MERCEDES CHAMPIONSHIPS

January 5, 2000

Olin Browne

OLIN BROWNE: I don't really have any comments about last year except that I was thrilled to have won a tournament and gotten invited back here. I missed last year because I had surgery on my elbow at the end of '98. I was extremely disappointed, but it was something that I couldn't pass up. I couldn't even grip the club any longer, so I had to do that. Managed to eke out a tournament win in Colonial, which was what we're all looking to do. This is a new year. I'm feeling healthy and strong and ready to go.

OLIN BROWNE: Did battle with the flu, my whole house (laughter). No, I really didn't. I played three the end of November. I really only had the month of December. I tried to get away for a couple weeks. I had a couple of obligations, appearance-wise, one-day type things, ProAm type of things. I really didn't get a chance to put my stuff down for any significant period of time. But I managed to get some good rest, you know, hang around with my family, kind of get recharged.

OLIN BROWNE: Extremely. First time it's an accident, second time it's not type of thing. You know, what we all want to do out here is play our best. A guy like Steve Pate, for example, had a terrific year last year. You know, he shot 66 the final day from one back at the Hope and got beaten by a 59. What are you going to do? He played as good a golf as can be played. I think he shot another 66 or 67 at the Nelson. He did all he could do. It just didn't fall his way. Fortunately, in my case, I got a few breaks and managed to get one. Obviously, this is the kind of thing that really fires you up. You can come out here to this beautiful spot here and play this beautiful golf course. That's what we're all looking for. Really, all I can do is try and play my best and let the chips fall, you know.

OLIN BROWNE: They've invited that amateur who won the Australian Open, too. Colonial carries a lot of weight. I would love to be invited on that basis. But I'm not far from being Top 50. I have eight weeks that I have scheduled, somewhere in the low 60s. I'm going to lose some points from the Hawaiian Open a couple years ago. I have this tournament, the Hawaiian Open. I have six more events that are really strong events on the TOUR. If I can play at all decently, I'm sure I'm going to play myself into the Top 50 spot and get myself another invite. It's in my hands. It's pretty easily recognizable. Yeah, I'm bummed, but I'm not distraught over it.

OLIN BROWNE: The Masters is The Masters. It's their event. They try and create an atmosphere, a field that they feel is representative of one -- of a target field. You know, far be it from me or anybody else to say who should be or not invited. The fact that it was one way and they changed it to another, they've taken steps to ensure that guys are going to get in. Top 50 in the world ranking, top 40 on the Money List, so on and so forth. There will be the occasional guy that slips through the cracks. What they're trying to do is eliminate fluke play or somebody that they feel is less deserving. They want the strongest field in the world, and I think, you know, they have a legitimate point.

OLIN BROWNE: I think about it every day. Are you kidding me (laughter)? I talked to Phil Thomas on a regular basis. I am just as pleased as I can be to have won the tournament last year. I'm really looking forward to going back. I'm going back at the end of February for the kickoff. Obviously, I'm excited to be the defending champion.

OLIN BROWNE: No, I think it takes a long time for a changing of the guard. There are guys who were here on a regular basis who aren't here this year because, you know, things didn't fall their way last year. Tom Lehman and Justin, Phil Mickelson, maybe John Huston, guys like that. That happens. Tom Kite didn't win a tournament one year, didn't get back to Augusta, then he won the US Open the next year, now he's back in. That kind of happens. There's an ebb and flow to guys' games. There are motivation issues, personal issues that maybe take precedent here and there. Maybe a guy determines he needs to make a swing change. Whatever the reasons are, you know, it's awfully difficult to play great every week, every month and every year on Tour. It's unfortunate those guys aren't going to be here. Part of that is due in large part to some of the great play by other people. Jack Nicklaus isn't here, but he hasn't been here for a while. Changing of the guard? I don't think who you'd be thinking has fallen by the wayside. I would say the guys who aren't here this year aren't because it's a temporary thing. I'm sure they'll be back.

OLIN BROWNE: Pretty strong, isn't it? I think Tiger is doing something that a lot of people thought couldn't be done. You know, he's making a run at Jack's record. I think there was a very strong belief that, you know, Jack had established something during an era where he was so dominant that it was going to be virtually impossible by virtue of the fact that play has gotten so much deeper on the Tour, everybody thought it would be extremely difficult to challenge for that kind of a record. Tiger is waking up a lot of people.

