U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 1, 2001

Kendra Graham

KENDRA GRAHAM: Well, suprisingly enough we dodged several bullets this morning, despite the 3 suspensions that we've had. I don't know if you've heard, but there's been tornadoes and golf ball size hale in Raleigh. It could have been worse. Right now this heavy rain, this storm that has a lot of lightning in it, which is obviously such a huge concern for us, should be through here by about 5:30. And so we've told the players -- we told the players at 3:30 we'd give them another update at 5:30. We gave them two hours to go back to the rooms if they wanted to. Now, at 5:30, although we probably will still have some rain, it should be much lighter in nature. Now, I will say at the time that we made the announcement for the two-hour window, we didn't know how much rain was going to come down, and we've had a lot so far. So our plan was at 5:30 to get out on the golf course and assess the situation as far as what sort of work has to be done to restore it, to get back out and play tonight. Depending upon cloud cover, we've got several hours, but it's going to depend upon what we find when we get back out on the golf course. And unfortunately, there's more rain coming down than we had expected. So at 5:30 we will make that assessment, and once we know where we are, then we'll see where we go from here.

KENDRA GRAHAM: Well, the first and foremost in our minds is to play under the rules of golf. So what we will look at first is the bunkers as far as how much water is in the bunkers, how much wash out there's been. And we want to be able to have the players play under the rules, which means they get maximum available relief in the bunker without going closer to the hole. So we could have a lot of work, we could have little work. We found Monday with the rain we had the bunkers drained very well. But as far as other parts of the golf course, we can play under the rules as far as relief from casual water, fairways and greens. So that's what we have to determine is how much work can be done so that we can have the players playing fairly and use the rules the way they should be used.

KENDRA GRAHAM: Well, as far as where we are today, we still have 11 groups from the morning wave on the golf course. And we have five groups off of each tee. So ten groups still to tee off in the afternoon. We've talked to Dave Fruchte, the golf course superintendent, and I think the earliest we could start in the morning, to be fair to the players as far as daylight and being able to hit balls and having the golf course where we want it for them, would be 6:45. So that's if we don't play anymore golf tonight. And even if we do play golf tonight, we're looking at 6:45 start for the completion of Round 2. Luckily with the help of Unysis and everything we can make the cut fairly quickly. Probably would try to turn things around in 45 minutes, and then start round 3:00. Now, we're still working through our obligations with our broadcast partners as far as what we would do for Round 3. We will try everything we can to play in twos and our hope would be to play in twos off of one tee. But there are still so many ifs, not knowing what we're going to get in tonight and how much we'll have left tomorrow morning.

KENDRA GRAHAM: It's a possibility that they'll have to go to threes in round three, but we'll do everything we can to play in twos off of one tee. That's certainly our hope. We've done this two-tee start last year and this year, and it's just for the full field, Thursday and Friday. Our goal and our plan is to play off of one tee in twos. So as you can imagine, it depends on how many players make the cut and how much time we have. Now, luckily the forecast for tomorrow is fine. It's partly cloudy, but fine. So we've got all day to play golf. And the forecast for Sunday is very good.

KENDRA GRAHAM: I don't know how much rain has fallen. I just left Dave Fruchte, the golf course superintendent, before I came here, he was up in the weather office with me, I don't think he has a count yet. We can try to get that for you. I can tell you already we've had more rain than we had on Monday. The driving range right now is just totally under water. So I will tell you initially we had hoped to assess the golf course at 5:30. And he felt like he could at the time that we talked. We could be playing at 6:15 or 6:30, I'm not sure that's possible now, given how much rain we've had. But I don't have a measurement, but we could get that certainly.

KENDRA GRAHAM: Yes. In fact, we were just talking, we've gone to Tuesday before because of weather and a playoff. But we've played on Tuesday, as late as Tuesday. Now, I will -- most of the times obviously when we play Monday it's a playoff. But in 1987 when the championship was at Plainfield Country Club, they finished on Monday and then the playoff was on Tuesday.

KENDRA GRAHAM: That's a very fair question, Mike. Offhand I'd say if they could only get in one hole, no. Given the fact that we've got a lot of time tomorrow, one hole is not going to gain us anything, especially since we still have players to start, just to play one hole wouldn't be worth it. I will say this morning with the suspensions we had, obviously they were necessary, but we were trying to get in as much golf as we could, knowing what we had this afternoon.

KENDRA GRAHAM: I think what I'd have to figure in there before I gave you a drop dead time would be how much time and effort it would take to get the golf course ready and then factor that in as far as what kind of test are we going to be giving them at that hour. If it's better off to let it drain overnight, let the water drain naturally, and really have -- give it our best foot forward tomorrow morning, to me that factors in, too.

KENDRA GRAHAM: When we resume, everybody will resume. So I will say when we had weather at Oakmont in '92, players that were clearly going to miss the cut didn't come back to finish the second round. I think that's happened, the Senior Open at Saucon Valley. We do pay professionals, that's on the entry application, I can tell you, just for starting, they don't have to finish 36 holes. We pay them. Those who miss the cut, and they don't have to finish 36 holes to get that money, it's entirely up to them.

KENDRA GRAHAM: Well, I will say that we have the set up done for tomorrow -- not that we wouldn't change it. But we set up the golf course the morning before for the following day, because we feel like, as far as selection of hole locations, we want to be out there putting on the greens when they've just been mowed and we're going to get a true read as far as the speed of the greens and whether a hole location is a good and a fair hole location or not. So that has already been done. But if we needed to change some things around, we would. But I would not anticipate having to do that because of the weather, because of how this golf course drains. The only tee, like today, the tee was set towards the center on 16, center to right, because I know the left side is a little low and holds water, so we moved it, knowing what the weather forecast was. But as far as since the forecast is good, I don't think we'll have to change our setup. Now, how the golf course is going to play is obviously going to be effected by this rain. Unfortunately it's going to take a little while to get the firmness back on the greens.

KENDRA GRAHAM: I think we'll know tonight what we'll be able to do tomorrow. So I think we'll be able to have an idea of what to plan for tomorrow. Our director of broadcasting, Mark Carlson, as I said, is talking to our broadcast partners, and he's going to keep me apprised as to our obligations.

KENDRA GRAHAM: Or it might be just finished by a certain time. Our off time tomorrow is 6 o'clock, and we could probably play past 8:00. So we have to take those things into consideration. And that's the great thing about having a director of broadcasting, he knows all these ground rules and does all the talking to them and then just let's me know where we are.