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ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL PRESENTED BY MASTERCARD

March 6, 2019

Orlando, Florida

JOHN BUSH: JOHN BUSH: Good morning and welcome to the Arnold Palmer Invitational press conference. We're pleased to be joined by Justin Rose, 2019 Arnold Palmer Invitational Mastercard Ambassador, Jon Podany, CEO of Arnold Palmer Enterprises and President of the Arnold & Winnie Palmer Foundation, Marci Doyle, Arnold Palmer Invitational Tournament Director and Chief Operating Officer, and Michael Robichaud, Mastercard Senior Vice President of Global Sponsorships. We will begin with Jon. Jon is no stranger to the PGA TOUR, but to this tournament he came on board in 2018 and I know is really enjoying being here and honoring Mr. Palmer this week. Jon, if we can get some only comments please.

JON PODANY: It's a pleasure to be here. Unbelievably excited about this week, my first in this role as John said, and I respected Mr. Palmer for a long time, been in the golf business 24 years, and it really is a true honor to be a part of carrying forward his legacy, working with the Palmer family so we have got lot of great news I think to share with you this morning about where we are with the various businesses and the foundation and I'll just give you a quick overview of some of those things. First of all I think if you've been out on the golf course you'll see that it is just in outstanding condition. Members here are saying it's the best it's ever been. Certainly the best in the last 40 years that we have had the tournament. So that's incredibly exciting. I think that's a tribute to our superintendent and the work that he has done but it's also due to the investment that the Saunders family has made in this property with the irrigation system, with the short game area improvements to the practice range, I think we have got a truly a world class facility to offer to the players. So very excited about that. I think that word of mouth has traveled and you look at the field we have this week which I won't I'm going to let Marci talk about a lot of the tournament elements so I won't get into detail but it's obviously a great field. Another new enhancement that we have introduced this week and hopefully you'll get a chance to go see it if you haven't already is the Arnold Palmer Experience. Which is really an opportunity for us to tell the story of Arnold Palmer and make sure that his legacy continues forward and we're just really excited to be able to do that at the tournament. It like many things that we're going to try to do this week, including the opening ceremonies immediately following this, tells the whole story of Arnold Palmer's life. Not just the champion golfer, which we all know he was, but his so many other aspects of his life, aviator, philanthropist, successful businessman, family man, it was such an amazing life and we're trying to tell that complete story. Really got to give I would like to just credit our team for the incredible efforts that they put into this. It really was a nine or ten week process, so couple key people in our end, Marci and her tournament team, and our partners Pro Vision, I mean to be able to pull that off in ten weeks was truly amazing and just a great effort. And our foundation board really for approving it to move forward to begin with. So again if you haven't gotten out there for that we hope you will, I think you all know that the proceeds from this event go to the Arnold & Winnie Palmer Foundation which is the mission is to provide a brighter future for our youth through children's health character development and nature, focus, wellness. A big part in the primary beneficiary of the proceeds of this event go to the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children. Which is now coming up on 30 years believe it or not. It was 30 years ago when Arnold Palmer took a look at a what was then a six bed pediatric floor here in Orlando and said we can do better. And through the partnership with Orlando Health through the significant support of this community, obviously have done better, it's one of the top pediatric hospitals now in the United States and as we look forward to what we can do together with Orlando Health, we're going to try to carry forward that spirit and try to drive the exceptional care that exists today at the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, the Winnie Palmer hospital, deeper into the community. And what I mean by that is to things like nested pediatric emergency rooms in other hospitals. Like they have at Doctor Phillips. Telemedicine and advanced technologies to be able to allow other hospitals to communicate with the experts at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children. So we're making a multi year, multi million dollar commitment to make sure that this community has the kind of quality health care that everybody deserves. I want to thank Mastercard, Michael's going to speak a little bit here in a moment, but Mastercard's partnership here has really helped us elevate this event to be one of the elite tournaments on the PGA TOUR. And their significant commitment is a big reason why we're able to give back. So it's a great friendship, it's a great partnership and Michael really truly thank you all. Other news this week, that was announced on Monday and I won't rehash it, but we were happy to see the re-imagination of the Arnold Palmer Award to the Arnold Palmer Rookie Of The Year Award. The PGA TOUR worked with us on that and I think it's just one of, another one of those things that really reflects upon who Arnold Palmer was. Because he was so welcoming to young players on the TOUR and he was such a role model for them and how to conduct themselves and so forth. So we thought that was a great fit and excited to see that announced this week as well. I do have some more big news to announce this morning on the Arnold Palmer Enterprises part of our business. Pleased to announce that we are announcing a multi year collaboration with Puma golf where we are going to work with them to develop a co-branded Arnold Palmer by Puma apparel footwear and accessories. And we're excited about taking, they have really done a deep dive into the Arnold Palmer brand and the classic style that he represented. I think we all know the style and charisma that Arnold Palmer had and we're just very excited about working with them on a collection of apparel that's going to bring that forward for a lock time to come. It's amazing how many style element that is he had 40, 50 years ago that a lot of younger players are carrying forward today. So this builds upon what has been about a three year partnership together starting with allowing some limited edition products here for the Arnold Palmer Invitational. So it really allows us to take that and big step further so this new collection will be available in mid 2020. So looking forward to launching that next year. And finally, I just wanted to say, this week and all the things we have going on and things I've talked about this morning is really just the beginning of what we think is going to be an exciting year overall and years going forward. We have the Arnold Palmer Cup in June, we have what would have been Mr. Palmer's 90th birthday in September. We're going to have a big run up to that over the anyone tee days leading into his birthday. We have got some exciting plans for the foundation and how we can develop additional programs particularly in the character development and nature focus wellness part of the pillars, so you can lack forward to seeing us charging ahead and being bold and just like Arnie would. Thank you, John.

