Bivens announces 2007 LPGA Tour schedule More than $54 million in prize money, The Solheim Cup returns, St. Andrews added to schedule WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Nov. 15, 2006 ?Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Commissioner Carolyn F. Bivens today announced the 2007 LPGA Tour schedule, which will feature a minimum of 35 events with prize money of more than $54 million, the highest ever in LPGA history. Bivens made the announcements during a press conference at the season-ending ADT Championship at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. 밫his year has showcased an emergence of young stars and a re-emergence of dominant veterans,?said Bivens. 밒t has been one of the most competitive and compelling seasons in the history of the LPGA. However, with three new events in 2007, the return of The Solheim Cup and the LPGA's first-ever visit to the St. Andrews, I am confident next year will be even more exciting for not only our players, but for our fans and sponsors. 밯e are also very excited about the second year of the LPGA Playoffs. The inaugural LPGA Playoffs concludes this week at the ADT Championship and the winner will earn an unprecedented $1 million paycheck. We look forward to continuing the momentum of the first-ever playoff system in professional golf.?Click here for the 2007 Schedule.>> Highlights from the 2007 LPGA Tour schedule include: A minimum of 35 events, including 31 official events and four unofficial events; Prize money totaling $54.285 million; Players will compete for an average purse of $1,596,617, which is a 9.62% increase from 2006; Ten events featuring $2 million or more in prize money; this is five more than in 2006; The Ginn Tribute Hosted by Annika in Charleston, S.C., is new to the schedule and is the second event title sponsored by the Ginn Co. It joins the Ginn Open in Reunion, Fla., and both events feature a $2.6 million purse; CN Canadian Women's Open is increasing its prize money by $550,000 to $2.25 million; this is a $950,000 increase in prize money since CN was announced as title sponsor in late 2005; The Safeway Classic hosted by Pepsi will offer a $1.7 million purse, while the Safeway International hosted by Coca-Cola will feature a $1.5 million purse; this represents a $400,000 increase in purse totals from 2006 for Safeway's two LPGA tournaments; The Weetabix Women's British Open will be contested at the Home of Golf, as the famed Old Course at St. Andrews will host a women's professional golf event for the first time; Navistar is a new title sponsor this year and the Navistar LPGA Classic is the LPGA's second event in Alabama; SemGroup is the new title sponsor of the Tour's event in Broken Arrow, Okla.; John Q. Hammons is the presenting sponsor of the event in Broken Arrow, Okla., and the new NW Arkansas LPGA Classic in Rogers, Ark.; The LPGA State Farm Classic in Springfield, Ill., is being moved from The Rail Golf Club to Panther Creek Country Club; HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship will be played at Wykagyl County Club in New Rochelle, N.Y.; Other new host venues added to the 2006 schedule ?RiverTowne Country Club (Ginn Tribute Hosted by Annika), Pine Needles Lodge and Country Club (U.S. Women's Open conducted by the USGA), Royal Mayfair Golf & Country Club (CN Canadian Women's Open), Pinnacle Country Club (NW Arkansas LPGA Classic Presented by John Q. Hammons), Halmstad Golf Club (The Solheim Cup) and RTJ Golf Trail, Capitol Hill's The Senator (Navistar LPGA Classic); The culmination of LPGA Playoffs 2007 at the ADT Championship, which will feature a $1,550,000 purse and award a record $1 million to the winner. Interview with Carolyn Bivens, LPGA Tour Commissioner; Zayra Calderon, president and CEO of the Duramed Futures Tour; Chris Higgs, chief operations officer PAUL ROVNAK: We'll get started. I like to welcome everybody and thank everybody for attending the season ending ADT Championship. This is a very special week for the LPGA Tour. The LPGA Playoffs 2006 culminates this week and one player will earn a record one million dollar paycheck on Sunday. We are very excited about that. In a few moments we will have Commissioner Carolyn Bivens up here. Carolyn will look back on 2006 and also look ahead into 2007. We will have a few other speakers as well. After all of the speakers are done, we will go into a question and answer format. So please save all of your questions to the end. With that, Commissioner Bivens. CAROLYN BIVENS: Thanks, Paul. Good morning. As Paul said, this is a very special week for us. I want to start it off by seeing some folks in the back of the room that need to be thanked. I want to thank the ADT people for making this possible. Thank you. All right. I know that you are looking forward to a fantastic tournament and so are we. The ADT Championship is the culmination of a lot of hard work and planning by a lot of people. And I think we just lost electricity. I wasn't so much worried about the lights I was worried about the air conditioning. (Laughter.) It's been a lot of hard work for the players and for the staff. We're finally here. We're very excited to get this week under way. All of us will be glad, this time tomorrow morning, when we're ready for the first tee shot. We've got a lot to share with you this morning. Not the least of which is the 2007 Tour schedule. Chris Higgs, who is our Chief Operations Officer, is going to do that in just a few minutes. I'm also