U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 17, 1994

Judy Bell

LES UNGER: Signs have been put up about possible weather outside. Judy may get a phone call or two. Judy Bell is the vice-president of you the United States Golf Association and chairman of the Championship Committee. We told her that there were many questions being asked about pace of play and we might as well hear about it from our number one authority.

JUDY BELL: Any questions I will be happy to address.

Q. Judy, was the first group yesterday timed, were they ever warned about slow play and if they were not, how come?

JUDY BELL: I believe that they were warned, as you might say; whether they got into the timing mode, I am not absolutely certain. I was on the other side of the golf course. But we certainly were watching it. It is a very big concern for us and we would like to have a solution to this. So specifically, you know, what you have heard from the players, extremely difficult greens, causing people to take a lot of time. It is also the difficulty of the rough. And the weather. Seems to me that all the championships that I have seen, any time we get into a weather situation, strong winds, heat, that kind of thing, it slows things down. That is not -- I am not trying to shove the blame to that sort of thing, because believe me, we would like to -- if there was something we can do to make this work, we would love to. We would like to see people play faster. We think it is more fun; good for the game and it is healthy.

Q. Were any other groups other than the first group warned about slow play?

JUDY BELL: Yes. Yes, they were, throughout the day. I don't have specifics on that. I mean, I can get that for you, but yes. They now with walking officials. We hope that having an official with each group that it would help us be on top of this. We will -- it would be more effective. I can't say that we have been effective, but. . . .

Q. Do you have the authority to assess penalty strokes with slow play and if so, why haven't you done that?

JUDY BELL: Well, we have. We certainly have the authority and we have a procedure which we go through that is involving timing -- the lengths of time it takes you to play, but also the relationship you have with the group ahead. And certain things have to happen and then you have to have so many bad times in order to be assessed a penalty. I think we have a pace of play sheet, outside, don't we?

LES UNGER: I am not --

JUDY BELL: We should. We will get it to you. Anyway, there are certain specific things spelled out then. There are penalties, the players know that. But it is a bit like, you know, a traffic jam. I mean, you can't play through if there isn't room. I mean, you can't move and once you get in one of these sort of log jams, we have all seen it. We have watched it for years. It doesn't unravel.

Q. Judy, you say the USGA is concerned. Players say they are concerned. The Tour says they are concerned. Everybody is in consensus, but nobody seems to want to pull the trigger. Doesn't it take action in order to correct the problem and not concern?

JUDY BELL: I agree with that. I think, too, that it takes continuing looking at the system. Is the system right? Is the procedures -- do we have the best procedures in place? That is something we got to review because we have certain steps, you know, you don't want to be trigger happy, but you want to take action when things aren't in line. But the guidelines that we spell out -- everybody is agreement with it; that it is a problem. Have we found the solution? Not yet. But what we got to do is keep working on it. We can't give up on this.

Q. Judy, do you have any specific numbers from yesterday, average time for a round or anything?

JUDY BELL: I don't. I could probably -- I could find that out.

LES UNGER: If you want that, we will go find that.

Q. You had talked about the procedure that you need to do before you would assess a penalty. Were any of those procedures enacted or initiated yesterday and --

JUDY BELL: Since players were notified that they are out of position and they are behind the time, their time allotment, I am using these words, time allotted because we have assigned minutes it takes to play a hole, that kind of thing, and then you have to collect so many bad times on a player after he has been told that he is going to be timed; we got to that level, but we never got enough bad times on a player to assess the penalty. And all these procedures are to keep, you know, to be fair, frankly, and to not have anyone trigger happy and just be fair across the board.

Q. Do you feel that the procedures need to be modified to maybe make it more possible for you to do something because obviously they react since you were not able to assess anybody --

JUDY BELL: Do I personally, yes, I think we need to review what we are doing, but we got to ultimately be fair to the players. That doesn't mean necessarily lenient. It means fair. So you have to have certain procedures. We just can't arbitrarily go out there and say, bang, I mean, two shots; that is not it. I mean ...

Q. What are the different levels of penalties or is it just one, two shot penalty and that is it?

JUDY BELL: Well, we have never had to go, you know, any further -- at times when we have penalized players, that is all it has been.

Q. When was the last time?

JUDY BELL: I should know this.

Q. Bob Impaglia, Cherry Hills, was the last guy to get slapped with two at the U.S. Open.

JUDY BELL: We have had penalties since then. That is correct, but we have had -- I will get that for you. Since I have been on the committee we have.

Q. At the Open?

JUDY BELL: I think -- I will tell you where it was. I it was at the first year I was on the championship -- I mean, on the executive committee. It was at Olympic Club in San Francisco and I believe it was Sam Rudolph, but we need to look that up. I am sorry.

Q. Don't I remember that there was a two stoke penalty assessed and then was overruled by the executive committee?

JUDY BELL: That was many years ago.

Q. Do you have the same executive committee that can overrule again?

JUDY BELL: No. No. It is a different committee. There is a rules committee that would have that say so, but with these procedures, I can't imagine that would happen.

Q. So there is no appeal?

JUDY BELL: I just can't imagine if there is an appeal process, you bet. Yes, there is an appeal process, but I can't imagine that with the procedures we had in place and the way it is tracked and with the timing charts, and everything that is done, that there -- that it wouldn't stand. If the data was collected properly, that is it, see, that is -- if the data is collected properly.

LES UNGER: Anybody who has a specific question that we can look up for you, we will be pleased to do that if you would let me know after this is over with Miss Bell's approval.

JUDY BELL: Sure.

LES UNGER: Thank you for your time and attention.

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