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WGC ACCENTURE MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP MEDIA DAY

February 2, 2009

WADE DUNAGAN: My name is Wade Dunagan, and it's my privilege to be the executive director for the World Golf Championships Accenture Match Play Championship. It's my pleasure to welcome you this morning. I'd like to begin by introducing a few of the guests that we have with us today. To begin with, Mr. Gary Beckner, the senior director of global event marketing for Accenture; Mike McMahon, the general manager of the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain; Chris McGinnis, the tournament championship for the Tucson Conquistadors; and we're very pleased to have the 2006 Accenture Match Play champion, Mr. Geoff Ogilvy. Geoff's season is off to a great start, and we'll get to hear from him in a few minutes.
I'd also like to recognize the ownership of the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club. We have David Mehl, and we have Tim and Casey Bollinger. From the PGA TOUR we have David Pillsbury, and we have Mayor Honea from the town of Marana.
I'd also like to introduce Judy McDermott, who's the executive director for the Tucson Conquistadors. A lot of important folks in tow today.
I've lived in Tucson for 25 of the last 28 years, and I can tell you that I'm very proud and honored to be involved with this tournament that is so important for our community. We're very fortunate to have the Accenture Match Play championship call Marana, Tucson and southern Arizona home. As of today we are about three weeks away from event week, and right now we're knee-deep in preparations for everything.
As you look out to the west and as you play today, you'll be able to see a lot of the structures that we have going up and are in the process of being built. We're very excited about the Walter Hagen Club this year, which is the equivalent of the Championship Club from last year, and extremely excited about the double-deck structure called the Canyon Club up between hole No. 15 and No. 16. I'll be honest, I think it's going to be one of the best venues we've ever built and probably one of the best on TOUR. So take a look at those as you go around today.
A number of things remained the same for our event in 2009. We have the Top 64 players in the world based on the World Golf Rankings, and I believe that that would represent arguably the best field in all of golf. The competition will be conducted over five days in the unique match play format.
The greatest change for our event in 2009 is our tremendous move to our new home, the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club at Dove Mountain. This is a Jack Nicklaus signature course. It measures over 7,800 yards in length and designed with match play in mind. I think it will demand some very specific shot-making and provide a very challenging test for the best players in the world.
More importantly, this move to the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club is fantastic for our spectators. We will be able to present more golf viewing with far less walking than in past years, and from the central point on the golf course you'll be no more than 100 yards away from the opening and closing holes, the loop of the front nine, and both loops on the back nine.
Spectators will be able to move around much more easily and they'll be able to catch up with the action wherever it may be on the golf course.
Continuing the theme of our fan-friendly atmosphere, we will also be announcing in the next week or so some of the special offerings that we have. These will include merchandise and food and beverage offers, all aimed at making the Accenture Match Play Championship an exciting and affordable experience for everyone.
One more aspect of our event is the combined commitment to charity. The PGA TOUR and Accenture are well-known for their charitable giving across the country and internationally, but we also have a very strong local partnership with the Tucson Conquistadors. Through these combined dedicated efforts, this event touches nearly everyone in southern Arizona, whether they play golf or not.
When you combine world-class golf and absolutely spectacular Ritz Carlson Golf Club and the continued commitment to charity, the 2009 Accenture Match Play championship is destined to be the best yet. The fans are really in for a treat.
Before we hear from our first speaker today, let's set the stage a bit and queue up a video which is a recap of the 2008 event. I think it'll work as a preview, also, for what we can expect and all the excitement for 2009.
(Video shown.)
WADE DUNAGAN: At this time please join me in welcoming Mr. Gary Beckner, the senior director of global event marketing for Accenture.
GARY BECKNER: First of all, I know everyone wants to get out and hit some golf balls as soon as possible, and I think Wade pretty much introduced and thanked everyone that's part of the organization and the facilities, and there's two people I want to give -- one person I want to give an extra call-out to is Geoff. Thank you so much for coming here. I know you have a busy schedule and want to spend time with your family, but we really appreciate you here today. We also know you have another commitment and you need to get going pretty soon so we'll try to move this along quickly. Therefore if all the people that were already announced by Wade will please excuse me, I won't double those acknowledgments.
