What they said: Finchem, Justice, Watson

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THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of all of us at The Greenbriar, thank you so much for joining us for this very important and exciting announcement. I'm honored to introduce the gentlemen who will be speaking here at The Greenbriar. In the center, the chairman and owner The Greenbriar, Mr. Jim Justice. I'd also like to welcome and introduce World Golf Hall of Fame member and Greenbriar golf professional emeritus, Mr. Tom Watson. Also with us this afternoon is the governor of West Virginia, Mr. Joe Manchin.

If I could just take a moment to introduce the other folks with us today, the chief of PGA TOUR operations, Mr. Rick George. We were hoping that the first lady was going to be joining you. We also have Mr. Lester George of George Golf Design, the architect of the redesign restored Old White Course.

Of course I can't leave out two very special ladies, Mrs. Kathy Justice And Ms. Jill Justice.

I'd also like to introduce delegates Tom Campbell and Ray Canterbury from Greenbriar County.

We are delighted to have the commissioner of the PGA TOUR, Mr. Tim Finchem, joining us via satellite from the media center at the World Golf Championships Bridgestone Invitational, being played at the Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio.

Commissioner, we will turn it over to you now for your opening remarks.

TIM FINCHEM: Thank you, Lynn, and good afternoon, everyone. We're delighted to be with you from Akron today for a very special announcement, and that is to announce that there has been an agreement reached between the PGA TOUR and the Greenbriar, whereby the Greenbriar will host us for a PGA TOUR event in the summer for the next six years and we hope longer than that, and that our date starting in 2010 will be the week of July 26 to August 1.

Today I'm delighted that Governor Joe Manchin is there with us to demonstrate the strong support of the State of West Virginia.

I also want to say that we are delighted with the opportunity to return golf at the PGA TOUR level to one of the truly great resorts and golf destinations in the world. We're excited about the new ownership and leadership at The Greenbriar, and I'd like to congratulate Jim Justice, the chairman and owner of The Greenbriar for making this happen.

I'd also like to say parenthetically that we are indebted to our own Slugger White, our longtime tournament director, for facilitating an early conversation with Jim, who is a lifelong friend Of Slugger's, and thank you for that, Slugger.

Jim Justice has shown a real passion and commitment, not just to host a PGA TOUR event, but to host an event and build it into a premier stop on the PGA TOUR. The Greenbriar has a long and storied history in golf. The white course and the other golf courses there at The Greenbriar have hosted a variety of competitions over the years, the 1979 Ryder Cup, the 1994 Solheim Cup, which I attended, a Champions Tour event in the mid-'80s.

In addition, Sam Snead was the first golf professional emeritus at The Greenbriar for a good number of years, and Tom Watson is the second golf professional emeritus, and I'm delighted that Tom is with us today.

Let me say, Tom, on behalf of everybody that's watching this conference, congratulations to you for that terrific run at Turnberry a couple of weeks ago.

I sent Tom an e-mail that said I've been watching golf since I was eight years old. I can't recall sitting on the edge of my seat and living and dying with every shot that I was watching for four hours.

Also, I should point out that the old white course, which is where we will play next summer, was designed by Charles Blair MacDonald. You may recall C.B. McDonald was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in the last couple of years. He was assisted in that effort of design by Seth Raynor, and in 2006 there was an extensive renovation led by Lester George to restore the old white to its original design, and Lester George is a good friend of the PGA TOUR as he designed the First Tee facility that opened a few years ago in downtown Richmond, Virginia.

I think the PGA TOUR players are going to love going to The Greenbriar and joining The Greenbriar as a destination resort and being able to play on this historic golf course, the Old White.

Before I conclude these remarks, I'll be happy to answer questions later, let me just say that more than anything else, we are excited about this opportunity because of the enthusiasm we felt in our conversations with Jim Justice and his team at The Greenbriar. There is no doubt in our minds that every effort is going to be made to make this truly a quality event, an event that belongs as part of our FedExCup season, an event that I think fans around the world will enjoy taking advantage of watching the best players in the world play.

With that, Lynn, I'll turn it back to you.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Commissioner Finchem. And now let's hear from Mr. Jim Justice.

JIM JUSTICE: Well, thank you so much, and what a day. What an incredible day. The commissioner mentioned Slugger White just a second ago. I've got to tell you the story real quickly, but Slugger and I played high school golf together. He called me not long ago and said, Jimmy, what in the world are you doing, and everything, when we announced that we bought The Greenbriar. And I said, Slugger, I'm not going to let you off that easy. I said, Slugger, now you've got to help me some way, somehow, we've got to get a PGA event here.

