there are going to be some quality performances put in by those players not to put anymore pressure on them than they already perhaps give themselves, but I think we will always have some fine quality American players playing for us. If the International elimination was compl --(inaudible) I think the European team would have won a few more Solheim Cups between now and 1990. They have only won one.

TY VOTAW: That is Europe. Who knows what the competition would be like if U.S. versus the world; right now it is just Europe.

TY VOTAW: Yes, and I mean, it is a fine line. We have an obligation I think all of us, PGA TOUR, USGA, PGA of America grow the game as best we can to make sure that the demand is going to be there from an audience participation point of view. We all have an obligation. We also have business objectives relative to running 43 tournaments in a year and running a teaching division with 1,100 members. And we are constantly trying to keep up with the success of ourselves in those areas. How much time we can really dedicate to trying to grow the game or work with the AJGA or USGA in terms of how we can do that. We try to do that with some of our junior programs and bringing the game to under-privileged kids in urban programs, five cities, or our girls' golf clubs that we have tried to partner with -- we have partnered with the USGA and Girl Scouts of America to try to tap into that membership and we have had modest success. I think of the 2,500 young girls who are in that program, I think that if you ask them they have gotten a lot out of those program, but still a small number relative to some participation levels in young soccer programs and Connecticut. Golf is a very different sport to take up in terms of access, in terms of equipment, in terms of skill levels, than perhaps these other types of sports that are out there, or ingrained into high school or junior high school programs. Those are some challenges we have to work through in getting the game of golf into the junior level and high school level to then take advantage of the opportunity at the college level that scholarships are going by the wayside. Do I have any magic answers? No, I think the First Tee Program, I think our Girls Golf Club Program, I think the girl Scouts and USGA and LPGA programs that we are trying to attack and crack that code in terms of getting that 3 million members of the Girl Scouts of America getting exposed to golf, I think those are ways that we will do better down the road. But you also look at, you know, the national golf foundations, statistics about women picking up the game, there is -- only 20% of the golfers are now women, but one in three of new golfers are women and one in two junior golfers are women or young girls. (inaudible) But it is still -- remains flat because many of those people leave the game after only a year because of access issues; discrimination issues at their clubs or whatever. So I mean, that is not a junior golf, per se; that is more of an endemic getting women to play the game and interested in the game issue more than junior golf. That is our code that we have to crack to try to figure out a way to make sure that that part of the game grows.

TY VOTAW: It is an allocation of resources issue in terms of what is best use of our dollars in terms of what we have to spend and how we have best spend it. I am not sure how effective (inaudible) I think the things we try to do to have as I say had modest success, but I am not sure that if we were to say to our membership, we are going to spend a million dollars next year of our LPGA (inaudible) to try to grow the game, I am not sure that I would get a lot of nodding heads around the membership room. At the same time, what we had tried to do is consistent with that allocation of resources, is try to do the things we talked about. I think the PGA TOUR Tour in taking the -- and PGA TOUR of America and USGA who have considerably more resources than we do, that we are able to be a part of The First Tee initiative which is more of a facility issue right than it is a participation issue, or objective, a good step in that direction. What we don't want it to be is an industry that 20 years from now be where tennis was in the '70s versus to where it is now. I think that is the whole -- that is what we are all trying to find ways and I am not sure we have found the formula yet, but it is not through lack of trying by all the various sanctioning bodies.

TY VOTAW: I think you are absolutely right. I think that has helped the soccer programs; helped women's basketball programs and our teaching and club professional division on the LPGA is doing more and more in the secondary and high school levels to try to increase that. But again, it is a question of recourses for those high school and junior high programs to come up with -- it is easier to outfit a soccer team or to field a soccer team or volleyball team as it is a golf team. It is a challenge we have, but -- and it needs to be a bigger priority, but it is a question of allocation of recourses.