However, the additional people I would like to call out are one, the fabulous staff of the Ritz-Carlton and the World Golf Championships Accenture Match Play Championship here for all the work that you've done throughout the year and will continue to do between now and tournament time. And the other people we'd like to call out is all the media who are here today and who will help the world understand and be aware of what an exciting tournament we have here in Arizona throughout the year.
I think people know Accenture is a global management consulting technology services and outsourcing company, and we collaborate with our clients to help them become high performers. We're very proud to be part of this event. We've been part of the Match Play Championship since 1995, when we partnered with a small group out of Atlanta and the PGA TOUR in creating a world stage for match play, and we're very, very pleased with how successful it's been over the years, and we think in large part it's due to the media coverage who let the world know exactly what the excitement of match play is all about.
We're looking forward to this great new home. We think it's going to be a great challenge for all of us. We're really excited about being part of this event. We're also excited about being part of working with the community and providing opportunities for not-for-profits to benefit from this operation and organization, not just during tournament week but year-round.
So again, I want to thank all of you so very, very much for coming and being with us and to help the world know how great the Accenture Match Play Championship is and all the people that are behind it between the venue, the city, the government, the property, and the PGA TOUR. We really appreciate this effort that everybody is putting in to make this such a great event, and we hope you all enjoy covering it and seeing it and watching it every bit as much as we do in sponsoring it. Again, thank you all so much for coming.
WADE DUNAGAN: As you saw in the video, the giving back to this community is an important component of the Accenture Match Play Championship. To speak more about this on behalf of the Tucson Conquistadors, please welcome tournament champion Chris McGinnis.
CHRIS McGINNIS: We are very, very excited to be here this morning, and I'm excited to represent the Tucson Conquistadors. For those of you who may not know, the Tucson Conquistadors have been involved in professional golf in Tucson since 1962. We are an organization of approximately 200 local business owners and managers who have been very privileged to have raised over $20 million for local charities and youth sports participation venues. The Conquistadors place special emphasis on programs serving the disadvantaged and handicapped children in southern Arizona, much as you saw earlier on the video monitors.
Key beneficiaries from our funding include Special Olympics, YMCA, Boys & Girls Club, challenger little league, junior golf, and our very own brand new First Tee of Tucson program. Our building is complete. It's over at the El Rio public golf course, and we hope to have our grand opening in March of this year.
As you may note, we provide a lot more than just youth sports participation. We also heavily support life skills and enrichment programs, as well.
We're proud of our golf heritage and the partnerships that we have developed, and our most recent partnership with Accenture and the World Golf Championships has absolutely been the most exciting thus to date.
Our task during the Accenture Match Play Championships keeps us busy on two fronts: First, we're responsible for the management and duties of the 900-plus volunteers it takes to host this event. Secondly, the Tucson Conquistadors have been working diligently to share and to sell the ticket packages, opportunities to the general public and to the business clientele of Arizona, which kind of leads me back to why we do it. Accenture, the World Golf Championships, the PGA TOUR have been most gracious to the Tucson Conquistadors. They allow the Conquistadors to retain a substantial portion of the ticket receipts, thus we're able to contribute back to the community to the tune of over a million dollars annually while we're doing this tournament. Big nut.
So how can you get much better? It's a win-win for everyone. People can come and enjoy, entertain at a world-class golf sporting event and provide to charity for the youth organizations of southern Arizona, and we're very honored to participate with you. Thank you.
WADE DUNAGAN: Thank you, Chris. We've talked an awful lot about how excited we are here to be at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club at Dove Mountain. So to introduce the golf course I'd like to introduce the general manager of the Ritz Carlson, Mike McMahon.
