U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 27, 2000

Terry Laurent

Tim Moraghan

TIM MORAGHAN: From the USGA perspective, coming off the Pebble Beach and how successful we were out there in every aspect of the Open Championship, we rolled right into another great championship. The folks here at Saucon Valley - this is my third championship here - and my crew of the USGA, not only have we been treated exceptionally well by the community and the members and the club officials, but the golf course has always been in immaculate condition whether I come to play golf with Terry in the off-season, or we are hosting some of the best players in the world. It really, really is an immaculately conditioned golf course. Membership should be very proud to have Terry in their employ, and the players should be extremely happy to be here this week. I have not seen a better overall conditioned golf course in quite some time. From all appearances, we should be really good. I could make one prediction this week, and that is Tiger Woods will not win this week. So from that, I think the most important guy here is Terry, and you should ask Terry how he feels about this great spot.

TERRY LAURENT: I am not sure what I want to say here, but I appreciate those words, Tim. All I can say is Saucon Valley is very happy to have the USGA here, the Senior Open for our second time here. As far as the course goes, if we don't have any problems with Mother Nature, which it doesn't look like it is going to hold up - we lucked out twice now - I think today, it doesn't look as good or as promising, but who knows. But if we can keep it firm, I think we will give it a pretty good whirl this year; at least Thursday, Friday, Saturday -- I think we are expecting more showers Saturday. The men have been working extremely hard trying to prepare. Things got extremely hectic about a week ago with everybody coming in at one time, and sort of distracts as you little bit. But we pulled it together, and I am very proud of our team that we have here, because they did a gentlemen's job of preparing it and getting it to the conditions that we have right now.

TIM MORAGHAN: Not really, Les. I think the basic principles are the same. We have to establish fairway widths across. Tom Meeks comes in a little earlier do that. Mike Davis is still going to do his things with the administrative aspect of the event. From a playing standpoint, try to play the golf course as the architect intended. We are going to base green speeds on contour and grass type. The event being played, if you are familiar with the golf course, there are some severely undulating greens here with some pitch, so we are going to have to be a little careful there. The only major difference is the rough. We have a little different competitor, and our rough is about three inches where we were four inches at Pebble Beach. Again, the philosophy of showing the players the ball -- I think Lee Westwood said it best last week in that it tells you to try to go for the putting surface instead of just completely eliminating any kind of recovery. And I think that is a good move on our championship committee's behalf, and trying to display the talent that is out there. So to make a long story hopefully a little shorter, no, it is just a couple of little items. Basically green speed and rough height.

TIM MORAGHAN: Three to four -- three and a half. It is mown every evening. I think Terry has the motor set at three and a half. Again, we are going to keep it that way throughout the week for just a competitor standpoint as far as having them execute shots. Then of course, with the weather concerns we are having, if we were to skip a day or two, and then with a heavy shower, not being able to get heavy equipment out on the golf course without doing damage, grass is probably growing at a decent rate right now, and we won't want to embarrass anybody out there.

TERRY LAURENT: 1992 really hasn't been a lot of changes. Fairway-wise, we narrowed up No. 6, the par 5. Brought it in about six yards. We enlarged about seven greens, here again, probably just two to three yards in some locations. Wasn't very much. I think we can get a couple good pin positions by doing that, though, from what I have seen so far. We just rebuilt the 18th tee, which we are still having a little problem with because of agronomic reasons. It is a little shade area, and it is a little difficult when it gets wet with the weather. We have been having cool, wet weather, no sun. It is a little tough to grow some grass back up in that corner. So that is the one area that we are having problems with right now. But hopefully we can at least use it a couple of days. That was pretty much it.

TERRY LAURENT: We really haven't -- fairway widths haven't changed. They are identical to what the membership plays them at day in and day out. Other than what I said before, No. 6 was narrowed up. Definitely rough height is different. Mowing them three and a half now; membership usually plays it at two and a half. Intermediate cut is always -- has been set around inch and a half, and/or inch and a quarter. I guess we are mowing them right now. Definitely green speeds are different right now. Of course, we are right around about 10 and a half on the stimpmeter and normal play for membership here, we try to -- generally try to keep it right around nine foot, six inches and we did narrow up - I guess we did narrow up the intermediate cut right around the greens; we usually have a six foot intermediate cut. We have narrowed it up to three foot for the Open. But other than that, that is about the only change we really have.

TERRY LAURENT: Membership plays it at 3/8 of an inch try to do that all year long. Normal cutting height is about eighth of an inch on our greens, tees are always cut at 3/8. Rough is probably about the biggest difference.

TERRY LAURENT: That is a good question. I think it is our par 4 -- a couple of our par 4s. I think the greens really add -- that is the brunt of the golf course, I think, if you can putt here, you will do well. And I mean, everything else is pretty straightforward here. You can pretty much -- there is very few blind tee shots here. There is a couple of them, but I mean, once you have played the course, you know where you have to hit it. It has got to be the greens. There is no question about it.