TY VOTAW: I think the answer to that in terms -- PGA TOUR, you have to have a little bit of perspective there. If you look at ten years ago, 1989, Ryder Cup was still (inaudible) kind of heart to believe. That was the case ten years ago. What happened this year, but before this TV deal for the PGA TOUR, PGA TOUR is very successful, and first growth was very high, but it has gone exponential this year. I am not going to compare myself to the PGA TOUR. I think it is unrealistic for me to think that I am going to get the rights fee situation in an environment where not many sports are getting rights fees outside of the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, NHL, and PGA TOUR. Now NASCAR is just done the most -- the second highest rights deal behind the NFL. But beyond that there are a lot of other sports out there that are nothing but time buys and the fact that we have been able to grow our number of hours, number of events through a time buy process or a mixed risk situation -- our ESPN Series on ESPN, ESPN2, that Mercury has sponsored the last two years is a shared risk in some respect with ESPN. That was unheard of. We buy some of the time, but they take risk in some of the others; if we don't sell it all then they take some back. The Golf Channel has the rights fee situation for us which has not been the case. But it is not going to generate, I think, the level of revenues that are going to be (inaudible) purses those type. But I think what it does is gives us the ability to take a broadcast overseas and in countries that are willing to pay rights fees and see their players play, we are the beneficiary of that, like I said, in terms of percentage of our revenue. TV is a very important part of our future and I think the LPGA is going to be willing to take greater risks in making sure that our events get on TV because I think there is a marketplace for us to offset that risk with advertising, support and sponsor underpaying. The other thing that we all have to -- that -- who knows what the next ten years hold with respect to what kinds of media landscape is out there. I would characterize the Golf Channel as the niche channel. You have got Home and Garden TV now that may want a golf tournament some day. You have lifetime -- we have one women's network that has televised our Tournament of Champions the past couple years; combine that with the convergence of traditional media with the internet, who knows what the next ten years-- and I think it is niche sports go further and further down the road. The opportunity for niche programmers like Home and Garden TV or the History Channel, or whatever, could provide opportunities for somebody like the LPGA for more of -- whether that results in more rights fees, may not be the case, but it may result in more risk situations where we are able to offset that risk and make money as if a rights fee was paid. So I got to tell you I am very excited about the next ten years in terms of what those opportunities present to us because certainly those niche programmers are going to need programming and if you take a niche programmer like the Golf Channel who is willing to pay for that program and I think we can be positioned pretty easily or much better than we have been, there that environment.

TY VOTAW: You really -- you have to look at the dominoes that will be taking place for the next couple of months in other sports areas. For example, if -- you are right, I think your paper said it today that if ESPN lost out on NASCAR they do have this hole, are they now kinds of marshalling their horses to try to get the basketball package away from CBS so that they can have ESPN/ABC package. That only is going to take up one section of the year in March and part of April. But it still is an economic piece of programming that ESPN has lost the Triple Crown or ABC and ESPN have lost the Triple Crown events to NBC. They have lost NASCAR. Their senior PGA TOUR the deal is up in 2000 and now they are renegotiating that. All these things do enable us to perhaps have more opportunities in terms of programming windows for ESPN. We have grown that over the past three years with having eight events on the Mercury Series, but other -- close to 10 or 12 other -- I mean, a total of 10 or 12 events on ESPN. I think if we can grow that to fourteen or fifteen over the next two, three years, that will be positive growth for us. I think it does -- it present a for a lot of people how they react to that hole and how CBS reacts to that hole that they have now because of NASCAR, is going to be something we are going to be monitoring for the next several months. There are discussion with ESPN going forward. We will have a series in 2000. We will have an announcement about that -- it is going to be one of our announcements as far as the nature and structure and makeup of that series.

TY VOTAW: To have LPGA Tour Productions, if you will, go out and just do it ourselves?

TY VOTAW: THE PGA TOUR has PGA TOUR Productions but up until recently haven't had the wherewithal to produce a lot of live golf telecast. They have done a lot of taped and they are just now starting to get into that. But I think for the time being I don't think it is for us to get the types of returns that we would need that kind of business (inaudible), I don't think -- I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future. There are enough quality providers of production out there that we can get it done more efficiently than to have to invest in the trucks and invest in the human personnel that is necessary to do that. We may even do more with PGA TOUR Productions. They did the production for the lifetime event in Alabama.

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