Jay Overton Quotations

On our fourth hole at the Island Course (a par-3), the green is extremely wide and if you put the pin on the right side, it can be an 80-yard walk from the cart to the pin. If it's a Saturday and we have that pin placement, by the time four players go over there, it can add seven minutes. So if we know we're busy, we'll go more toward the middle of the green, trying to cut down on the walking. We do the same thing with tee markers. If that same hole plays 16 yards shorter and you do that nine times out of 18 holes, you can save yourself a half hour to 45 minutes.

I would say I'm very sympathetic toward Gerald. He has exactly the same thing going on on his side. I'm every bit on pins and needles. I've got a lot of logistical things that would have to be altered (if the tournament got a March date).

Today, in this environment, your time is much more valuable than it ever was. That's universal. Do people have half a day to just scratch out and go play golf? Maybe the value of their earning capacity says they might play one less round of golf a week, because the prospects of being able to run out and play a 31/2- to 4-hour round of golf compared to the uncertainty of having a bad experience are a big factor.

We all need to recognize that having a tour event at a destination, whether you're trying to sell real estate or trying to combine a resort and a membership situation ... it's a great thing. It's something everybody wants to have.

There are a lot of things that this sets in motion. It will probably be 30 to 60 days before we can come to a resolution on a contract going forward if everything plays itself out positively. Certainly that is our intent. We are going to do everything that we possibly can to not only ensure that it's here in '07 but beyond.

We feel like it's a very comparable venue to what we are going to experience. We are watching very closely their timing of construction, how they grow the rough up, what are their restrictions on carts because everything changes from October to March.

A March event from a PR and marketing standpoint would have a shelf life that would lend itself to your summer market, which is not nearly as lucrative for us as an October date. Now do you get a little more publicity? Do you get a little more exposure? Do your ratings nationally go up? I think maybe they all offset each other, but at the same time it is not an equal transition from October to March if you look at it strictly from PR and marketing.