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VOLVO MASTERS


October 29, 2006


George O'Grady


SOTOGRANDE, SPAIN: Final Round

GORDON SIMPSON: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's very nice to see everyone, so many of the media from all over Europe, and also we have a contingent from Asia this week which is very appropriate with Jeev Milkha Singh leading the tournament after three rounds.

It's become a tradition that we have this get-together on the Sunday morning of the Volvo Masters at Valderrama. It's good to see Jimmy Patino here with us as well, and George O'Grady, the Executive Director of The European Tour is going to kick off proceedings, and we'll have a question and answer session after George has said a few words. George, take it away.

GEORGE O'GRADY: Thank you very much for the invitation to join you this morning at the end of a very successful season for The European Tour, and I'm at your service.

Q. Show us something.

GEORGE O'GRADY: I will, I'm here at request, if there are any questions. And when I say very successful, I mean very successful. There's many different highlights which most of the time I read in your newspapers. The Ryder Cup dominates, but the strength of the Tour, there's so many highlights; if I started, it would be hard to stop.

We have announced next year's schedule earlier than ever before in the face of the competition that we have from the PGA Tour. It's a very, very strong schedule for next year. It's got some very big peaks in certain key parts of the season. We're playing our field to our strengths, which is the vastness of developing talent across The European Tour. Firstly in Europe, secondly in all the countries we visit, and never more so is it demonstrated as today with an Indian golfer leading the Volvo Masters going into the last day.

What gives me particular pleasure is the strength of The Challenge Tour, which is now I think going to so many new areas on better golf courses in better condition and tougher golf courses preparing players to come on to the main tour. Marc Warren, who won the Challenge Tour last year, having won the Scandinavian Masters this year shows the strength and depth that we have.

I think it was about eight years ago when we received a question here: Where is the next English golfer coming from. I think we have 12 in the Top-100 in the world now, and they are amongst the favourites wherever they play. I think the same has been asked of Scotland, and now Marc Warren is coming through here. Here in Spain, there's increasing talent. I think the great Canizares name is coming to the fore again with Alejandro winning the Russian Open.

I think I received many questions last year on ladies in golf and I think I referred to a young Spanish girl who has won everything in sight, I believe in the last year, Carlotta Ciganda, if that's the right pronunciation. As we've said before, The European Tour has an open door policy. We evaluate all initiatives that come to us, but we do actually care about the individuals and what is the right way forward for them. And I think that is the policy of the executives, and it's certainly the policy of our players as well.

Is that sufficient?

GORDON SIMPSON: We'll open to questions.

Q. While you're on that particular subject about the Spanish girls and Michelle Wie, I think you were quoted as saying after Switzerland that that might be that as far as inviting her, and yet the president of Omega said, well, she'll be coming back next year. Have you discussed it?

GEORGE O'GRADY: Had lunch with the president of Omega at Wentworth recently, and we both agreed we will do what is in the best

interests of everybody concerned, and that includes Michelle Wie. And my own personal view on whether playing a 16-year-old girl on a course like that, which the top professionals tell me you need to have length and have a very powerful short game where you can really spin the ball hard to get around Crans-sur-Sierre isn't really in her best interests.

Q. So it's not certain that she will be playing next year.

GEORGE O'GRADY: I think he's listened to my opinion.

Q. Can I ask, about this time last year, we were talking rather more theoretically than we are now about the effect of the FedEx and the race and all that. Now we know exactly the dates, and you have probably talked I'm sure a lot to the leading players. What is your feeling on the 29th of October on the effect it will have on you next year in terms of losing players?

GEORGE O'GRADY: I think if you look at schedule we put out, we have some very strong tournaments straight after the Tour Championship next year. If a professional golfer plays all the FedEx series and the Tour Championship, my instinct will be, he'd be quite tired. I think you already see that now with Tiger Woods, who I believe may or may not be contesting the Tour Championship next week. It is a lot to take out.

I don't feel The European Tour is about always having to have certain players or every one of the players all the time. We are developing talent all the time. Many felt we wouldn't have good tournaments against the FedEx series. I put it to you now that the ones against the FedEx series are very, very good golf tournaments, but we are developing even bigger golf tournaments after they finish. No one really knows how successful the FedEx series will be. It's a tremendous way forward for the PGA Tour. They have different pressures to us. They have to fight with football, basketball, baseball, hockey league, and the American ratings war, which for them is very strong, because American networks drive the business. And this is business we're talking about now.