He said to me, wow, that's a tough nut to crack there. But Slugger, I'm sure you're listening. We cracked the nut (laughter), and I am so proud of all the people and all the licks that went into cracking the nut, and we finally got it done, and what a story.

A lot of people said, well, you know, what's this going to do for you? What's this going to do for The Greenbriar? Well, it's obvious as it can be; what's this going to do for the PGA TOUR players? I think it's obvious on that, too. I mean, The Greenbriar -- this will restore The Greenbriar from the standpoint of notoriety back to what The Greenbriar ought to be. The Greenbriar is a five-star bloodline A to Z. It's been that since forever. We've lost one of our stars. We're going to get that star back.

The other thing, though, is from the PGA TOUR, the players, I mean, the players will love this place. This place has so much to offer from the standpoint of families and amenities, 50-some amenities, 6,500 acres. It's just got all that. But all that is given to me.

The real what will this do is this: If you have the level of passion that I have for our great state, and what an honor today to be joined by our governor and Tom Watson, and I looked at them both and neither one of them are sweating, and I'm sitting here in front of these lights sweating like a stuck hog. The real deal is simple. You've got to be able to not sweat if you're Tom Watson and win the British Open 16,000 times. And you've got to be able to not sweat if you're the governor and have darts thrown at you from time to time. That's not me.

But this opportunity for West Virginia is unbelievable, and you know, to me what it's all about is this. I think no question it'll help The Greenbriar, no question it'll be great for the players. But if you have a passion and a love for your state like I have for West Virginia and it's genuine as it can be, and you love these great people that are working here, we came right on the verge of losing maybe in some ways at least a treasure, a West Virginia treasure that was of unbelievable value to West Virginia, but a national treasure, as well.

And maybe if a chain were to have bought it, you know, who knows what they would have done with it. Maybe they would have done great things. I can't really debate that. But I know what I'm going to do, and I know how great our people are, and I know the smiles on our faces, but it's bigger than that. It's an opportunity really and truly to introduce the world to our Norman Rockwell painting here that everybody just can't see. It is so important. I really believe as the world comes, and as the world is touched by genuine real people, craftsmen, a state that has four seasons, all the greatness that West Virginia has, I think they'll see the real deal.

And so it goes beyond The Greenbriar, it goes beyond the players to me, it goes to what I really feel, and that is a genuine passion for West Virginia.

And so if I could at this time -- you know, I'm supposed to introduce Tom Watson. Well, how do you introduce Tom Watson? I mean, I could tell you real quickly, he called me -- he's our emeritus here. He called me and asked me to play golf. Well, I hadn't played 18 holes of golf in 20 years. I thought, well, this is a death sentence, but this is Tom Watson.

Well, I made it 16 holes, and honestly, it started raining right after I hit it probably 230 yards dead into the lake, and when it started raining, they sounded the horn, and I know the Lord made that happen. (Laughter). It was the greatest day and everything, but Tom was playing phenomenal at the time, and I told him this, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart and then I'll shut up, but what he accomplished with his British Open victory in my opinion almost transcends beyond anything that you can think of as far as winning a championship. You've got five, why did you need six? I mean, really and truly.

Some day they'll maybe rename golf, but they'll have to name it Watson, because this is the class, class of class, and that's what golf is supposed to be all about. So I bring you Tom Watson.

TOM WATSON: What Jim didn't say is he had me down in the first nine holes, and his shoulder kicked in. He's got kind of a bum shoulder he hasn't decided to get fixed so he can play some golf, but this guy can play. He knows what to do with it.

I've been associated with The Greenbriar now since 1979 when I first came here for the Ryder Cup. You may know the story. My wife was very pregnant at the time, and I asked the PGA, please, if I have the opportunity to be with my wife when she has the baby, I'd like to have that opportunity and get an alternate to come in and play in the Ryder Cup.

Well, as things worked out, either good or bad, depending on how you look at it, Thursday morning right before the Ryder Cup, I get a call from Linda, she said, "Come home." So I got on the horn to Jim Searle, who was working here at the hotel at the time, and Jim had arranged for a plane to take me home. And guess whose plane was that, Mr. Justice's dad. He had provided a plane for me to go back to Kansas City.

Well, the one thing that I remember very succinctly there is when I got here on the Monday prior to the Ryder Cup, I remember seeing this place for the first time and how it wowed me, absolutely wowed me. And continuing on the next couple of days, just the manner and the way the people treated you. I really fell in love with the place immediately, and I told my wife at that time, I said, we've got to come back here and spend some time here. It's a great, great place.

And after that I brought people in my business here to entertain them on a yearly basis, to come back to The Greenbriar. I always enjoyed the hospitality here and the community here.