going to share the stage with Zayra Calderon, who is president and CEO of the Duramed Futures Tour. It's a wonderful source as you all know for players for the LPGA, and I want Zayra to talk to you a little bit about some of the work we're doing and looking forward at some of the women that are in that pipeline making their way into the LPGA. Before I turn things over to Zayra and to Chris, I'm going to take a few minutes to talk to you about some of the things going on at the LPGA, what we've accomplished over the past year and where we're headed. It's been a remarkable season on the LPGA Tour and these girls have really rocked out on the field. Cristie Kerr carded a career-low 61 during the second round of the John Q. Hammons Hotel Classic in Tulsa and went on to win her third tournament of the season. Two players have recorded 62s this season: Lorena Ochoa, who at the Kraft Nabisco Championship became the first LPGA Tour member to card a 62 at an LPGA major; and Annika Sorenstam, whose 62 at the State Farm Classic tied an LPGA record for lowest round by a winner. For the first time in the 57-year history, the LPGA's three Major championships were decided in playoffs. I don't need to remind you how excited all of those finishes were. Karrie Webb's incredible hole out from the fairway at Kraft Nabisco to force that playoff with Lorena Ochoa. Se Ri Pak turning the tables on Karrie just a few weeks later at the McDonald's LPGA Championship, winning the playoff after a stunning approach shot to inches. And, Annika Sorenstam versus Pat Hurst in an 18-hole playoff that had the world watching the U.S. Women's open. No playoff was needed for Sherri Steinhauer to win the Weetabix Women's British Open trophy at the famed Royal Lytham at St. Anne's, a scene reminiscent of her victory nearly eight years before on the same historic course. We have an LPGA-record 10 players cross the million dollar season's earnings this year. Two more could join them this week. The previous record was set last year when we had six players who made a million dollars in a single season. Cultural icon and inspiration to the entire nation of Mexico, Lorena Ochoa ended the Webb Sorenstam stranglehold of the Rolex Player of the Year honors by securing the title on Sunday. All of these dramatic finishes, and incredible performances have translated to more fans watching the LPGA and its stars than ever before. Our cable viewership is up 59 percent from 2005. Let me say that one more time, 59 percent from 2005. Our network numbers are up 13 percent and The Golf Channel viewership is up 57 percent. Page views on the LPGA.com are up almost 40 percent, exactly 39 percent compared to 2005. In a few days we are going to be awarding the first million dollar paycheck to an individual LPGA member. Now, it took eight events into the ninth season of the LPGA for a total of a million dollars to be awarded in professional women's golf. I'm going to guess that a lot of you remember just a decade ago when Karrie Webb was the first player to earn a million dollars in a single season. So you combine the financial gains with our increases in popularity, the LPGA.com traffic, attendance numbers and television viewership, and it's easy to see that the LPGA has made incredible strides and we're all celebrating those successes. I'm very proud of what has been accomplished by the members of the staff of the LPGA year over year. The road wasn't without some bumps. That's one way to characterize them, along the way. But we came into this knowing that change wasn't easy. So we kept our eyes straight ahead, and we kept our direction. But because we are at the crossroads for our organization and our sport, now is precisely the time to look at building on the foundation of success. We have to challenge the status quo for the women of the LPGA who have earned this opportunity. It's for the women of the LPGA and the sport that we love. It took 57 years for the LPGA to get to the point of the first million dollar paycheck. It's a tremendous milestone. But it took too long. All we've accomplished this past year is foundation building. The real gains are to be made in 2007 and the years ahead. As we move into the mainstream, that's right, we are going to move the LPGA into the mainstream, as we work to the level the playing field between LPGA and our peers. Let me define some of our peer groups. It's the NBA, it's the NFL, it's the MLB, the NHL and, yes, the PGA TOUR. You're going to hear a lot about our priorities, and you are going to see that while we're building on our success we're out front investigating ways in which we can continue to change in order to meet the demands of an ever changing fast moving marketplace. For instance, Chris is going to talk about the 2007 schedule, a Tour schedule that builds on the success of this season with improved venues, higher purses and new sponsors joining our family. But the LPGA senior staff and I have spent a great majority of the last two months working into 2008, 2009 and 2010. What we will be in three years is not what we were last season. And not what we're going to look like this time next year. But that's the point. We have to continue to evolve. To that end, I want to announce that with the beginning of the 2008 season, the LPGA will institute a drug testing policy for participants in the LPGA Tour. Over the next year we'll work to establish the LPGA's policy with the National Center for Drug Free Sport. This is going to be