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MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 8, 2005

Will Nicholson

AUGUSTA, GEORGIA

BILLY MORRIS: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We have Mr. Will Nicholson with us, who is chairman of the competition committee for the club. We've had a couple of days weather-wise as we all know, and Mr. Nicholson has come down to answer some of your questions about where we stand at this point.

Mr. Nicholson, would you like to go to questions or do you want to say something?

WILL NICHOLSON: Well, let me take a minute at the outset and just give a little background as to what's gone on this golf course. Since the 26th of March until the 1st of April we had a tad over four inches of rain, and then happily, the wind came up and a little sun came out and the sub-airs we have dried the golf course out and we had that magnificent golf course on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday that you all saw.

Unfortunately Mother Nature has not treated us too well since then. We have not mowed our fairways since Wednesday, and that's the conditions we're in right now with all of that weather that's come down.

Q. Was there any consideration to starting earlier today and trying to get more golf in?

WILL NICHOLSON: Our primary consideration today was to have the course as playable as it could be for the players. As I've said, we had hoped -- we had not mowed our fairways since Wednesday. We thought we could get some today. We got a 10th of an inch last night, and as they walked the golf course this morning, they knew all we do would make it muddy, so we did not do it. We lost that time because we couldn't mow.

Q. Some of the players attribute it to television, that you wanted to get the popular pairings on for the afternoon show.

WILL NICHOLSON: Our primary concern is the players and the condition of the course for them to play the game we are here to see.

Q. What was the exact nature of this particular weather pattern this afternoon, that even though it didn't rain since like 1:00 o'clock, what was going on out there and was there lightning within a certain range?

WILL NICHOLSON: Well, I sort of like to describe it as if you had a compass, you know when you had the pencil in and a little sharp point, if you took the sharp point and put it into Augusta and drew a circle around it, we got a little high pressure sitting right here and it's going all the way around us and has not been hitting us.

When we finally suspended this afternoon, there's -- I don't know if you heard it or not, but I heard it walking over here, there's some pretty good thunder on the way over. There's a bunch of rain and some lightning just to the east of it, and I think it will be here before too long. That's what happened this afternoon.

Q. And plus there was lightning close enough where you could not risk it; it was within five miles of Augusta the whole time?

WILL NICHOLSON: Yes.

Q. There were some players today that said right before the suspension that there was a lightning strike and that they should have been off the course a lot sooner than they came off the course.

WILL NICHOLSON: We got them off the course as fast as we could based on the conditions we saw in the weather trailer. The closest we knew was about 11 miles.

Q. He said he felt like, you know, he sensed it was much closer than that?

WILL NICHOLSON: I wasn't there, so I don't know.

Q. Do you expect the tournament to end Sunday?

WILL NICHOLSON: That's our intent (laughter).

As I said the other day, under any circumstances, the winner will play 72 holes.

Q. What time will you go off tomorrow, sir?

WILL NICHOLSON: We're right now planning that. We hope to load the vans in the neighborhood of 8:05 to 8:10 and be on the golf course ready to play at 8:30.

Q. I know you're not a weather man, but what's the outlook for the weekend, and is it at all possible that you would go to split tees for the final round if it meant getting 72 holes in by Monday?

WILL NICHOLSON: I would not speculate on that at this stage of the game. The weather looks pretty good. It looked pretty good today, so you can come to your own conclusion. But right now it looks pretty good.

Q. Can you convey any sense of disappointment or frustration on all of the work you've all done and right now everybody is kind of spinning their wheels?

WILL NICHOLSON: Well, I'd like to convey it, but there are ladies in the room (laughter).

Q. You made a point about not being able to get the mowers out. Will you be able to get them out tomorrow morning?

WILL NICHOLSON: I would doubt very seriously we'll get them out there tomorrow, Tom. This golf course if we get some more rain this afternoon, it's pretty well saturated. I went out and walked a couple of holes before we suspended, and it's pretty wet.

Q. So you're concerned with fliers then, and how long is that grass?

WILL NICHOLSON: Oh, it has not grown that much. It's still -- we get it pretty tight, as you know.

Q. I was hoping you could settle a debate. Davis Love said at THE PLAYERS Championship that the Masters had played preferred lies. Have you ever played preferred lies here and would that be a consideration?

WILL NICHOLSON: To the best of my knowledge, and I've been coming down here for 32 years, we have never played preferred lies.

There was a Monday finish, I wasn't here, and they may have. Somebody told me we did, but to the best of my knowledge, we haven't, and we're traditionalists; we want to play the ball down.

Q. Not being able to cut the fairways and the amount of moisture on the fairways affects the playability and the length of the course; is there any consideration to changing what your plans were as far as tee locations into the weekend?

WILL NICHOLSON: No. We're going to play the course we set up.

Q. Can you sort of explain what happened with Phil Mickelson and his spikes? There was a ruling out there today?

WILL NICHOLSON: No, there wasn't a ruling. We got a call, and how it got labelled onto Phil I have no idea. There was some spike that apparently tore up some grass, and Phil was the one that was blamed. One of our officials talked to Phil to see if there was a burr on the side of one of his spikes. He very generously, as you know he would, said he would change them when he got in if there was a problem.

There wasn't. If there were those spike marks, it was created by person or persons unknown.

Q. Did he change his shoes?

WILL NICHOLSON: I don't know the answer to that.

BILLY MORRIS: Ask him tomorrow.

Q. Where did the call come from? You said you got a call?

WILL NICHOLSON: A player, and I don't know who the player was. All I did was hear from an official that a player has said that there were some spike marks on the 12th green, and to the best of their knowledge, they were caused by Phil Mickelson, and I don't know anything more than that.

Q. What do you see weather-wise after this front, and could we be here as late as Wednesday if we had to?

WILL NICHOLSON: We're going to play 72 holes.

It looks very good looking at the weather guides. But this year, it's crazy.

BILLY MORRIS: Thank you very much for your interest in this club and this tournament.

End of FastScripts.

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