Tiger Woods' Tournament to Be Part of July 4th Celebration in Nation's Capital

The Tiger Woods Foundation and the PGA Tour announced that AT&T will be the corporate sponsor of the 2007 Tiger Woods' Tournament to be held in Washington D.C. July 2-8. The host course for the tournament has yet to be announced; leading contender is Congressional Country Club. Congressional club members are winding up talks on whether to host the event this year and in 2008, with final results expected within the next week to 10 days.

Tiger Woods and the Tiger Woods Foundation will serve as the event's host and primary charitable beneficiary. Each year the tournament will recognize and honor the men and women serving in our Armed Services.

Although some PGA Tour golfers were hoping for a larger field of participants, the field has been officially set at 120. Rich Beem, currently 50th in Scoring average on the PGA TOUR, said he was "insulted" by the idea of another reduced-field event. Other players voiced some opposition as well, saying the tour should not take away qualifying spots in a PGA season already shortened by the FedEx Cup.

Earlier in the week, however, professional golfer Rocco Mediate disagreed with fellow players who complained about the details of the tournament which has a $6 million purse and which will benefit the Tiger Woods' Foundation.

"It's ridiculous what's going on," said Mediate. "There is so much effort being spent on trying to make this tournament what everybody else wants, but it's his tournament. You going to change Arnold or Jack's tournaments?

"If you're not in the tournament, you're not good enough," Mediate continued. "It's real simple. Play better. Nothing else I can say about it. It's nauseating what's going on."

"The one good thing about the tour is that there's always something to work towards," said Steve Stricker, who feels Tiger's tournament adds for the many players who have benefited from Woods' presence on tour.

"Whether it be getting in a World Golf Championship, Tour Championship, there are so many things, goals -- unless you're Tiger and you're exempt for all of them.

"For everybody else, there are so many things to work for out here."

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said the tour will work to find ways to give more opportunities to players who get shut out of invitational events. He said the tour will sanction a tournament next year in Puerto Rico. It will have a field of 132 and will take place opposite Doral.

PGA management is also looking at some other areas of eligibility, such as "open qualifying spots, unrestricted sponsor exemptions and foreign exemptions."

"It's not a perfect world, we won't do that perfectly," Finchem said. "But we certainly will make progress."

"This is a recognition about what Tiger has meant to the sport, what he means to the game of golf, what he's done to impact the livelihoods of PGA Tour players," Finchem said. "The players concluded, and our board concluded, that he should be referenced in this context, very similarly to Jack and Arnold."

Finchem is hoping Tiger's tournament, as it most widely called, will eventually have the prestige of the Jack Nicklaus' Memorial tournament with a field of 105 last year and Arnold Palmer's tournament at Bay Hill, which had 118 players in 2006.

Speaking for corporate sponsor AT&T, Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre said, "AT&T is proud to partner with Tiger Woods, his foundation and the PGA Tour on what promises to be a first-class tournament and one of the most anticipated events on the Tour schedule.

"It's appropriate that during the week Americans celebrate their freedom, the AT&T National will benefit young people and will pay tribute to the men and women serving in our Armed Forces."

After the announcement, Finchem, Whitacre and Woods held a press conference where Woods spoke about the AT&T National and the Tiger Woods Foundation.

Highlights:

TIGER WOODS: Well, thank you everyone. This is a pretty historic day for us at the Foundation, one that we've been lucky enough to have had the opportunity given to us by Commissioner Tim Finchem and Ed Whitacre here of AT&T. This is a dream come true for myself. I remember back when I first came on Tour and was able to play events and we started our foundation in 1997, my focus and my goal one day with my father one day was to be able to host an event on the PGA Tour. This is a pretty momentous day for us because we are lucky enough to have the opportunity to do that. I just wish my father could have been here to see it. It was a dream that he wanted to have for us at that foundation. It was something that we tried and worked so hard to build a foundation, so we were able to help as many kids as we possibly can.

Along the way, our foundation has now about 4 million kids in our Start Something Program, our mentoring program and career achievement program around the country, and that's absolutely amazing for us in a short span of time to be able to do something like that. Well, I think it's basically a no-brainer for us to say yes, that we would love to come here to our nation's capital. With my father's history being in the military and serving in Special Forces, to come here during the nation's birthday.

And something that I want to make clear to everyone here is that during the tournament, anyone who is in active duty will get free admission to our tournament. That's something that I think is very important. They have put their lives on the line so that we are able to enjoy the lives that we have today and freedoms that we are able to enjoy. So we'd love for them to come out and enjoy. It will be a family event. It will be, all kids who are under the age of 12 are able to get in free as well. We want to make this a family-oriented affair, and it's something that I know that we promote on the PGA Tour, and AT&T does as well. So that's one of the reasons why we're so looking forward to having such a great event here, hopefully at Congressional.

I know we are in the midst, I know this happened so quickly, but over the past year, we at the Foundation have been looking and exploring opportunities up and down the Eastern seaboard for a future East Coast Learning Center, and we are looking at now here specifically in the Washington, D.C. area of having another learning center where we're able to impact the lives of our future generations. This year on our West Coast Learning Center, we have just about 5,000 kids that are going to come through the Learning Center and get a chance to explore and experience what we have to offer. We have had some amazing success with the Learning Center, and hopefully be able to do something as special here in the D.C. area with the commitment we have with the Tour and AT&T and obviously with the entire community here. I think hopefully with our impact, I think can be pretty impactful and pretty significant. That's one of the reasons why I am so excited about being here, being able to do something for the kids here in the local community.

I'm looking forward to coming back here and playing and hosting this event. I know it's going to be a lot of work over the next few months putting this all together. We have had just an amazing effort and support working with the PGA Tour and AT&T in making this happen. Hopefully all of you can come out and enjoy and experience what we have to offer. Thank you so much.

The transcript for the above interview is courtesy of ASAP Sports and a full, complete transcript is available online at http://www.cybergolf.com/indexgenerator.asp?newsid=4794