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EDS BYRON NELSON CHAMPIONSHIP


May 12, 2004


David Feherty


IRVING, TEXAS

TONY MARGOLIS: It is with a great deal of excitement and pleasure that I get to announce that Tommy Bahama, The Purveyor of Island Lifestyles, will be the title sponsor of a new and somewhat unique PGA TOUR-sanctioned event, the Tommy Bahama Challenge. We are proud not only to be associated with the PGA TOUR but with CBS Sports that will be televising the event.

The golf community has been very supportive of the Tommy Bahama brand, and it is our pleasure to return that support with an event that recognizes the best young talent in the world of golf today. I'm going to take this opportunity now to turn it back to Terry to give you the details of that event. Thank you all.

TERRY JASTROW: My name is Terry Jastrow. I will be hosting this press announcement today, and first of all, we'd like to thank you all very much for your time and attention to this. We are announcing a new event that will be on the PGA TOUR. Jastrow Productions and Gaylord Sports Management, along with our partner Tommy Bahama, the PGA TOUR and CBS Sports will be making this announcement today.

The president and CEO of Tommy Bahama, Tony Margolis, actually made his announcement earlier because they are literally on a plane for Shanghai as a matter of fact, but Julia Jackson, who is senior management at Tommy Bahama, will be here for questions and answers. I'd like to give you a bit of an overview about the event and then Henry Hughes will speak from the PGA TOUR and then we'll hear from other senior management of the entities involved.

The Tommy Bahama challenge is actually an international team competition, and it will feature play of four young American players defined by the PGA TOUR as aged 30 and younger. We're essentially targeting young guns, great young players. So there will be four American players on the USA team. They will be in competition against four international players, again, aged 30 and younger. They will play in four individual 18-hole stroke play matches, so you have four players on each team, and they will be paired in 18-hole stroke play matches with one point available in each match. In the case of a tie, there is a rather interesting and unique process for a playoff that we'll get to in just a bit.

So with that, I think I should introduce the first of the speakers with me, Senior Vice President and Chief of Operations for the PGA TOUR, an old friend, Mr. Henry Hughes.

HENRY HUGHES: Thank you, Terry. On behalf of the TOUR, obviously we're excited to have a new relationship involving Tammy Bahama. We were talking earlier, to the best of our knowledge, this might be the first time we've had an apparel company as a title sponsor of one of our events, so we're excited to cross that bridge, as well.

The change in season presents some great opportunities for us to showcase our players in a different light, different formats, different numbers of players, and we think this one is truly unique in the fact that it is targeted as our younger players, 30 years old and younger, and representing a team competition from both the U.S. and outside the U.S.

I think it's important to mention, the way these players are being selected also brings a unique perk to the tournament, and that is we have two players on the American team off the Money List through the World Golf Championships- NEC-Invitational, and then we have two players on the international team off the World Ranking. In addition to that, there's a selection process involving all the entities that Terry just mentioned, selecting two sponsor exemptions to fulfill those teams.

Also, the other situation that's a little bit different is in the event of a playoff, we have a unique format where the captains are going to take all members of their teams, all four members to the teams, to the first playoff hole, select an order of play. One player will hit a tee shot, another play will hit the next shot, so on, through the four players, until we have a winner by the teams. Obviously if we need to go to the second hole we'll have the same format.

Working with Terry and his game and the Gaylord people, we're looking forward to a tremendous event and the comments among our young players are excited to play in this. They don't know all the details before today, but they're excited to hear about it and it's very important for us to showcase these young players. Thank you to Tammy Bahama and thank you to Terry and Steve for putting it together and we're looking forward to having a great round.

TERRY JASTROW: All of us will be available for a Q and A at the end if needed. We're very pleased that our network broadcast partner is CBS Sports, probably the preeminent broadcaster of PGA TOUR events, and with us today is the senior vice president in charge of program planning, Mr. Rob Correa.

ROB CORREA: Thank you. We'd like to thank the TOUR and Tommy Bahama for getting this on the air. We're going to tape the event November 9th, so we have six weeks to complete it before we air it on New Year's day, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Obviously it's an interesting format, it's a different format, and from the parochial CBS viewpoint, it's something that can expose young players, young up-and-coming players, which I hope we will all benefit from.