I think the strength -- we feel we are playing to our strengths. Wherever we go in the world we deal with governments now; we deal with tourists' boards. We're becoming increasingly I'd like to think in the drive to make The European Tour a sustainable operating business, I feel we're on our way to becoming a business of influence.

Q. The Volvo Masters, the contract finishes next year in 2007, and I would like to know if conversations are going on to stage it at Valderrama, and if it will go for maybe another two or three years.

GEORGE O'GRADY: You're correct, and there's one more year of a contract at Valderrama. Discussions are taking place as we speak. It's the wish of the president of Valderrama that we continue here and we are invited. I think it is certainly the mission of Volvo and the Junta to keep it here.

I have spoken to a large number of our players on Thursday morning here and again yesterday, and they feel the Volvo Masters wouldn't be the same if it wasn't at the finest prepared golf course in Europe.

Q. There's drug testing at the World Team in South Africa this week. Why is there no drug testing here?

GEORGE O'GRADY: We play at the moment by the rules of the country we are in, to the letter of the law. We are evaluating a drugs policy as we speak in agreement with the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. We are studying the Olympic rules. We have recommendations from our team of doctors and from our physiotherapists. Before we jump into a drug policy without it being thought through, it's just too fast. But we are well down the way of research so that we will have a drug policy on The European Tour in the near future.

We already play by the letter of the law of the land we're in, and we've had drug testing in France, drug testing in Portugal, and we are developing our policy.

Q. The R&A said that they were in favour of an introduction.

GEORGE O'GRADY: We are working very closely with the R&A. We will have a policy when we feel all the questions are answered.

Q. So you are in favour of a policy, of testing?

GEORGE O'GRADY: I feel professional golf is opened to the fullest scrutiny. We want a clear policy of which there is no -- what's the word -- hidden agendas at all. But a quick policy is not necessarily the right policy. We are in favour, yes.

Q. So the difference between a drug policy and drug testing, you're in favour of drug testing at European Tour events?

GEORGE O'GRADY: We're in favour of a drug policy, but we are at the moment -- most people will tell you they are unclear of which drugs help a golfer and which drugs don't help a golfer. We don't actually know. To go straight to the Olympic code is unrealistic for modern day golf because it's a different kind of performance. Firstly, we don't think we have a drug problem in golf, and the PGA Tour certainly I don't think they have said that. We just want to be above scrutiny -- not above scrutiny; completely open to scrutiny.

So we are conducting all of the research we can in association with the other recognised golf bodies.

Q. So are you in favour of drug testing at European Tour events?

GEORGE O'GRADY: If we have a drug policy, drug testing goes with it; the obvious answer is yes.

Q. Will your policy have a drug testing stipulation in it? It's a simple question.

GEORGE O'GRADY: I thought I just gave a simple answer; yes.

Q. Are you in favour of drug testing?

GEORGE O'GRADY: I said, if we have a drug policy, if that involves drug testing, the answer is yes. I think that's a very simple answer.

Q. The Madrid Open has not got a venue as per the schedule, is there any problem with that?

GEORGE O'GRADY: The negotiation is not fully complete yet. It was a very successful tournament this year. We are discussing which is the right date for it and where it plays. But I think there will be an Open in Madrid next year, yes.

Q. Yes, as we have seen with the schedule, the Tour starts from November to March, the Tour is not played in Europe it goes to China, Australia, New Zealand. Have you been talking to the players, and do you think they get too tired of so much traveling, especially going towards the end of the season?

GEORGE O'GRADY: The climate means we cannot play major tournaments of the size we want in Europe in these months. The co-sanctioned events are in association with other tours, and we don't expect the players to play every week.

I think the beginning of the calendar year next year in the United Arab Emirates in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar are three tournaments as good as anybody can have anywhere in the world. When you travel to the other regions, as we do in association with their tours; I think we are in tremendous relations with the Asian Tour now. The relationships have improved enormously in the last few weeks. We've just been invited by the Asian tour to co-sanction another tournament which we cannot fit in the schedule.

But we will evaluate which are the best ones. I've spoken to the Asian players who played this week, and they recognise the enormous opportunity given to themselves and the benefits of The European Tour traveling. We are a global tour with a business of influence wherever we go. If that influence from time to time is in Asia, or South Africa, so be it. We wish to make our European events as strong as we possibly can for that we need reasonable climate.

