U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 10, 2008

Jim Hyler

Scott Peters

Jerry Sanders

RAND JERRIS: It's our pleasure to welcome everyone this morning with some special guests from the City of San Diego. We have the Mayor of San Diego, Jerry Sanders. At the far end of the table, the President of the City Council, Scott Peters, and immediately to my left, Jim Hyler, who is the Vice-President of the United States Golf Association, and the Chairman of the USGA Championship Committee. I'm going to turn it over to Mayor Sanders for some comments to start us out.

1 MAYOR SANDERS: Thank you very much. I want to welcome the USGA to the San Diego, and the U.S. Open to San Diego. We're excited about this. It's been fun talking to Jim Hyler, the Vice- President of the USGA and Chairman of the U.S. Open Championship Committee just about all the things that go on to put an event like this on.

I know Scott Peters is equally enthusiastic about having us. He's actually a golfer, so I know it means a lot to him.

I look at it from a perspective that this gives us a tremendous opportunity to host the most prestigious golf event in the United States, and it allows us to show what San Diego can do in being good hosts and making sure this event goes as smoothly as it possibly can.

We're excited to have the world's best golfers here. It gives us the opportunity to view those folks and to watch them play the toughest match that they will all year and the one that everybody points to all year.

And I think it's been a community-wide effort in putting this on, tremendously proud of the leadership in our community and all the things that they've done to make this event happen.

We're tremendously proud, also, of the partnership between the USGA and San Diego in terms of presenting us in a way that let's everybody in the nation view a beautiful golf course that's actually a municipal golf course, it allows any resident of San Diego to pay about $42 a round to go out there and have a great time. But it's been put into absolutely fantastic shape for this championship.

Now the residents of San Diego and others in the San Diego region and visitors will get to play on a USGA course right after this event is over. There's a special thrill for golfers when they know Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson were standing on the same green they will be standing on.

I'm going to turn it over to Scott Peters. The Council President for the City of San Diego.

2 SCOTT PETERS: Thank you, Mayor. I wanted people to know it's too bad Jerry Sanders isn't a golfer, because this would be a great week to relax out here. Which he might be doing anyway. But he just got reelected, so he'll be very calm, even though this big event is going on here.

Being from this part of San Diego, as well as being the Council President, and an amateur golfer, I couldn't be prouder to be here to welcome the U.S. Open coming to San Diego. The selection of the Torrey Pines Municipal Course to host this event will add to our city's stellar representation as a place to work, play, and live. I'm proud of the City's staff, and the partners of the USGA to prepare for the week and want to thank the University of California San Diego, and the residents and visitors of the Torrey Pines area for their patience and flexibility for accommodating the buzz in traffic that comes with this event. But I think we're glad to do it.

We hope that everybody enjoys their time in San Diego, don't mind the clouds too much in the morning, they usually burn off by noon or so. We hope for some very nice days out here, some spectacular views, challenging course and a great event. If the Mayor will join me, I think we're going to present a proclamation to the USGA.

3 MAYOR SANDERS: We wanted to give you a proclamation from the City of San Diego celebrating U.S. Open week. And Council President Peters is the sponsor of this proclamation. Rather than read all the whereas's, we're saying that this week and the City of San Diego is U.S. Open week. And once again from everybody in San Diego, we welcome you and are extremely proud to host you.

4 JIM HYLER: Mr. Mayor and Mr. President, we are delighted to be here. This is certainly a wonderful venue, fantastic vistas, and we've had tremendous support from the community in the run up and the preparation for the Open. Thanks to your office and all the City officials and helping us get ready.

This is a huge organizational effort to get ready for one week, so thank you for the great support that we've had.

This is a great golf course. Certainly it is a true muni, the first time we've had the U.S. Open, the people's championship on a true municipal venue. And Mark Woodward and his team have done a terrific job in bringing it to the condition that it's in today.

We've had a good run up so far. We had record prechampionship merchandise sales last week at our merchandise tent. And we're expecting tremendous crowds out here before the end of the week to watch the competition. Thank you for this and thanks again for all the great cooperation we've gotten. We're thrilled to be here.

Q. Mayor Sanders, there was a lot of criticism or some criticism about the deal that was made with the USGA back when it was made that the City didn't get its fair share. I know the deal was made before you were Mayor, I believe Councilman Peters was there. Could you comment on that? Do you think the City -- after you analyzed the deal do you think the City got it's fair share?

5 MAYOR SANDERS: I don't think we can even begin to estimate what the return to the City will be from a week of advertising and shooting on locations here and really advertising every part of San Diego. That's never part of any deal when you work out the dollars and cents.

But in terms of people who come to San Diego to vacation, which is a huge market for San Diego, we're one of the top three or four tourist destinations in the country, this really brings a lot of people to San Diego, so the impact goes over for a long time.

6 SCOTT PETERS: I think it would be fair to remember, too, in order to prepare for the U.S. Open we got about three million dollars in private donations to improve the course, which we matched with only about nine hundred thousand dollars out of the City money out of the Golf Enterprise Fund. Which helped bring about the condition of the course today.

So these are improvements that San Diegans who play golf on this municipal course will have for decades. That wouldn't happen without the effort to get the U.S. Open here. At the end let's look back -- I think we'll look back and say what a great week we had. And I think we'll be really proud that we had the Open here and I think a lot of people will benefit by it.

Q. There's also been a lot of talk about the possible privatization of this golf course, maybe turning over the tee time system to something like Mr. Evans over here at the hotel or things like that. There's been a lot of talk about that. A lot of the municipal players worry about this course not being a true muni, as Mr. Hyler was talking about. Can you assure the citizens of San Diego that this will continue to be a municipal golf course?

7 MAYOR SANDERS: I think we've done exactly that. If you look at what we're doing, out of town residents are playing for all the improvements on this golf course and the Balboa Municipal Golf Course, too. We kept the rates low for City residents. We have a new tee time system to allow anybody that's a citizen of San Diego to get in. We're not turning that over to anybody else. This will be a true municipal golf course, and I think it's probably the best bargain maybe in the world for what you get to play for the amount of money that it costs. And once again this doesn't cost the citizens of San Diego anything, because it's a Golf Enterprise Fund, which means it supports itself, it doesn't come out of ! our General Fund. And out of town residents, as I said, pay a full price on it that allows all the improvements in the actual operation. So I think this is a tremendous benefit for the golfers that live in San Diego?

Q. Are you prepared to invite the USGA back? There was a report you might be doing that some time this week?

8 MAYOR SANDERS: I think you'll have to tune in on Sunday.

RAND JERRIS: Thank you very much for your time this morning.