Really the interesting hook for us in this event is that it's going to air on New Year's Day, which has traditionally been one of the highest if not the highest viewership days of the year on television.

With the Bowl Championship Series moving a lot of their games, which they've started doing the last five years, to other days, we think that New Year's Day is really wide open for golf. I looked it up and there has not been much golf on New Year's day, if any, in the past ten years, and while we'll still have college football competition, none of the big games are on New Year's Day with the exception of the Rose Bowl, which is about a 5:00 o'clock start, and we're going to be done at 4:00 o'clock. So that's really the hook for us.

I think it's going to be really a great experiment, and again, the combination of a lot of people watching TV that day and us really giving the viewer an alternative to football I think is going to really make this a successful event for us. Thank you.

TERRY JASTROW: The event will be played at the Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona. I don't know how many of you have played it, but it's one of America's great facilities and we're very proud to be here. With us today to have a word is the captain of the Grayhawk Golf Club, Mr. Del Cochran.

DEL COCHRAN: Thank you, Terry. This is Grayhawk's tenth anniversary. We couldn't think of a better way to celebrate our tenth anniversary than with Tommy Bahama and CBS Sports and the PGA TOUR. When Grayhawk was started 12 or 13 years ago, the dream was to do what we want, how we want, when we want, and what we think is best for golf. We think this type of event is really good for golf and for the game, and if you can't spend life as one long weekend at the golf course, where can you spend it?

So we're very happy to be a part of it. We're looking forward to working with Terry and Coach, and with the exception of -- well, sorry, can't mention those other guys at the moment, but there are going to be some interesting characters. On behalf of Grayhawk, we'll have some fun.

TERRY JASTROW: Del, we'll be playing the Fazio-designed course there, won't we?

DEL COCHRAN: Yes, Raptor. We do have 36 holes, Talon and Raptor, and we will play Raptor, which is a Tom Fazio design. We'll probably play it as a par-70, which we did for the Williams World Challenge when we hosted that a few years back. It will be challenging. The weather will be perfect, I'll be in charge of the sun, knock on wood, and we'll have some fun with it. Raptor course, thank you for reminding me.

TERRY JASTROW: On behalf of Jastrow Productions and Gaylord Sports Management and Tommy Bahama, Grayhawk Golf Club, the TOUR and CBS Sports, I'd like to announce the team captains. You can get an idea of the sort of personality of the event when you understand who the captains are.

It is our great pleasure to announce as the captain of the international team, Mr. David Feherty, and the captain of the U.S. team, Mr. Gary McCord. If you gentlemen would step forward, and the format here is that David will have a word first about the event, then Gary, and then they'll each introduce the first player on their team.

DAVID FEHERTY: Thank you, Terry, and thank you, Del, as well. If you can't spend a long weekend at the golf club enjoying yourself, well then you've been with CBS for the last three weeks, I'll tell you that. You want to talk about a long weekend. If you're in charge of the sun, do you mind if we just borrow you for the rest of the season?

It's supposed to be age before beauty. This is the way this thing is going to shape up, I guarantee it. He and I pretty much fought over the last few years for who is the alpha male in the group, and it turns out there isn't one (laughter).

Personally I'm looking forward to the opportunity to, first of all, be in charge of anything because it's never really happened to me before (laughter) and particularly now that I get the chance to at least order people around. I'm very, very low on the food chain here, and pretty much all the crappy jobs I get, so it's really nice to get a nice one in November in Scottsdale, close to somewhere where there's quail hunting. That's me.

GARY McCORD: An Irish man with a gun. I'd like to say that this is, for me personally, fantastic because through life you like to do things with friends. David is a very good friend, albeit we won't be on November the 9th. This will not be like Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus as captains I'm going to guess, okay, but it's nice to have.

DAVID FEHERTY: There will be no tie. The eventual aim, I think we should at least try to manufacture it into some kind of a draw where not only do we go to the four-man playoff where we line everybody up on the first tee but if there's a tie, as well, then you and I have to square off topless.

GARY McCORD: We have six weeks to edit that, but I still don't think that would work.

This will be quite interesting as you can conceive. This is going to be a lot of fun. David and I are not out there to watch these guys hit good golf shots and stuff. We will be taunting, mostly each other. There will be taunting. That's allowed. We're going to put a different bend on the concept of captains because we basically are both idiots and we shouldn't captain an absolutely sunk ship I wouldn't think.

