"There was a lot of things swirling around the media center."

The Brand Lady made a rare press center appearance to try and put out the various fires started by Michelle Wie's entourage last week.

CAROLYN BIVENS: I'm going to make a fairly brief opening statement and I will take a few questions, and I'll outline some of the things that we can and can't talk about.
She's baaaccckkkk!
I want to go back to last Thursday and the round in Charleston at River Town. Thursday morning, actually, beginning with the fifth hole that Michelle played, which was the 14th, there began to circulate all kind of rumors, innuendos and questions about a potential ruling, or lack thereof. There was a lot of things swirling around the media center.
And it's good to see she's been brushing up on her English.

At this point, she rambles on about the advice ruling, which isn't why we're here, is it? Now, the 88 stuff...
The 88 rule only came in to effect by the time that Michelle had finished what would have been her 10th or 11th hole and shot the 10.

The Wie camp asked questions about the rules and the regulations, and we did as we do every week, and as we had done earlier that day for her playing partners and for others out in the field; we answered the questions regarding the rules and the regulations. At no time did anyone from the LPGA make any suggestion that Michelle should come off of the course.

I see. And, does this mean Mr. Higgs was less than truthful about his consultations "for no particular reason" with Mr. Nared? Oh I'm sorry, continue...

The one thing that I will not go into is any of the conversation that took place with Mr. Wie, Greg Nared and myself.

Oh. Well, let's see what the slingers ask.

Q. How do you think the conversation went without getting into details? Did he accept what you had to say; not what was said but just the tone of it.

CAROLYN BIVENS: I'm not going to -- I'm not going to discuss it.

Hey, you tried.

Q. Do you ever thoughts on the 88 rule and whether that still need to be in existence?

CAROLYN BIVENS: I really don't.

That's comforting.

I'm not the expert on the rules. It's something that our executive committee will look at. What we generally do is at the end of the year we take two or three days in what's called think tank and the members of the executive committee, of which Annika is a member, get into some of the meatier issues that we really can't deal with during the playing year. And we figure out what needs to be changed, what needs to improve, what needs to be added for the following year.

Oh it's toast. As it should be.

 Q. And as a lot of these storylines focus around various aspects of conduct with a 17-year-old, is there anything that you noticed at all leading into last week that raised any red flags; that got your attention that "I need to kind of pay attention to this?"

CAROLYN BIVENS: The question was, was there any indication before leading into last week that maybe was a red flag or something that needed to be paid attention to.

Doug, there really hasn't been. There really hasn't been.

No, nothing at all! Not like say, having to be hospitalized or previous high profile rules infractions.

Nope, no red flags here!