an aim to implement the program at the beginning of the season in 2008. While we have no evidence to date that any of our players are using performance -enhancing drugs, we need to have a very clear policy and a program in place. We want to take a proactive roll. We want to educate our members and we also want to promote fair and equitable competition. There is going to be more details as we move down the road next year in terms of substances and methods and all of the rest. But we feel very comfortable with our partnership and the selection that we made with Drug Free Sport. They're also the group that works with the NCAA, and as you know, a lot of our players come through that pipeline as well as they are very familiar with drug testing. We have the most talented and marketable trend setting group of athletes that a sport could ask for. And we're providing value for the rest of the world, and we're beginning to benefit from a product that's turning in a great return on investment and the best is yet to come. I want to thank you for your time and attention, and I'm going to turn the podium over to Zayra, and then we are going to go to Chris for the 2007 schedule. Zayra, CEO, Duramed Futures Tour. ZAYRA CALDERON: I don't have to adjust the mic. I think I'm about an inch taller than Carolyn, that's about it. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for the opportunity. Have you thought about what happened to that All American collegiate player before you saw her again after college who played on the LPGA? Where was she? I have the answer of course. She was playing one or two seasons maybe even three on the Duramed Futures Tour, getting ready to win, getting ready to kick in the door of the LPGA. Our mission has remained the same for over 25 years, to provide the best professional women golfers from around the world, the optimum environment to get ready to move on for a career on the LPGA. In fact, collegiate players, top amateurs, have proven that this is the place they come to hone their skills and get ready. A couple of numbers to validate the point. Currently there are 288 Duramed Futures Tour alums on the LPGA Tour. They have combined for 313 victories including 33 Majors. In fact, last year out of the 33 official events, 18 were won by Duramed Futures Tour alums. Long has the tour been recognized as the road to the LPGA. I think I can say perhaps, say the best road to the LPGA. Amateurs, for a very long time also recognize the Duramed Futures Tour as a place to launch their professional careers. A couple of years ago Paula Creamer, Brittany Lincicome, Brittany Lang, among those that you might recognize most often launched their careers or qualified in tournaments. Just this past week at our 2007 qualifying tournaments we had Maru Martinez. I'm sure you are familiar with her. As well as Paige Mackenzie has medaled in our tournament. The future of the Duramed Futures Tour has never been brighter. The tour is strong and healthy. Last year, 2006, we signed a multi year agreement with our national title sponsors Duramed Pharmaceuticals. Duramed Pharmaceuticals is a pharmaceutical company based in New Jersey with over $1.3 billion of annual revenues. They are absolutely behind the tour, behind women's professional golf and excited to have taken in partnership with us. We have expanded our schedule, and include now larger metropolitan areas like Dallas Metro; Tucson, Arizona, and Cincinnati. We've increased our purses from 1999 to today by 42.5 percent. I think that is also a tremendous achievement. To take advantage of all of this, the positive momentum of women's professional golf, and our strengths, we've embarked in developing a strategic plan for the next three years. The strategic plan basically aims at aligning the Duramed Futures Tour, in all aspects of our business, with the LPGA. We realize that we must have shared values and objectives so that we can make the transition for our players onto the LPGA seem less. We also realize that collaborating with one another will only reinforce our position in professional women's golf and it will help both organizations increase our market share. We want more fans. We want more tournaments. We want more sponsors. We want more money and together we can do that better. Aligning with the LPGA will also allow the two organizations to capitalize on the synergies that are obvious to both organizations. So we have a plan that begins 2007. We will embark on the National Branding Campaign. For the first time in the history of the Durand Futures Tour, we will have a national advertising campaign, a national public relations campaign, and we have a tournament market specific initiatives to increase the participation of the local communities and increase the fans. We also will launch our player development program, foundation for success. It will mirror the five points of celebrity, and we will work hand in hand with the LPGA professional development staff and resources to make it happen and to take advantage, of course, of their success that has so much been proven, and, of course, other know-how. The benefits of our alignment are obvious to the organizations, to the players, and to women's professional golf. This is to us the beginning of a collaborative relationship and intentional collaboration to move forward and make this, two organizations, stronger and women's professional golf stronger. I want to thank Carolyn for the opportunity to speak to you today. I