I doubt that any of our players are going to listen to anything we say.

DAVID FEHERTY: Extremely unlikely.

GARY McCORD: David and I will be over in the corner having a beer. That's how I look at my captaincy.

DAVID FEHERTY: And the teams, also, under 30.

GARY McCORD: We have a chance to get Tiger Woods. He's under 30. I just thought I'd mention that.

DAVID FEHERTY: But he'd be on your side, so that would be a bad idea. Adam Scott, Justin Rose, Paul Casey, I mean, personally, I think that I'm way in front to start off with here. Sergio Garcia, if we can get Sergio on board and make it seem somewhat attractive and only show his good shots. Already I'm screwing my team. This is not going to work the more I think about it.

GARY McCORD: David would like to retract that last statement if he could.

DAVID FEHERTY: My first player is Paul Casey. He's actually in Brighton at the moment.

GARY McCORD: Do you know what he did the other day? I go play our golf course, he's a member, and I go and get my shoes, the only shoes I've got there, well, he wrote on them --

DAVID FEHERTY: This man has more shoes than Imelda Marcos.

GARY McCORD: He wrote on my shoes, "we will win," signed Paul. Already he's starting.

DAVID FEHERTY: Excellent. That's my boy.

GARY McCORD: Very good player.

DAVID FEHERTY: And your first player?

GARY McCORD: I have a lot of things on Paul Casey. I can get to him.

My first player is Chad Campbell. I told him, starting now, you're a totally different player. He's a good player right now, isn't he? He's out practicing, doing something to enhance his ability to hit a golf ball. So as Terry said, we've got two picks apiece. I doubt you and I are going to be on any kind of committee to pick. I don't think they want us involved in that.

DAVID FEHERTY: We do have input actually along with the sponsors. We have input as to who we would like to see on our teams. Chad Campbell and Shaun Micheel are the same person, so you can actually have five.

GARY McCORD: So I can have a first alternate. I'm thinking Zach Johnson, young kid, pretty good. This is going to be fun because I refuse to lose to you because I don't want to hear taunting from you after losing.

DAVID FEHERTY: If you recall, I've never lost to you. Never.

GARY McCORD: We've actually never played golf together. I've known you seven years and we've never played golf together.

We probably should open it up to questions.

TERRY JASTROW: So any questions for David or Gary or the Tour or CBS Sports or us? Any questions?

Q. As far as making your picks, I mean, is it determined by who you actually like or who you can actually get?

GARY McCORD: Two guys, our criteria, go right down the list until we get those two guys to play from the Money List, and then the last two will be picks.

DAVID FEHERTY: Mine are the two highest under 30 in the World Rankings and his are the two highest under 30 on the U.S. Money List.

Q. Are you going to tell them that you're actually the captains of the team?

DAVID FEHERTY: We were hoping to keep that under wraps.

GARY McCORD: We'll just tell them the weather is nice that time of year.

Q. Any truth to the rumor that this is your apprenticeship for a Ryder Cup captaincy?

DAVID FEHERTY: There's as much chance of seeing me as a captain as there was Monty picking me for his assistant (laughter). It's a little less than likely. I'll be at the Ryder Cup, but the way I behave at the Ryder Cup these days is much better now that I'm not there in an official capacity. We're fans, too.

Q. Question for Terry actually. Was there any thought given to having these two play one round for a point?

GARY McCORD: Be careful with this.

TERRY JASTROW: The idea was to create an event for the first time that would actually and showcase just young guns. By TOUR definition, it's aged 30 and younger. We thought that David and Gary might be more effective with a whip on their team as opposed to actually playing.

DAVID FEHERTY: McCord in the same place as me with a whip. Next thing you'll be in his wardrobe bringing all the other things he owns, the latex...

GARY McCORD: Stop right there.

Q. Just the fact that this is promoting young guns, what do you think about this under-30 group? Remember last year at the Masters, Arnold said that he didn't think -- he said they're really good players but he didn't think there was a lot of passion, the guys having as much fun. What do you think about the 20-somethings?