Q. Is that the way to fight against the USA Tour, to make your tour a global one?

GEORGE O'GRADY: We don't really feel we're fighting against the PGA Tour. We feel we have such strength and depth. We play to our strengths, which means we have to move to different parts of the world; one reason why we are so vast into China with five tournaments there and trying to contain the growth in China is quite a challenge.

Q. Just to go back to the drug testing briefly, you talk about having a policy in the future, can you say how quickly you hope to have that or how soon it might be? And secondly, will it include looking at the recreational side of drugs rather than just performance-enhancing?

GEORGE O'GRADY: To come up with the ideal drug policy, is requiring quite substantial research with a lot of different medical people and a lot of different golf administrators. We are going to have The European Tour with our partners open to the widest scrutiny all forms of drug use, recreational use and performance enhancing.

I think to invest the time we're doing with the -- you've seen the medical team we have on The European Tour, it's not just physiotherapists. It's full backup on everything that goes with it.

Recreational drugs are already monitored by the law of the land we play in. Nothing that The European Tour does ever breaches knowingly the laws of the country we're in. Each country has

rules on recreational drugs and society has them, as well. We take the same attitude as we did on tobacco sponsorship in sport. If it was legal, we took it. That's why we have politicians to tell us if it's legal or not.

But the drug policy will be the widest we can possibly have it, but all bodies are being consulted.

Q. Can I just give you a hypothetical? Say at the French Open next year, you have testing and one of your top players tested for cocaine positive, what procedure have you in place at the moment to deal with that?

GEORGE O'GRADY: As you say, it's a hypothetical question. I can't imagine any of our players would ever test positive for cocaine.

Q. Sorry to go back to this, George, but if you have a drug policy, it's worthless if it's not backed up by testing, and I just want to get you on this.

GEORGE O'GRADY: The greatest possible respect, you can translate that that into any language you like. I've given a direct answer. If part of our drug policy when we were asked included testing, the answer is yes. Can you define yes, s in Spanish; oui in French. Yes, okay?

Q. Again with the greatest possible respect, George, that isn't the question I asked. Would you back drug testing, or can I put it, will your drug policy have drug testing laws in it?

GEORGE O'GRADY: I only got degrees at University in English, so I don't understand what you're saying.

Would somebody else who understands English explain my words if it could be any clearer. If part of our policy includes drug testing, we will drug test.

Q. So will your policy include drug testing?

GEORGE O'GRADY: I have experts working on a policy. I am not drawing up the policy. I have people who know what they are talking about drawing up the policy with the wisest experts in the world.

Q. As chief executive of the Tour, do you have an opinion on drug testing?

GEORGE O'GRADY: I have just given an answer that I'm working and I've ordered and have given a lot of authority to draw up a policy. I have requested a policy. If these experts can convince me of that policy, I will give them the go ahead. Can I be any clearer? Am I not making myself clear to anybody else in the room?

Q. Perfectly clear, thank you.

GEORGE O'GRADY: Thank you.

Q. You sound like you need to be convinced about testing.

GEORGE O'GRADY: Well, you can only study my English that I have -- or Irish for that matter, because I'm Irish. (Laughter) I'm convinced enough to make sure we have a very good policy, not one that goes off -- there's an English phrase, half-cocked. That means haphazardly.

We are a five-star business, The European Tour. We do everything, I have the phrase with our staff; good enough, is not good enough. We're better than good enough. We are trying to do things as good as we can. That's why we like playing at Valderrama because the immediate past president and current president demand the best possible course conditioning.

Some of the questions I thought I might get would be on why we have a successful Ryder Cup Team. Now, we may not be winning majors for European-born players on The European Tour, but it's only a matter of time away. But the Ryder Cup Team, there's only one reason, we came to Valderrama 19 years ago with Volvo with a policy to play on the best golf course and toughest in Europe. Consistently, Jimmy Patino moved the bar. He actually knew how got European Tour players -- almost better than we and they did. Two players immediately backed this very, very tough golf course: Nick Faldo and Colin Montgomerie, followed by Olazbal, Ballesteros and the rest.

