"Once the contract is extinguished, you can call and ask, it would be a good conversation, but nothing would come of it."

Tim Finchem and others held a limited audience (translation: yours truly wasn't invited) conference call to announce the new Greenbrier event and to close the door on Buick...for now. It was nice to see Finchem give some props to C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor. And impressive they locked an event in for six years, though as I noted yesterday, not too many people outside of PGA Tour headquarters are so sure this is going to be a success for a number of reasons, most of them logistical.

Only part of the Finchem transcript made it up online at PGATour.com and ASAP, but I was able to get the long version which, like a lot of ASAP transcripts lately, was a complete mess.

Still this was interesting:

Q. I was just curious, the two Buicks each had a year left. Did the bankruptcy void the contracts, or do you guys wait for your pennies on the dollar on the settlement? How does that work?

TIM FINCHEM: They set aside the contracts were extinguished during the bankruptcy proceeding. Of course they come out of bankruptcy, they can do whatever they want. But they are also very much in a movement of downsizing and reducing of budgets, and they had to make some decisions. And in fairness to the time to get a new tournament ready, they went ahead and made a call on the Buick Open. Although we were talking to them right up until very recently about that because it's interrelated with some other arrangements we have with Buick.

But we determined to move ahead today, and it then allows us with Buick to focus our attention on these remaining issues we have and see if we can bring those to a head the next two or three months.

Q. So is there a buyout, per se, to get out of those?

TIM FINCHEM: No, the bankruptcy, once the contract is extinguished, you can call and ask, it would be a good conversation, but nothing would come of it.

I'm not sure if this was just a semantics issue or a contractual misunderstanding at PGA Tour HQ, but this talk of "extinguishing" seems odd considering this was the tour stance on contracts last October when Ginn and Jeld Wen were withering up.

“There’s no technical ability to get out,” said Jon Podany, head of sales for the PGA Tour. “The contract is ironclad.”

Odd that the PGA Tour folded so quietly with Buick yet put up a fight with Ginn. Hopefully this speaks to their desire to get Buick involved again sooner rather than later. Or maybe the contracts technically are not ironclad?

Meanwhile, Bob Harig offers an updated assessment on the state of various events and sponsorship money.