GARY McCORD: Any time the money goes up, there is less passion visually from the guys because they're choking their guts out. We used to play in the 70s, there wasn't a whole lot of money, you had fun, you went out at night because you'd go screw around. You're playing for this kind of money, $5 million a week, you'd better be focused, you'd better be in the gym and doing all that stuff. That passion I think comes with personality. Everybody said there's no personalities. These guys are focused on what they're doing; they're playing for their life and trying to win some money.

The old days you had a lot of passion, not a whole lot of money. Right now you'd better pay attention or you're out of there real quick.

DAVID FEHERTY: I don't remember the 70s or most of the 80s, as well. I think there are still a lot of characters out there.

I think television has changed it a little bit, as well. This is an opportunity to develop these youngsters a little bit or at least give the general public some kind of an idea that they are still out there. I have a lot of fun out there on the golf course with these guys when I'm down on the ground, but it doesn't come over on camera because we're showing a lot of golf shots, bang bang, not staying in one place for any length of time in order to allow us to develop that because we've got a bunch of other golf shots to show. This is a different event and a chance to look at eight of probably the most exciting young players in the world, and we'll have a laugh, too, believe me.

Q. Do you mind explaining to everyone what Bob and Tony think about the amount of golf and the amount of other types of things in the broadcast? I thought that was kind of interesting, as well.

TERRY JASTROW: Right, the idea is that this is not going to be your garden-variety golf telecast as you can already tell. It airs on New Year's Day, and the sets in use are a household term, hot levels. Household use of televisions is extremely high on that day. The golf is only going to be the centerpiece to what is going to amalgamate the telecast. There will be lots of activity and a pro/celebrity outing the day before and fairly significant entertainment in the evening, as well, with some big-time entertainment, although we're not available to announce it.

The Grayhawk guys say that it's a PGA TOUR event disguised as a party or a party disguised as a PGA TOUR event. When we take just the golf, it's not a question of just the shot but the people playing it and the personality. We really want to try to get the coverage inside the ropes and have it -- because we are not live, we are on tape, where we can have that interface and that by-play between the players themselves, the players and captains and the captains together, which is going to be much more the focus of the telecast than not just necessarily the shot-by-shot development. It should be a telecast that will be very entertaining and worthwhile for golfers but also something that people would find entertaining to watch.

Q. Either one of you guys, since you don't have a lot of captaining experience, are either one of you going to call someone for expertise and advice other than the guys from the Exxon Valdez (laughter)?

GARY McCORD: Tom Kite, Lanny Wadkins, Curtis Strange for starters.

We should get one phone call, one lifeline, one guy on your list, and you could call him and --

DAVID FEHERTY: That's not a bad idea actually.

GARY McCORD: I've got one, David has got one.

DAVID FEHERTY: What would Phil do, yeah. We should each get one phone call to Phil.

Q. I was wondering, why stroke play versus match play?

TERRY JASTROW: The reason why stroke play is because we wanted the event to make its way through to the 18th hole, and obviously a match play event might not do that. We also wanted to try to get an actual score for all eight players because there will be a prize, a trophy and money awarded to the single low net score. Those are the two or three reasons.

DAVID FEHERTY: Low net score, Terry?

TERRY JASTROW: Low individual 18-hole score. Gross I should say.

DAVID FEHERTY: I guess Tiger had a 5 handicap last week.

Q. There's a lot of straight golf on TV, tournament golf. Do you think we're going to see more of this, golf with entertainment, golf as a TV show?

DAVID FEHERTY: This may be the make-or-break point, who knows.

Q. In general are we going to see more entertainment vehicles for golf and maybe less tournament golf?

GARY McCORD: This time of year, without a doubt, this is the season for having golf tournaments with special formats. You'd better entertain this time of the year. It's about having some fun, showing these guys, guys that some people might not know, David and I screwing around and having a good time, and making it entertainment. That's really what it is.

DAVID FEHERTY: It cannot be painful. It's on New Year's day so there will be a bunch of people watching that aren't feeling very well (laughter).

Q. It's probably going to change your New Year's Eve?

GARY McCORD: I doubt it.

DAVID FEHERTY: I'm probably one of those people.

TERRY JASTROW: We thank you, David and Gary. Thank you very much. Thank you all very much for your time. We appreciate it.

End of FastScripts.

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