But then the whole tour now supports playing courses like this. Every other course wants to be prepared like Valderrama. Not the same way as Valderrama, but they want to be the best they possibly can. The standards have moved. It enabled our players to go and compete in America and be baffled hard and back here on immaculate fairways, tight fairways, super fast greens, usually very firm, you can't be firm in the weather we've had this week; f these are the positive things that have made us so strong.

I think that's what we really concentrated on for the future. But everything we do, we are open to scrutiny and we are driving a proper business strategy forward. But we don't jump into things because it's glamorous to do today. That's the point I want to get across. We are an operating business on The European Tour, and that's why we're so welcome around the world.

Q. Ireland has been at the centre of The European Tour's focus for something like eight years now in the buildup to the Ryder Cup. Can you just talk about what you felt about the reaction of the event in Ireland, and is there any move from the Irish government or your side to ensure that it stays in that role?

GEORGE O'GRADY: I think superlatives run out when I talk about Ireland. The Irish Ryder Cup to me was the epitome to what The European Tour is about if it's played in the most wonderful atmosphere. The result almost was immaterial. Great for us on this occasion, but it's what we have left behind of that Ryder Cup in Ireland that really impresses me. Firstly, the tournament strategy for us, but what we've left that can be sustained in Ireland; firstly, charity. One initiative alone is the Links Golfing Society of Ireland, the 20 minibuses each at 40,000, with Richard Hills and the Taoiseach, (Bertie Ahern), that's one initiative.

We have four or five I can think of off the top of my head where we involved others in leaving a legacy in Ireland that will be there long after we've gone. We've supported junior golf with the Golfing Union of Ireland with an academy and a man in charge; and yes, we put money in; and yes, we put influence in. But it is going to be run long after we're done.

The Irish government and all the Irish sponsors have got behind the different tournaments. Yes, negotiations are going on now to see how we can continue to drive Ireland's business, the business of golf and the benefits and the character building all that sort of thing that goes with it.

We are a business of influence and we influence policies in Ireland, and I think the future there, one for tournaments -- it would be lovely to think you can go back to Ireland with another Ryder Cup the next time. It won't happen. It's already been pledged to two venues and then we're coming to Europe. But the Irish strategy is being worked on -- has been worked on, and it is going to be worked on in the future.

Q. Is there going to be a move to put a World Golf Championship-style event?

GEORGE O'GRADY: We are looking at different alternatives. We're not finalised. There's too many ifs and buts at the moment. But we are at the very highest level in Ireland. You know, as we said with the Irish journalists, I have regular meetings with your Taoiseach in Ireland, and although others work on the policy, he and I eventually sign it off.

Q. And is there a sponsor for the Irish Open?

GEORGE O'GRADY: Not a direct title sponsor. That's not the drive at the moment. It's presenting sponsors with a venue.

Q. On that World Golf Championships point, I don't think, in fact, it would not be possible to put one in Ireland for the foreseeable future. What's your feeling on the subject?

GEORGE O'GRADY: We are well quoted, and I'm well quoted on that, and I don't particularly want to add to it. Because we've had two World Golf Championships in Ireland, the agreement calls for these -- the Americans have done it their way for the foreseeable future, In fact, with the one in China. And we will be developing along with the other tours, the strengths of what we have in a different direction.

Q. For the World Golf Championships, a different direction?

GEORGE O'GRADY: (Nodding.)

Q. I'm sure another success of the Ryder Cup was the TV viewing figures, but it is just one week in two years. Do you study viewing figures generally for The European Tour? Are you concerned at all about it?

GEORGE O'GRADY: Without question, the two big drivers of The European Tour in a financial sense, the Ryder Cup and our TV policies wherever we play.

I think on a week-by-week basis, we're concerned about television. Television does not drive in the same way as it does the PGA Tour because we work with governments, we work with tourists' board, but we do follow our TV policy, yeah.

Q. And is there concern about whether the product is exciting enough?

GEORGE O'GRADY: We constantly evaluate it. At the moment our research tells us people like the way it's being done. But we have people study how the television coverage is done on every different station and what techniques we can improve and incorporate in our coverage.

Q. Where are you on contracts?

GEORGE O'GRADY: All major British contracts run out in 2008. The Golf Channel runs out in 2007. And all of the different European stations come at different times. We've just signed a new agreement in Scandinavia where we changed stations at a vastly increased rate and vastly increased coverage. I think we're at quite an exciting time now with SKY in Britain alone where we are looking at coverage and extra times now that the PGA Tour will come into Britain on a rival station.