JOHN BUSH: Thank you, now I would like to introduce Marci. Marci, time flies. Your 11th Invitational, your fifth as the tournament director. Get some comments on an excellent week ahead.

MARCI DOYLE: We are excited to be celebrating our 40th anniversary here at Bay Hill. When Mr. Mr. Palmer decided to bring this tournament over here to Bay Hill it's been 41 years ago. So we're excited to be here again. We have a great field this week. Strongest that we have had in 12 years since 2007. So we're excited about that as you can imagine you've seen some of the names that we have here, thrilled to have Justin part of that here with us as a ambassador as well. We have our elevated status that we received back in 2017, that we increased our purse to 9.1 million this year and the winner actually gets a three year exemption as opposed to a two year exemption at all the other tournaments. And new this year we're actually part of the Open Championship qualifying series. So there will actually be three spots that will be provided out of our top-10 from the from the tournament to the players that don't already qualify. So we're excited to be part of that as well. Couple things that we're doing here at the tournament to remind the players and again to continue the messaging of Mr. Palmer and what he stands for, we have brought back the barber shop in the locker room. Justin I don't know if you've partaken yet.

JUSTIN ROSE: I got my neck done. I got spruced up.

MARCI DOYLE: Fabulous. Mr. Palmer always gave people a hard time making sure it was the clean shave and clean cut. So we have that for the players again and they have a lot of fun with it. When I went in there was a little bit of a line waiting for the barber shop, so it's kind of fun. We have the umbrella embroidery program that we thought it was going to be a one time thing that we did the first year after Mr. Palmer's passing as bit of a tribute and a nod to him and it was such a popular thing and we got such great feedback from the players and the crew that we're now doing that as a tradition every year so the players get to put an umbrella logo on their hat, shirt or bag as a nod to Mr. Palmer during the tournament this week. So that's happening again. And we have a lot of things also from the general public, you, I think you'll see that you can't really walk around the tournament without seeing or hearing or feeling what Mr. Palmer has influenced. Everything from the main entrance where we have the audio of Mr. Palmer doing interviews to our opening and closing ceremonies where we'll have a video of him and again it's not only for the general public but it's also a nod to the players, especially those young players that are coming up, we want to make sure that they know that everything that he was a part of and he influenced so much more than just golf, so many of the industries, and so we'll have that as part of the our opening ceremony today immediately following this press conference. So I think it's an our whole goal tournament week is to make sure that Mr. Palmer is infiltrated as well as the Palmer family continues. So we have three ambassadors this year that are representing the tournament, which we also started in 2017, this year we have Kelly Tilghman, who was Golf Channel on air personality for many years and a great friend of the Palmer family. She has played a significant role in the tournaments in the past with hosting our Arnie's March that was held yesterday. She continued to do that and she's just been a wonderful support to the tournament. So she's officially an ambassador for the tournament this year. We also have Orange County Mayor Demings, first time community support with a ambassador role. And he was actually the sheriff prior to, it was Sheriff Demings and has played a great role supporting our tournament from that standpoint from a security standpoint and now in his new role that he just got voted as Orange County Mayor Demings. So he's a great friend of the family as well and then finally of course as John mentioned we have Justin Rose as our player ambassador we're very thankful to have you on board, just continual. Thank you.