want to thank her for her commitment to us for allowing us to have the resources that are necessary to undertake this I initiative and move this forward. Thank you. PAUL ROVNAK: Thank you, Zayra. I would like to welcome LPGA Chief Operations Officer, Chris Higgs, to go over the 2007 schedule. We will pass around the press release and the 2007 to you now. Just a reminder to you, when Mr. Higgs is finished speaking, we will take questions and answers. CHRIS HIGGS: Good morning, everyone. You can peruse the schedule now, and/or at your leisure. As has become a tradition at this event, and at this time of year, we are pleased to share with you the LPGA's schedule for 2007. All of us has worked very hard to present a schedule that we think will offer great opportunities, both for the players, the fans, and the sponsors who truly enjoy the LPGA and the best of the LPGA. The 2007 LPGA Tour schedule will build on the success of the past season with improved venues, higher purses and new sponsors joining the LPGA family. Today we announce an LPGA schedule that will feature 35 events in 2007. The LPGA will once again play in 10 countries, and we look forward to a season that will see the players competing for more than $54 million in prize money, a record to the LPGA Tour and women's professional golf. We will see the debut of three previously announced tournaments. The NW Arkansas LPGA Classic, the Navistar LPGA Classic, and the Ginn Tribute hosted by Annika Sorenstam. Women's professional golf will enjoy a history making stop at St. Andrews when the Weetabix Women's British Open is held on the old course. As many of you will recall, this was announced at the inaugural World Congress of Women's golf. And since that time, this day and this event has been eagerly anticipated by all of the players, the fans and the media. I think all eyes will be on those who have seen the history of the old course and wondering what will they do on the Road Hole. Will they make the failed mistake and use the wedge when they should have used the putter? 2007 means we will also enjoy another Solheim Cup. The event always brings a great deal of excitement, anticipation, enhanced rivalry. Players are vying for spots on the U.S. and European teams respectively. And each week this will become a story as we get closer and closer to the U.S. going to Europe to try to do what they have not done since 1994 which is win on European soil. Helen Alfredsson, as we know is the European captain, is not going to easily let that occur. As many of you know, the is the first season of the LPGA playoffs. The first ever playoff system in golf. It will culminate on Sunday when somebody will win a million dollars. Each week this was a story in your local markets. It was covered nationally as well as the various milestones that we got to, beginning with that leap of joy from Karrie Webb when she secured the eagle, got into the playoff and became the first person to guarantee her spot here this week. Each of you should now have a copy of the schedule, which you can, I'm sure, study. But there are some things that we would like to highlight for you which we think are key points of our 2007 schedule. There will now be 10 events that feature $2 million or more in prize money. This is 5 more than 2006. I'd like to refer to it that there will now be 10 Sundays when somebody will be earning $300,000 on one day. 14 of our existing events, just slightly under 50 percent of our existing events, have raised their purse for 2007. Total events are 35, which does include The Solheim Cup. Total prize money will be $54,285,000 currently. The average purse is now $1.596 million, just shy of $1.6 million. This represents a 9.6 percent increase in the average purse from tournaments in 2006. The single biggest increase has come from our friends to the north. The CN Canadian Women's Open announced to us yesterday evening they would be increasing their prize money by $550,000 to a new level of $2.25 million to now place them in the No. 5 spot of all prize money on the LPGA Tour. What is even more impressive to us about CN's commitment is that when they announced their tournament in October of 2005, the purse was $1.3 million. So in less than, or just slightly over a year, they have raised their prize money by $950,000. The Safeway Classic in Portland will offer a new purse of $1.7 million. While the Safeway International in Phoenix is $1.5 million, further solidifying the commitment that the Safeway organization has to both LPGA events. But particularly the Portland event which they have been sponsoring for many, many years. This represents $400,000 of increased prize money from The Safeway Corporation for their two tournaments. The Ginn Tribute hosted by Annika Sorenstam in Charleston, South Carolina is new to the schedule. It is also the second event that's titled sponsored by The Ginn Company which joins The Ginn Company at Reunion in Florida, also with a purse of $2.6 million. We would like to thank Bobby Ginn for his commitment and leadership in taking the LPGA to new heights. The LPGA State Farm Classic, which was head for very , many, many years at the Rail Golf Club will now be moving it's venue to the Panther Creek Country Club. The HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship will be played at the Wykagyl Country Club in July, and they've also moved their date. We have many other great new venues that we'll be playing on. The The Rivertowne Country Club will