Q. On the rival, Setanta is a major player; you must be quite excited by that in terms of renegotiating your contract.

GEORGE O'GRADY: Excitement is not a word I use too often. It will either be an opportunity or not. But our current partner -- well, our partner is SKY and the BBC, and we'll continue to work with them to make our product the best we can be.

Q. Do you expect a bidding war?

GEORGE O'GRADY: I expect nothing, no.

Q. We heard Ian Woosnam saying the other day that he might like to do the captaincy again in 2010. You know, we sort of half-assumed that Colin Montgomerie would be an obvious candidate for that year, and I think Sandy Lyle has also said he wants to do it. So do you have a view on this?

GEORGE O'GRADY: I think our strength is we've got so many great players capable of being a Ryder Cup Captain. There's a host of them: Olazbal, Jimnez, Thomas Bjrn, Darren Clarke, Lee Westwood. Any one of them could be great captains.

I think no doubt in my opinion, Ian Woosnam did a tremendous job in Ireland. He was really good in ways that you can't obviously see. That was a real captaincy in depth for all of the different people who were involved. He had a very strong team, but he handled them and he handled all the people who work on the Ryder Cup so well.

The choice of the captain is one of the times where I can absolutely delightedly say it's nothing to do with the Executive, and we're delighted, because whoever they choose in my opinion, you can't go wrong. We are very, very lucky.

Q. Do you have a reasonable idea of when that would be, George?

GEORGE O'GRADY: It would traditionally be the first Tournament Committee and Ryder Cup Committee meeting after the Ryder Cup next time, after Valhalla. I can't see anything being done until the Matches are played at Valhalla for this next time around.

It was a tremendous decision of our tournament committee to announce two captains. I mean, Nick Faldo -- Nick Faldo's other leadership, by that I mean, the Nick Faldo Junior Series, is one of the reasons that gives the guy in my position such confidence for The European Tour, because we've had -- I mean, Sergio Garca was the first product of the Junior Ryder Cup Matches that we have that we now played this year in Wales. Nick Faldo presented the trophy. We have young Irish players like, Rory McIlroy and Oliver Fisher. These are young products of a junior training ground, and Faldo has done that. He's got to find his way to captain the right way, but he's put his champions talents into making good golfers champions, and it comes through the other way.

So whether they chose to give it to Woosnam or whether we choose it give it to Woosnam because he's in Wales, who knows. It could be any way, I'm sure.

Q. I just wanted to go back to where we started really, Michelle Wie. Did you express the view to the president of Omega that you would rather he withdraw the invitation to Michelle Wie?

GEORGE O'GRADY: I said I would in the same ways we thought about the interests of the tournament and Omega this year, we should consider the golf course we play and whether it's in the girl's best interests, and he agreed to think about it.

Q. Without expressing your personal view.

GEORGE O'GRADY: I expressed my personal views to him as well, yeah.

Q. Can you say what it is, George?

GEORGE O'GRADY: I think I used a word last year, which I don't hide from in the course of many different questions, I used that word and I used it on American television yesterday. We're also in a commercial world. Michelle Wie played four times on the PGA Tour, and she's destined to play on the PGA Tour several times next year. This is a commercial world. I don't actually really feel The European Tour should be using every tactic to keep The European Tour strong.

In Switzerland this year, I felt it was the right place to try the initiative. I said at one time I would not allow it or recommend it -- but if we had a brilliant young Spanish girl from the Canary Islands and we had a tournament in the Canary Islands; we have a brilliant young golfer but don't have the Canary Islands Open to play it, and that would be of interest and would not be damaging to the girl.

All our players, now, backed completely the invitation to Michelle Wie. But they actually share a concern for her. To put her on a course like that in Crans, which is not the holiday course it used to be; it's a tough, hard golf course where the players who win, since Seve did his changes, are only really good players, really multiple-winner players have won there, because you have to spin the ball with hard backspin coming into these greens. They are concrete greens. Any lady cannot spin the ball in the way a Sergio Garca can, the way a Luke Donald can and the rest.

I think they share a genuine concern that she should not be put to that torture again. We got more compliments in the newspapers and we were bigger than any other tournament carried on in the world that week. But you question that and you question her choice to play the Lumber Classic, one of the longest golf courses on the PGA Tour. You know, we have a wider responsibility.