MIKE McMAHON: Good morning, welcome to Marana and the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain. I moved here in August of this year with my family from Naples, Florida, and as of today we have about 150 ladies and gentlemen on the Ritz-Carlton team that will support this event. As you know, the golf club, which opened about I guess two weeks ago yesterday, is the first phase of the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain development. Later this year in October we'll add the resort and spa. I'm not sure any of you will have a chance to see it today. But when that component is on-line, the 2010 Accenture World Match Play will be even more spectacular.
Our mission at Ritz-Carlton is to be the premier worldwide provider of luxury experiences. We have golf resorts in China and Korea and Asia. We have Ireland, Portugal, and in other European countries, across the Sun Belt, in California, Florida and Georgia. And this particular property is the first one to host a significant golf event like this. So it's a big deal for Ritz-Carlton.
Before I introduce Dave McNeill I'd like to just acknowledge our team here who will be supporting today's events, Ken DePuw is our general manager and director of golf operations; Jeff MacCormick is our head golf professional, and Jay Ervin is our golf course superintendent. Jay is a third generation golf course superintendent, was our first Ritz-Carlton employee on the ground here in Marana almost two years ago. I'm sure his father and grandfather will be very, very proud of what you're going to see today.
A resort marketing team here that supports you and your efforts today and during tournament week includes Steven Duker, our director of sales and marketing; Jennifer Pazarski who's director of public relations. Today is her first day, and Ed Vieta with Hunter Public Relations, who most of you have already met.
We would not be sitting here without the vision of David Mehl. David's contribution to Dove Mountain, to Marana and greater Tucson are too numerous to mention. David is the president of the Cottonwood Properties and the visionary behind the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain. David?
DAVID MEHL: It's hard to describe how excited I am to see this match play event now come to a reality on our new golf club. We first bought land here in 1984, so it's been a long time coming. Tim and Casey Bollinger and I have been dreaming about this resort community for about ten years, the plan that it's taken to execute this. Our goal of having a resort community that would be equal to any in the world along with our partnership with Ritz-Carlton is now making that happen here in Marana, Arizona, with the great support that we've had from the town.
We are thankful that everything is actually happening. It's, again, hard for me to describe being able to walk out here and see the reality for our golf course. I think you'll find today is spectacular. Jack Nicklaus and I worked 25 years ago at La Paloma and it was a reunion with Jack. It is a special golf course, one that he took a lot of personal attention to, really used his artistic ability to its fullest, and it was very exciting to work once again with Jack, and we hope you enjoy the course.
The whole match play venue with the PGA, it's been a great relationship, with Accenture and their support. We hope that will really truly continue to be one of the great golf events in the world, so thank you very much for being with us today.
WADE DUNAGAN: With all due respect to our other guest speakers, I think it's time for us to call the man of the hour up to the stage. Geoff, if you'd join us up here. We certainly appreciate you taking time to join us today. I know your schedule has been very busy. Obviously you've had tremendous success in this particular event, and your 2009 campaign is off to an incredible start. Could you open with perhaps a couple of comments on your season thus far, and then maybe add what you're looking forward to in coming to the Accenture Match Play Championship?
GEOFF OGILVY: Obviously for anyone I don't know who doesn't watch golf in here, I won the first tournament of the year, which was the Mercedes Championship, which is one of the bigger tournaments we play because it's only the guys who won a tournament last year get to turn up, and it's in Kapalua and Maui so it's a wonderful place to start. But to win the tournament obviously is a pretty nice way to start your year, to win the very first one. I've had two reasonable tournaments. I've only played three tournaments, and I've kind of had two other decent tournaments. My start of the year has been textbook, really, perfect way to start the year. I'm very excited about the rest of the year.
Tucson has been very, very good to me. I've played in Tucson every year but one since I've played the TOUR. In 2001 I think my first Tucson Open at Tucson National was, and I ended up winning the Tucson Open I think in 2005, so always had fun in Tucson, and then to win was fantastic. Then I had to miss a year in Tucson. I snuck into the Match Play at La Costa, and that was good to me, and I won the Match Play in La Costa. So that last week, the week we play this Match Play has been really, really good to me.
The first week we came back to Tucson I ended up losing in the final to Henrik. I've had lots of success in Tucson and lots of success in the Match Play, so always very excited and looking forward to this week.