host The Ginn Tribute in Charleston, South Carolina. The U.S. Women's Open conducted by the USGA will be played at the famed Pine Needles Lodge and Country Club. The Royal Mayfair Golf & Country Club in Edmonton, Alberta will host the CN Canadian Open next year. The Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers, Arkansas will host the Northwest Arkansas LPGA Classic presented by John Q. Hammons. The Solheim Cup, as we talked about, will be at the Halmstad Golf Club. The Navistar LPGA Classic will be played on the Senator Course of the RTJ Trail in Pratville, Alabama. As I mentioned earlier, the culmination of the LPGA Playoffs, or the LPGA Playoffs this week will continue in 2007. This championship will continue at $1.55 million. We will continue to award a $1 million prize to the winner. We are very excited the season that is ahead of us. We are thrilled with the performances that our players brought to you this year. We know that they will come after Lorena. She will work even harder than she did this year. And 2007 will be very exciting and rewarding year for the players on the LPGA Tour, and you the fans and media. Thank you very much. PAUL ROVNAK: Thank you, Chris. I would like to welcome back Commissioner Bivens to the podium for any questions you might have for her or any of our speakers. Q. Can you fill us in where we are with the state of this tournament? CAROLYN BIVENS: We are deeply engaged in conversations, until everything is signed, sealed and delivered, we would just prefer not to announce it. We love playing here. Mr. Trump loves having the LPGA here. We don't anticipate it moving. Q. Carolyn, can you run through the schedule and tell us where TV viewers can find these events on the weekend, not Thursday and Friday, if you can run through it? Tell us the events on the weekend. CAROLYN BIVENS: The complete television schedule isn't going to be announced right now, but we continue with our contracts with ESPN and The Golf Channel that are good for another three years so that you will see somewhere in the neighborhood of two thirds of the events on the weekend will be on ESPN and The Golf Channel. The event in South Carolina will be on network. The final day of the tournament in Orlando will be on network. The final day of the Kraft Nabisco is on network. Am I forgetting any others, Chris? CHRIS HIGGS: The events that we're on network television this year, will continue to be on network television in 2007. And as Carolyn said, of the new events, The Ginn Tribute, will be on NBC. CAROLYN BIVENS: We have hired OMD, an Omnicom company, a terrific, terrific media organization who does a lot in the world of sports. They will be representing us and are hard at work right now. Q. The May 17-20 date, if that's filled will you still have the same number events this year as last year excluding the Solheim Cup? CHRIS HIGGS: If and when and it's when we announce the May date, that will take our events total to 36 events, the number includes The Solheim Cup. If you take The Solheim Cup out, and we do play 35, that will be one less than we played this year. This year we played 36 events and obviously we did not have The Solheim Cup. Q. Carolyn, could you just address that? I'm sure you would be disappointed not to have as many events, just talk about the growth of the Tour that way, and what's happened with the transition of tournaments? CAROLYN BIVENS: The goal, as we've stated last year, was to do a number of things. We wanted to improve the flow to the extent we could when we have the opportunity. We wanted to improve the venues when we had an opportunity. There were a couple of events that have just had a very difficult time over the course of the last few years. One was Atlanta -- after the Chick Fil A title sponsorship moved away. They had a tough time in Atlanta coming up with a sponsor. We are talking with a number of people, and we would like to be back in the Atlanta marketplace. The other one was Las Vegas. Every Tour struggles with Las Vegas. Fans just do not go to Las Vegas to see a golf tournament. The only thing that really works is to have the right combination of a made for TV event in Las Vegas, and we do have conversations under way for that. We would like to be back in there by 2008. Q. Carolyn, what's your biggest achievement you think this your first full year and biggest regret, if there is one thing you can change? Is the ShopRite (LPGA Classic) still a possibility for that May 17th through 20th? CAROLYN BIVENS: No, the ShopRite (LPGA Classic) is not a possibility for May 17th. The biggest accomplishment? The biggest accomplishment is that we put a really good foundation on top of this great organization to be able to conduct business as business going forward. It wasn't easy. And as I said earlier, the road wasn't always smooth. But we now are positioned to being able to do business with title sponsors existing as well as new. So we made some major moves there. I think you will begin to see some of the things that the staff, and the board of directors, particularly the Executive Committee. Heather, the out going president of the Executive Committee and member of the board of directors. Heather and the Executive Committee have been terrific this year. One of our goals that I feel very good about is we opened things up in every one of the player meetings. What we've tried to do, this is a member owned association. We want the members to understand more about this business that