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RICOH WOMEN'S BRITISH OPENAugust 3, 2013Susan SimpsonST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND COLIN CALLANDER: Good afternoon, we have Susan Simpson who is LGU Head of Golf Operations. She has a brief statement to make on the current situation and then we'll answer any questions you may have. SUSAN SIMPSON: First of all, thank you for being patient with us today. It's been quite a long day; the end result of which it is now suspended play for today. We will restart tomorrow morning at 6.15 and continue today's round. Round four will commence at 8.00 in the morning and there will be no redraw. So they will go out in the same order as they were intending to play today. So that's the state of play as it is at the minute. Q. Does that mean the leaders will go off, it's the same schedule? SUSAN SIMPSON: It's effectively the same as today, but there's a starter's gap, which was clocked back for the round four tee times, so they are aiming to get the last game out at 1.40. Q. So the forecast for tomorrow, is it not too bad? SUSAN SIMPSON: It's still going to be windy tomorrow. Not hopefully as windy as it's been today, but there's no let‑up in it. So tomorrow morning, it's still going to be very breezy, and equally difficult conditions. Q. So that does they don't go ahead with cutting greens or not cutting greens ‑‑ because the balls are oscillating. SUSAN SIMPSON: Course preparation was something we are still to have a discussionabout. It's obviously all happened in the last wee while. Q. Does that mean we could have a Monday finish? SUSAN SIMPSON: Let's say we hope not, but yes, Monday is an option. Q. The sentiment among a couple of players is that play was started to late; that it was tough conditions already from the beginning. What's your view on that? SUSAN SIMPSON: Well, there's no doubt it was tough conditions from the very start. Nobody would argue that. But we have quite a few calls to balls oscillating but not too many calls to balls physically moving from one position to another. Once we started to get calls for balls moving, we obviously took action on that, but there's a lot of calls and there was a lot of enquiries for balls oscillating on the greens. So there's a bit of debate about what was actually happening at that time. Q. In hindsight, would you have wanted to make the greens slower today? SUSAN SIMPSON: The greens were already slower, whereas a lot of the preparation had taken into account the conditions that were forecast for today. The 11th green wasn't cut. So the greens were actually quite sticky this morning and running about 9.4 on the Stimp, as opposed to 10, which it had been the days before. So we had taken that into account in the preparation, but can't do much, can we, the grass grows. Q. There was some chatter that it was only after Inbee's ball moved on the fourth that the decision to suspend was made a short time after that. Was there any relation there? Can you say how many calls you received, specifically, and then to speak to Inbee? SUSAN SIMPSON: Actually the time frame for the balls actually moving was very short. We got five calls all in the space of a few minutes from greens 5, green 9 I think it was and green 10, and it all happened within a very short period of time. So I can't actually say which one was the last one that made the definitive‑‑ because it all happened so quickly. There was a gust of almost 40 miles an hour, and with that singular gust, all the balls started to move on the five calls that we had, and we suspended play immediately. Q. And when you talk about the preparations and green cutting for these winds, what about the hole locations, were they taken into account, as well? SUSAN SIMPSON: Yeah, the hole locations haven't been too tricky. We did take into account the wind, which I think is quite an unusual wind for St. Andrews. It's not one of the most common directions. Where possible, we had taken that into account. Also with the double greens, you have to be reminded to try to keep the players as far apart as we can, or we'll also have pace of play issue with that. So we took all of these factors into account when trying to set up the course and for today. Q. Was there any consideration to scrapping the round and starting fresh tomorrow? SUSAN SIMPSON: We had five groups complete the round, and while we took that into account and it was part of the discussions, it was quite quickly ruled out. Q. How come? SUSAN SIMPSON: Because we don't feel that that's fair to the players who have also completed and already played four rounds. We want to try to continue tomorrow‑‑ the conditions are meant to be difficult in the morning, as well. Q. Some clarification, you said conditions will be difficult in the morning, do you know how difficult? Do you have a wind speed forecast at all? SUSAN SIMPSON: Well, the forecast for today, which hasn't panned out exactly as we would have hoped for; tomorrow morning, it's going to be roundabout 20‑mile‑an‑hour gusts. Hopefully it will not be any higher than that. I mean, once we start touching on 30, I think we might have another problem, but let's hope not. We actually had a gust this afternoon, after play had been suspended, we had rules officials out on all of the troublesome greens, and we recorded gusts of over 50 miles an hour, which I have to say, I have not seen very often in this country. So it's extremely windy, but also quite a bit of damage to infrastructure further out on the course, too. A lot of things have been blown over and damaged. Q. You said that you thought about scrapping the round and quickly dismissed that. Do you not have a policy about this? SUSAN SIMPSON: Every situation is different, and it warrants discussion. There's no hard and fast answer to that question. If it was, it would be really quite a simple job for us. We had a committee meeting and we decided to suspend and retain those scores. Q. Just one last thing, you said that it's going to be difficult tomorrow morning, as well; that's part of the reason why you decided not to scrap the round? SUSAN SIMPSON: Oh, there's so many factors are taken into consideration. There's not one singular thing. So yeah, it's part of the discussion, the conditions tomorrow. Q. Inbee Park was one of the players whose ball's moved; you said there were five. Do you know who the other four players were? SUSAN SIMPSON: I don't. I don't have that on my files at the moment. Q. Did you speak to any players before or after the decision? SUSAN SIMPSON: Spoken to them all in the players' lounge. I had many discussions. Q. (Inaudible.) SUSAN SIMPSON: Some are delighted and some are not delighted and I think that's the way it works. Q. Could you explain what your policy is in regards to a 72‑hole finish for this championship? SUSAN SIMPSON: Yeah, this is a Major Championship, and every endeavor will be made to try to play 72 holes. So if we need to go to Monday, then we'll go to Monday. Q. Can you explain what every endeavor means? SUSAN SIMPSON: When there's so many different scenarios, so we look at all of the options that are available to us, and one of those is Monday. If we have to complete on Monday, we have the golf course all day on Monday and that might well be factored in, but hopefully tomorrow will be compete. COLIN CALLANDER: Thank you very much and good luck with the weather tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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