OLIN BROWNE: It's another tournament that he's won. It would be five in a row; it would be a hell of a run. I don't think Tiger needs to send any messages. I think he sent them already. He's proven his point. I think he's out to play his best every week. Again, you know, it's a fine line. How long can a guy dedicate himself to it? How long can he make the sacrifices that it takes to be at that pinnacle every week? How long will his brain keep from frying out? The frustration builds or the pressure builds. Did you see the look on his face when he made the last put at the PGA? That wasn't exultation or exhilaration. It was relief. I mean, does he want to push himself to the point where he's miserable if he doesn't win or does he want to push himself to the point where he's so stressed out that he's just trying to survive? I don't think so. I think he plays because he loves to play and he competes because he loves to compete. I'm talking out of school here. I'm not putting words in Tiger's mouth. Don't misunderstand. I think he's made his point. I don't know. I think the guy to ask about that would be Nick Price. Nick had that great run for a couple years. I think that he ran up against some things he didn't want to confront. The question is, can Tiger continue to deal with the distractions, the outside pressures that are brought on by that incredibly stellar play?

OLIN BROWNE: Tiger is going to get older, get married, too, have kids.

OLIN BROWNE: I agree a hundred percent. I think that Tiger, he's on a mission. He wants to leave his mark, right? The question is not, can he do it? He already has. The question is, can he do it for long enough to do what it is that he set out to do, which is to challenge Jack? I think it's obvious that's what he's out to do.

OLIN BROWNE: The year is just starting. The Golf Channel has done a couple of things along those lines. I know that each year we're going to be reminded -- each week we're going to be reminded of what happened. It's certainly going to stay with a lot of us for a long time. It hit very close to home. Payne was obviously a very high-profile guy. It's a tragedy in the sense that, you know, he was in the prime of his life, he left behind a beautiful family. His legacy is one of great play. It's just one of those very, very unfortunate, sad occurrences.

OLIN BROWNE: I don't understand.

OLIN BROWNE: Who are they adding?

OLIN BROWNE: That's what they have THE TOUR Championship for. The tournament champions and runners-up. They've already taken away from the World Series from me, Masters. I think if you win a tournament, if it's called the Tournament of Champions, the winners out to be there.

OLIN BROWNE: I don't care. I get to play 30 events of my choice every year. I'm playing for $3 million a week. I'm not suffering too much right now. They're going to have to change the name of the tournament, though. Tournament of Champions and anybody else in the Top 10 (laughter). Somebody asked me this question in regards to -- I can't remember what tournament it was. You know, the lack of quality or high-profile players in the field. The fact of the matter is that there are plenty of non-high-profile players who can really play the game well. I guess what sells is Phil Mickelson and Fred Couples and fellows like that. When those guys don't qualify for that event, there seems to be a void. They have their schedules out in front of them every year. They have their opportunities just like everybody else. If they want to play in this event, you know, that's the criteria for getting into this event. They finish in the Top 30, for example, on the Money List, they're going to Augusta, I'm not. I'm not feeling sorry for them not being here, not necessarily.

OLIN BROWNE: I think just like any sport, you know, the engine that runs any sport are the superstars. You look at the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA. The NBA is in a groping situation right now. They're trying to find a guy to fill Michael Jordan's shoes. How do you do that? I can't think of anybody who could take his place. Nobody has that kind of notoriety, nobody has that kind of a high-profile persona and gravitates towards that. Nobody has won the six championships -- three and left, come back, done it again. He's the conquering hero. He's really the headline guy. Along that vein, you see him advertise a Monday Night Football game, it's not the San Francisco 49ers versus the Atlanta Falcons. It's Jerry Rice versus Chris Chandler.

OLIN BROWNE: That's what sells.

OLIN BROWNE: The stars float the boat. They've always floated the boat. They always will float the boat. Anybody who tells you otherwise is not telling you the truth. This is kind of the mentality of what they're doing with the World Series. They want to get, you know, major firepower. They want Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup. This is the mentality with Augusta. They want the very best field they can produce. That's the bottom line.

OLIN BROWNE: It ain't silly to me, man. If I get invited to some of that stuff, it's serious.

OLIN BROWNE: Not to me, no. Nobody builds a reputation based on the silly season. Reputations are based -- look at what Duval and Tiger did. I don't think anybody cares. Who did win Sun City?

OLIN BROWNE: Does anybody know that? Everybody in South Africa knows it. Nobody here knows it. You know what I'm saying? Those kinds of events are worldwide events for a special group of players. They have a place. You know, there's something really great to shoot at. If you have a great year, you get invited to some of that stuff. I got invited to the Shark Shootout. If it was a tremendous opportunity for me, a great honor. I really enjoyed the week. It was a lot of fun. Those are some of the rewards that you get from playing well during the season. People who want to leave their mark in this game want to play well in the highest profile events against the best fields. Witness Tiger, David, Ernie Els, all those guys, they gear up for the Majors. That's their focus for the year. That's where they want to play their best.

OLIN BROWNE: I did not. I did not, no.