they own. I talk about them as being our shareholders. So where the money comes from, how it's made, where it goes, what are the priorities, all players, but beginning with the Executive Committee but with the help of the staff we made great progress in that this year. I feel terrific about that. What do I regret? I regret having to call my mom and dad so many times and say don't open the newspaper today, you're not going to like it. (Laughter). And I'm going to leave it there. As you all know, I come from a business background. We do a lot of scenario planning going forward. I'm used to that. We also do a lot of critiquing. After every event that I've been part of in my career, part of the process is to sit down soon after and look back and say, what could you have done differently? If you knew then what you knew now, what would you do differently? And I have yet to participate in anything that was perfect, or anything that I wouldn't have done differently based on the learning that I got going through it. And I put this year under that heading as well. Q. Just two questions kind of involve what you just said. If you can be specific about something you learned in the way of running the Tour. And secondly, you talked about branding at the beginning of the year, what do you feel you accomplished this year, in that landscape specifically? CAROLYN BIVENS: One of the things that we've accomplished in that area is something that's been done with tournament business affairs and Chris and his team have lead that. It's requested by the TOA. The way things used to be done, after a tournament, each one of the departments or divisions, would do a critique or a report back to the tournament; what was done well and where were improvements needed? What we've done this year, the staff has coordinated, and there is a comprehensive bound book that goes back. It incorporates reports and critiques from the players, from the rules officials, from all marketing. We look at all aspects of the tournament, send a completed report back with an executive summary and then sit down before the end of the next month with the tournaments and discuss what is a best practice that we think should be shared with other tournaments. What are the things that we think they need to improve for next year? I would say that may be the most specific, and the one single thing that I'm most proud that the group has achieved. Q. The week after the Women's Weetabix British Open, there is an opening in the schedule. You are probably tired of this question from the Swedish media? What's the status of Annika's tournament being in Sweden as far as that being part of the LPGA Tour? CAROLYN BIVENS: That's part of an ongoing conversation. But right now we spend two weeks during the middle of the summer there (in Europe), and a third week there would mean a third limited-field (event) essentially. That's pretty tough for when you've got another hundred women or so who can't play. But she is our number one player in the world. We would like to find a way to support it. Q. What would need for it to happen in order for it to be part of the Tour? CAROLYN BIVENS: There would have to be a different flow (to the schedule) prior to or after. Q. Carolyn, I want to ask you, there were issues with the Tournament Owners Association, I know you met with them Monday or Tuesday earlier this week, and there were issues over sanctioning fees. If I look at this right, outside of the four tournaments that you lost, it would appear that everybody renewed, so there must have been some resolution with the sanctioning fees. Can you address the sanctioning fee issue and how that was resolved? CAROLYN BIVENS: The sanctioning fee was actually resolved back in January, you wouldn't have necessarily known it from the media reports. And that was that all existing tournaments do go to the new sanctioning fee. But we are renewing tournaments going to the new sanctioning fee over the course of three years. Every new tournament starts with the sanctioning fee. There is also minimal performance standards put in for tournaments and making sure that media has enough broadband, that are meteorologist has broadband. Most tournaments perform way above minimal acceptable standards but did put a floor in this time. Q. How fitting is it that the first million dollar paycheck is on Donald Trump's course? CAROLYN BIVENS: It makes it a lot more fun, doesn't it? I don't know if you were out there. We got buzzed by the Donald Trump's airplane. Donald has been terrific for the LPGA. He has been a long time supporter. He is very supportive of women overall, and we're very appreciative of the support that he's given to the LPGA. Q. How badly do you want the final putt on 18 to be for a million bucks? CAROLYN BIVENS: How bad do I want the final putt? I'd love to see a playoff. Q. Two questions from totally different perspective. Has the ESPN television been signed through 2009? Secondly, what's the status of the two previously unfilled independent Board positions? CAROLYN BIVENS: Let me take the independent position. The nominating committee is making a recommendation to the board of directors and that election will be held before our board meeting which is the second week in December. Your other question? Q. Has ESPN television series been signed? CAROLYN BIVENS: The ESPN television contract was signed the beginning of 2005 before I got here and it's a five year contract. CHRIS HIGGS: It goes through the 2009.