TERRY LAURENT: That is difficult sometimes. Mother Nature obviously plays -- is the big question or -- actually I am looking for a word here, but it definitely -- we can control -- if we can control the weather, we can do a lot of things with the greens. If we can't -- if Mother Nature doesn't allow us to do that, then it becomes a little more difficult; then we try to do several things. We mow more. We may roll. We mow several times a day. There are some regulations that you can put on the grass to help suppress the growth, which we haven't done here. I would like not to, if I can. Even if we would try do that now, probably won't kick in until after the Championship was over with. Right now it is just basically, if Mother Nature starts dumping on us right now, we will try to control the speeds with the cuttings and the amount of rolls that we can get.

TIM MORAGHAN: I have been asked that in a lot of different ways and how we, as an organization, feel and how I feel about it personally. Speaking on behalf of the United States Golf Association, we couldn't be happier. I think we identified the best player on the planet two weeks ago. That is our goal each year with the U.S. Open. I think Mr. Woods helped us along a little bit with his exceptional play, but he clearly stood head and shoulders above the rest of the field. Not only does he intimidate the field through his ability, but just his presence. I think Ernie Els standing on the first tee on Sunday afternoon, I think Mr. Els was capable of going out and shooting 65 or 64, but the aura of Tiger Woods may have taken that right out of the charts for him. We were extremely happy. We think the best player won the National Open. It doesn't discourage us at all. It doesn't discourage us at all in our setup philosophy. You set the golf course up to play at its strength, which I think we did last week, and as I have said before, Tiger not only outsmarted Pebble Beach, but he outmuscled it as well. He deserved to win and get all the credit for that. From a personal standpoint, you know, I couldn't be happier. I think it was a real treat to watch, you know, it is something that, you know, like watching Hank Aaron hit home runs or Bart Star throw passes. It was just great to watch the best player do -- he can do so well. From a setup philosophy, I don't think we need to have a Tiger Woods' factor. People are asking me, you know, are you going to have to set up a golf course for Tiger Woods. If we set it up to make it hard for Tiger Woods, we will probably only have one guy to set up and play. Because I don't think the rest of the field will want to come out. Again you go back to setting up the golf course for its strength and as I have always said, the USGA feels par is the ideal score to make on a hole being played. If someone goes out and makes 18 birdies in a row, well, that is pretty darn good. We really don't care. So I don't think it is going to change anything. I think it is great that it happened. As I said, it wasn't how many -- or when he was going to win, it was how many he was going to win, and you know, sky is the limit for Mr. Woods.

TERRY LAURENT: That is very possible. In previous years we didn't do a lot of fertility in the roughs and with new products coming out on to market, we have gone along with a lot of fertilizer with pre-emergent controls for crab grass and that sort of thing, so along with that, we sustained or got some of those additional benefits by using those kind of products and which allowed us to thicken our rough a little bit over the years. So eight years ago, yeah, they are probably right, it is thicker probably now than it was back then.

TIM MORAGHAN: Not to take any thunder away, but the ability of the golf course superintendent to recognize the entire piece of property, I think as this profession has evolved, you know, I think early on the primary focus was on putting greens; then teeing and fairways, but now the pride and expertise in the golf course superintendent is to get the entire property in as perfect conditions as possible. When given the tools, which Saucon Valley has done for Terry, where he has the equipment, the budget and the labor, you are hard-pressed to find any flaws out there. So every area of the golf course is now elevated even more, so, yes, the rough would probably be better. It is thicker, but it also is a direct -- Terry is directly responsible for that happening. So it is better. The overall product becomes better every year.

TERRY LAURENT: Well, it sort of goes back to the greens again. There is some holes if you are above the hole, especially at the speeds that I am sure we are going to be at, it is best that you are below them and not above them. And holes No. 11, 16 and 15 too, those three are going to be probably, I think, will be one of the keys possibly to the tournament because of the ball position.

TERRY LAURENT: I never seen anybody get hole 6 in two. I understood that Jim Dent maybe came close back in 1992 and I thought maybe he came close on 12 too, but I don't know -- I haven't been out there much to see if anybody has come close or so far in the practice rounds, but I haven't seen anybody yet.

TIM MORAGHAN: I don't know if that is something they want to do, having played the golf ball when you get up around the putting green, the penalties increase and at 570 plus yards, yeah, some of these guys can hit it 300 yards and going back to the condition of the fairways, these are absolutely pristine fairways when, if dry, is going to add a little something to the ball roll. Now if we continue to have the humidity and have some rain instance, it is going to decrease the ball roll a little bit. But anything is possible. These guys are pretty good too.

TIM MORAGHAN: I'd like to say even par because, as I said, par is the ideal score, but I think the weather is going to play a little bit of a factor in here. We are a little soft because of recent rains and humidity and given the precise lie they are going to have on the fairway, Bob (Bubka), these guys will be able to put a little juice on the ball I would say 6- to 8-under right now would be an adeal score for a win.

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