OLIN BROWNE: That was me. What I meant by that was, you know, I think there's something wrong with the world ranking system. I don't know how you fix it. They penalize guys who like to play a lot. You can't play your best every week. I don't have the kind of game where I can focus my game and peak at certain events. I have the shotgun approach. I play as many events as I can. When I play well, that's great. You know what I'm saying? Fred Funk plays every week. The way the world rankings are based, you know, there's a divisor, based on the number of tournaments, that penalizes guys who play. Yet the Tour sits us down and asks us to play more events, try and support the Tour. Really, it's not of people's benefit. It's kind of cross purposes. I don't know that the ranking system is accurate. I think in the next couple years it will probably shake out and be better. I finished first the Colonial, third at Memorial last year, eighth at International. Those are three pretty good tournaments. I wasn't able, because -- I wasn't able to practice at all last year. When I played well, I played well. When I didn't, I couldn't. I was penalized because of that personally.

OLIN BROWNE: Yeah.

OLIN BROWNE: I think what they're looking for is overlap there. They want to make sure that the guys who maybe had a good run, for example, Duffy Waldorf won twice, Notah Begay won twice, and neither one of those guys was in the Top 50 in the world. Because they finished in the Top 30 on our Money List, they got into the event. They're trying to make sure they cover themselves and guys don't slip through the cracks. I didn't play well towards the end of the year and I got nobody to blame by myself. After Memorial I was Top 50 in the world and I just didn't finish it off. There's something inherently wrong with a system that -- I think there's another way to do it. Could you have qualifying events, for example. There are X number of events over the course of the year, we'll take the leading money winners from those events, they qualify. That way you have guys competing against one another. You don't have this vague ephemeral concept of somebody finishing third in the Peegy Dungy Open somewhere in the world and getting points. I mean, you know what I'm saying? It just doesn't make sense to me. It's comparing apples and oranges. It doesn't work. It's like saying Michael Jordan was the best basketball player that ever played. Elgin Baylor was pretty damn good. Wilt Chamberlain was pretty studly. How do you compare Jack Nicklaus and Bobby Jones or Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods? You can't do it. Apples and oranges. You've got to find a way to qualify people based on head-to-head competition. That's what golf is all about. Everybody tees it up on Thursday and we're all playing for the same dough. We're playing for the same reasons in the same field. That makes sense to me, right? If Tiger wins a tournament in Europe and Ernie Els wins a tournament in the United States, who had the better week? How are you going to know? I don't know how they figure that. You know, they're both great players and they both won an event. That's the danger in this worldwide Tour. I mean, I think tennis is suffering from that, isn't it? You get two or three or four tennis events worldwide at the same time, and it dilutes the field.

OLIN BROWNE: How about this? How about guys qualifying for a world event based on their performance in another Tour, then counting the world event money toward the American Tour? That happens, too.

OLIN BROWNE: It happened a lot. I mean, I don't know where that's going. I think there's the right idea in place. Everybody is trying to get everybody on the same page. But, you know, it seems like it's becoming a management problem. How do you keep it all under the same roof? How do you keep it under control? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. Any tournament I'm playing in, damn it, that's the one.

OLIN BROWNE: That's my point.

OLIN BROWNE: He played in an era when it wasn't that highly publicized. Basketball has evolved.

OLIN BROWNE: We're under the misimpression that everything that's most recent is the best. You know, I mean, this 50 greatest athletes. Babe Ruth was voted the greatest of the century. They had the same vote of the first 50 years; he finished seventh. Jim Thorpe won.

OLIN BROWNE: He went like four years without losing a match. Because it's out of sight, out of mind, we've forgotten about that. We assume in our arrogance that the most recent stuff is always the best. It's not. You know, it's not.

OLIN BROWNE: Exactly.

OLIN BROWNE: You could look at it in a couple of ways. Correct me if I go the wrong way with this answer. Are you saying because he's only winning by one stroke, he's rising to the occasion to win or he's only winning by one stroke so he's not dominating as much as is apparent?

OLIN BROWNE: I think Tiger -- I think there's than efficiency issue. He's doing what he has to do. I think that's part of the maturation process. He's doing only what needs be done to win the tournament. I think that shows a real grasp of his ability to measure his competition. You know, he has a very, very firm idea what he needs to do to come out on top. I mean, he doesn't need to go for every shot anymore. When he first came out, balls to the wall and everything. Now he's gearing back and he's doing only what it takes. I think that shows a lot of maturity.

OLIN BROWNE: Either that or he's just plain-old lucky, huh (laughter)? I think it's a little better than that.