Q. First impressions on this golf course?
GEOFF OGILVY: I haven't actually played this yet. I've played the first two rounds last week in Phoenix with Camilo and Mike Weir, and they both came here last week, and they said it's spectacular. The greens are going to test everyone out. It's very long, suited probably better to the tournament than the other one across the road, so they were pretty excited and had good things to say, so I'm going to have a bit of a chance -- I only live in Scottsdale, and I'm going to have a chance to get down here before the tournament, so hopefully I can get down here in the next week or two and get ready.

Q. Since you've had so much success in Tucson, what do you attribute that to? Is it something about the course, the people, the environment?
GEOFF OGILVY: Well, I live in Scottsdale so I'm used to the desert. The cold, the dry kind of cold winter desert, I think it messes with your skin and your nose and all sorts of stuff.
But I just loved Tucson National. I loved the whole week. The Tucson Open was a great tournament. Everyone who played it loved it. It had a great following among the players on TOUR. We really enjoyed playing there. I loved the golf course, I loved everything about the week, so that kind of started the Tucson thing.
And then Match Play has always been a favorite of mine. We don't get many chances to play. When I started getting into the Match Play it was a bonus, but now I miss out on going to Tucson. But now it's perfect for me, the Match Play comes back to Tucson. One of my favorite places to play and one of my favorite tournaments to play kind of got melded in.
I don't know, it's close to where I live. As I said, I live in Scottsdale two hours up the road. I'm used to the desert and I just enjoy it here.

Q. (Inaudible.)
GEOFF OGILVY: Yes and no. We play a lot of long golf courses now. We're up a little bit here. I don't know exactly what the elevation is, 3,000 nearly? So 7,800 is probably going to play a little shorter than that. 7,800 in San Diego would be intimidating. We play so many long golf courses now that I think we're kind of used to seeing these crazy numbers on the scorecard, these long 500-plus yard par-4s, and we don't have any par-5s under 600 yards anymore.
The TOUR is getting that way. We hit the ball so far that it has to be that long, I guess, if you want us to hit some mid-irons into some par-4s. It's intimidating when you look at it, but when you get out and play and see it hole by hole and you learn how to play each hole, you forget about the length and get on with playing the hole in front of you.

Q. Watching you in your first tournament you were sporting a beard, and you won. In the second tournament you were clean-shaven and you didn't win. What can we expect in match play?
GEOFF OGILVY: That's why it's coming back (laughter). It was just a bit of an off-season beard I had going at the Mercedes, and I played really well in the first round, so you can't shave if you have a good first round. You can't take your sweater off if you're playing well, even if you're getting hot. You've got to keep it on.
My wife likes the beard so I grow the beard. When I shave it off she says I look too young, so the beard is coming back.

Q. (Inaudible.)
GEOFF OGILVY: The ones who logistically can will, I'm sure. A lot of the guys, obviously the Top 64 in the world, a lot of them are from outside the U.S., and if they're coming from Dubai or places like that or Australia or Europe, they're going to struggle to get that done. But a lot of the guys playing on the West Coast, if they get a chance -- as I said, Camilo and Mike Weir came down here last year, I'm not how many more. A few guys will, not a lot. Guys will come in early maybe because it's a new course and play Monday and Tuesday practice rounds. But logistically it's difficult for some guys, but anyone who's in the vicinity of the area will come down.