Q. Can I just sum it up, then, that you would not be in favour? (Laughter)

GEORGE O'GRADY: We do what's in the best interests of the parties concerned. If you can't draw it out of that ... (laughter).

Q. Would the father come into these discussions?

GEORGE O'GRADY: Spoke to the family at the end of the thing in Crans. It's only one week. She could play -- there's other courses that she could play, and I accept that Michelle Wie is a phenomenal talent. She's actually a phenomenal girl, too. It's very hard when you're talking to her to tell yourself you're talking to a 16-year-old. She's a full package. She's going to be a great champion. But she's a lady on the ladies tour. It was well chronicled that my predecessor would not have ladies playing at all. I don't share that. We are in a hard world. But we must have some degree of concern for her. But then, it's her life.

Q. So what you're saying is if another sponsor came to you, that has a flat course that might be more suitable for her, you would give the okay to that?

GEORGE O'GRADY: I'd say there's better chances than Crans, but I think we've done the experiment and we've done the initiative. I keep a very open mind but I'd need persuading. It wasn't just from Omega last time. It the letter from the Swiss Golf Association on what he felt it would do for golf in Switzerland: To inspire girls to play the game in Switzerland, to inspire young boys to see golf as a glamorous sport and to develop youth sport. And he had a sponsor in Omega who was prepared to sign for five years if she agreed to play. But the opening two paragraphs of his letter was how it would grow the game in Switzerland. That as much as anything convinced The European Tour to say, yes, we'd welcome the initiative.

Q. Who has the final word, you or Omega?

GEORGE O'GRADY: It's never been put to the test. It's an agreement. I can have a final word and they can take it the other way. If we want to do it that way, I work for the Tour. If tour players say stop doing this to her -- not one tour player has actually gone on about whether a girl -- Sergio Garca probably is closer to Michelle Wie than anybody else. You ask him the question: Can Michelle Wie make the cut this week. He said: "On this golf course," and his eyes say it. No one likes to see someone being used.

Q. Actually, his mouth said it as well.

GEORGE O'GRADY: Did he?

Q. At the tournament.

GEORGE O'GRADY: Well, this may stagger you, but I talk to our leading players and ask what they think. The tournament committee backed that decision 100 per cent when I told them the reasons why we were doing it. I didn't ask them, can we do it. I told them I had done it, would they agree with it. 100 per cent agreement. But you don't go back to the well every time.

Q. With hindsight, do you think the experiment was a mistake?

GEORGE O'GRADY: No, not at all.

Q. In three years' time, the Olympic games will take place in London. Will you take that opportunity to promote golf in your country?

GEORGE O'GRADY: It won't be as an Olympic game. It's already ruled eight years now that it can't go into the Olympics.

The European Tour have said it would back golf going into the Olympics. And again, because we have listened to a lot of other bodies, certainly all of the amateur federations who have convinced us it would be a good idea for the sport, yes, we will promote golf at the same time, but not directly within the Olympics.

Q. For the next Spanish Open, the Federation have said that they will not be paying fees to any of the professionals. When you go against the tournament, will it hurt the event?

GEORGE O'GRADY: Many tournaments are played on The European Tour without paying any appearance money, as well. You have to develop the unique appeal of that championship. This is a very old, distinguished championship, Open de Espaa. I think it can succeed. At the moment, we share and extend our sympathy to everyone in Spain and at the Royal Spanish Golf Federation because we had high hopes for a very promising boy, Pablo Alberro, who of course died two days ago, and he got on very well with our team and he was going to be a commercial driver of the Open. I think that's come as a big shock and we will develop that. We feel for him and his family.

But the Open de Espaa has tradition, and if the build on the tradition and they get that message across to firstly, all of the Spanish players, but secondly, the other Europeans, they have a good date and I think it can do very well.

Q. Do you have concern over the course of three weeks next year, the best players go to Masters and then China and the Asian Open?

GEORGE O'GRADY: If you think you have to have certain players only to make your tournament a success, you certainly can't bring Tiger Woods unless you find some way he is promoting the game in Spain and some of the others.

But you've got such great new champions coming out of Spain, as well. You've got to look on to the ones who are here and who are available and concentrate on the good side of what you've got and not fuss about who isn't here.

GORDON SIMPSON: Thank you very much for your attention today.

End of FastScripts.

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