OLIN BROWNE: I think that if you want to hold events where competitors -- we kind of already have that: The Top 30 on the Money List, Top 20 on the order of merit, three, three, and three, right? I want to be really clear on this. I'm not sure how you fix the world ranking thing. I don't know how you compare a guy who wins in Europe to a guy who wins in the United States or a guy who wins in Japan? How do you make an equitable comparison and give a guy his due value for winning that event? I think it's comparing apples to oranges and opening up a can of worms. Gunning for the all cliche terms here.

OLIN BROWNE: I don't think anybody agrees with me (laughter).

OLIN BROWNE: To qualify to get into the British Open?

OLIN BROWNE: If you target certain events and put enough value at the results of an event, from making it through the qualifier, yes, guys will make more of an effort to appear. I mean, I missed the British Open by one week on either end. I won Colonial before the five in a row, not otherwise eligible. I finished in the Top 50 four days after the cutoff date, which was three weeks or four weeks before the British Open. I missed out on it. I'm crying in my beer here to you right now saying that I slipped through the cracks and I think it sucks. That's life. What are you going to do? But if you set up every year and say we're going to pick 12 events on the American Tour, 12 events on the European Tour, 12 events on the Japanese Tour, not only do you bolster the fields in those events, you get guys to play those events because they have added meaning, right? Then the guys who play the best against the best fields, because everybody who wants to play is going to play, who is eligible, right, then you have a more concrete or more measurable quality of field issue. Then you throw everybody in the hat and you let them play, you know, the two or three events, whatever it is, World Match Play, World Golf Championship, whatever it is you're qualifying for. I don't know, man.

OLIN BROWNE: It depends what they're ultimately trying to do with the World Golf Championships. Are they trying to make the World Golf Championships a marquis series of events that show off the best players in the world? If they're trying to do that, they ought to have absolutely no bearing on our Tour. If they're trying to include those in our Tour, then by the mere fact of holding those events after -- one of them after our Tour is complete, kind of subrogates our Tour to being given secondary status relative to that event. If you want to hold THE TOUR Championship as the be all and end all of our Tour, the Top 30 players, the best players on our Tour, you don't want to have anything else affect it, you've got to switch the dates. I don't know what's in HQ's minds on that. I know that there are issues that I don't know about that you guys don't know about, that none of us know about it. I don't know if it's backroom stuff or what. Those World Golf Championships carry a certain amount of international value, and they also carry value, because of, that to our Tour. Now, in the next couple years, whatever that is is going to shake out, things are going to be better-defined. If you want one event to be the be all and end all, you can't have something for $5 million afterwards that affects the eventual outcome of the Money List. I think that's clear.

OLIN BROWNE: No, I declined.

OLIN BROWNE: I've been on it for three years. That's enough. Longer lunch periods, no more math classes. That's about what it amounts to (laughter). That's not my quote. I'll credit that one to my brother. Right on target. Have I ranted and raved long enough?

OLIN BROWNE: Sure.

OLIN BROWNE: I'm okay with it. I think the Tour has taken it through whatever legal channels they feel are appropriate. However it shakes out is going to be -- you know, that's the basis for our judgment. I think Casey is a good man. He's earned a spot. He'd have a huge advantage on a course like this or a course like Castle Pines. When people say he doesn't have an advantage because he has this problem with his leg. If given everybody equal footing were the case in golf, they ought to tee me off on the ladies' tee when I'm playing against Tiger. I'd play the same golf course he plays, then we'll see who's the best.

OLIN BROWNE: Yeah. I it was a big issue before. I think everybody's has pretty much resigned to the fact that, you know, it's gone through whatever legal channels it's gone through. You know, there's -- if the ruling is that Casey can ride a cart, all the bitching in the world doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Casey has earned his right. I think he's welcome with open arms out here. I'm going to catch a ride with him in the practice round, if I can.

OLIN BROWNE: Hell, no.

OLIN BROWNE: No. We get to ride at Vegas, too. I'll tell you what, walking back from the range is the easy part; walking up to it is the hard part. You did all the work. It's a great course. I'll tell you what, it kills you, absolutely kills you. Can't wait till next week where it's flat. You walk up to the tee about that high, that's the limit of it. If you have to climb out of a bunker, those are the hills next week.

OLIN BROWNE: What should the Tour do? I'm sure that Casey will appeal the appeal. He'll probably get an junction and injunction and get to ride.

OLIN BROWNE: About being magnanimous and letting Casey ride anyway?

OLIN BROWNE: I don't think that will be unreasonable.

OLIN BROWNE: I think the Tour is protecting its interests. I think that everybody who has a bad back or a sprained ankle or whatever would want to ride a cart. There are plenty of guys out here who don't like the treadmill. I happen to be one of them. I would love to take a ride up some of those hills. I'd love to have a ride from the green on No. 8 at Castle Pines to the tee. It's about 60 yards. I'm telling you, by the time you get to the tee, you're crawling. But I think a big part of this game --

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