Q. Can you comment a little bit on some of the younger players that will be coming?
GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, AK, Anthony Kim, obviously won twice last year, had a great Ryder Cup. He's already one of the best players on TOUR, and what is he, 25 maybe, 24? Fantastic player. Definitely worth watching, one of the best ball-strikers already, fiery guy, gets fired up. He'll be really fired up to play the Match Play. He was really into the Ryder Cup. He got right into Sergio there in the singles and it was fun to watch, so he'll be great.
Rory has won in Dubai. I've actually never played with Rory, but by all reports he's an astonishing player at 19. To win Dubai, it's one of their strongest tournaments, and he was six in front I think at some point in the last round. It's very impressive. All reports coming from him are he's the real deal and he's going to be around for a long time.
I think Ishikawa is going to make the Top 64, the young Japanese kid who's won everything. He's won already twice in Japan and he's only 16 or 17. The reports coming from Japan is he's saving the Japanese Tour, he's that good, and he's a new legend, and if he turns up he'll be worth looking at because he's only 17, and little. Incredible.
I thought I was one of the young players, but obviously every year you get a year older (laughter). This is my ninth year on TOUR, and it's gone past like that. It's crazy. They're unbelievable how good these kids are when they're young. They come out like Anthony Kim the second year on TOUR and he's won twice, and Rory is 19 and already winning. I wasn't anywhere near that at 19 or 20. It's incredible. They'll be definitely worth having a look at because they're some of the best players in the world already, and they're only that young.

Q. Maybe you've already answered the question, but besides you and Tiger, is there somebody who's really more difficult to play against in a match play tournament? Do you find that there's some people that play this style of tournament better than metal play tournament?
GEOFF OGILVY: The guys who look like they're not going to make bogeys -- they always feel hard to beat, the guys that putt really well and make six-footers for par and always hit on the fairway and never hit a bad shot always feel harder to beat than the guy who might make three birdies but then might hit in the desert three holes in a row. The intimidating guy is the guys who's always just presenting the ball on the fairway, he goes, "there you go, I'm on the fairway again," and then he hits it on the green again and then he makes the putt. He looks like he's never going to make a mistake, so you know you have to make birdies to beat them. They're the hard guys to beat.
I lost to Justin earlier this year in the first round, so I've had both ends of the spectrum in the Match Play. He's just like that. He just bangs away, bangs away, bangs away, and you have to do something special. He's never going to have a bad day so you have to do something special to beat him, and that's intimidating to know on the first tee if you play really well you'll beat him, but if you don't play really well you're going to lose. Some guys, they could have one or the other sort of a day, whereas he's one of those guys that's going to have a definitely good day. That's intimidating on the first tee. That's hard to beat, I think.

Q. Would you share a little what your life was like after you won the Open?
GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, obviously amped up a little bit with responsibilities. It opened quite a lot of doors, playing some bigger tournaments overseas and getting some invitations, created a lot more options schedule-wise and I could pick and choose the tournaments I played a bit more and play a few of the big ones overseas, and it created quite a big media buzz in Australia. But it calmed down relatively quickly. It was just exciting -- it was a really exciting period. It was a great fun time, and it gave me the feeling that I can really compete in the big tournaments and compete with the best players in the world. So from a golf perspective it made me feel like a better player, and from an outside influence thing, I guess it opened a lot of doors and it created a few more distractions. But all in all, it was pretty good all around.

Q. How many practice rounds will you play, and how much time will you spend putting to get used to these greens?
GEOFF OGILVY: Some courses you feel like you know after one round, some courses I've played 20 times and I'm still working out. I'll try to play -- as I said, I'm going to really try to come down here before the tournament week, and I'll definitely play -- I might play 27 holes, nine holes Monday and 18 Tuesday, or the other way around, and do a bit of putting.
I've heard that putting is going to be the key out here. They have some interesting greens out there. I'll spend a lot of time with long lag putts and stuff like that, especially if there's a lot of slope out there. Usually when you have golf courses on the sides of hills you can get some valley effects and stuff that you have to get used to reading the greens on a property.
I'll spend a bit of time putting, but you never truly know a golf course until you've played three or four tournaments around it. You learn so much more in a competitive round on a golf course than you do in a preparation round. I do, anyway. I'll try to play two or three rounds and putt a little bit and hope it's enough for Wednesday, and then hopefully the further through the tournament I get, the more I'll know.
WADE DUNAGAN: Geoff, thank you very much. Appreciate it. We wish you the best these next three weeks and we'll see you at the end of the month.

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