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, thank you.

MARCI DOYLE: Justin and Kate with their foundation have done a lot of work with the Palmer family, with Amy Saunders and they ever been a great local, they lived here for many years, and have just been a great support for this tournament. So weather very appreciative. Thank you.

JOHN BUSH: Marci, thank you. We'll turn it over to Michael.

MICHAEL ROBICHAUD: Good morning everybody. So, wow, just so much exciting stuff going only. I want to thank a me and her partnership. She's been so fantastic to work with. So it's just been such a pleasure over the years how we have evolved this and continued to work together. As I think everybody knows we're all sort of PGA TOUR sponsored outside of this event and they're just fantastic the way they keep envisioning the way forward and looking and trying to evolve the game and evolve how things are going. We couldn't ask for a better partner around the world for us to work together and reach those fans and consumers that are so important to us then with our event we have such great friends here. Marci the best tournament director out there, wouldn't know what to do without her the. I think everybody has seasoned what's going on what's happening at this event. No accident. Jon and the new things -- I have known him a long time -- just a fabulous addition just the future of where we're going is just so exciting. So, but most importantly I also want to thank Justin and our other ambassadors, we have seven ambassadors playing in the field and we put lots on them, we are somewhat high maintenance I admit and having someone like Justin who -- he may not even remember I met him when he was a rookie over in European just to watch who how he's evolved his career, gotten married and the family is running and Kate is probably doing more of that. But just such a great friend to have with us and all the other ambassadors we have some new guys with Sam Burns and Beau Hossler, so adding to our already exciting roster, they're all out here this week supporting such an important event. For those that were here a few years ago when we talked about how the event is evolving, we talk a lot behind the scenes about how do we what kind of tone and how do we want to have this obviously Mr. Palmer certainly I'm not going to sit here and tell anybody about his history, but we want to honor the past and the excitement and the history there but we always want to move forward and I think that's that balance we keep trying to strike is what would he have done how would he envision things but of course he was always pushing us to move things forward. The course again has been talked about and it's just beyond exceptional right now. It's a real treat. Should be a good test. That should be kind of fun. But as we look at what we're doing at Mastercard and how we work within the golf space and what we're trying to do, it's obviously very important for us to use that as a platform to deliver our message and I'm excited to show this year is that we have made some more changes within what we're doing at Mastercard and how we're evolving our business that's that the that continues to grow and evolve globally and how we want to adapt for the times and keep our brand fresh and keep how kind of adapting how the world is going, so there's we have new, we have two new commercials actually we're going to show one right now. But the big evolutions we have done if you've noticed hopefully is that we have dropped the word Mastercard from our logo, now we're just going only with the logo. There's not many brand out there that have that are doing that, so we're excited to kind of move forward with that fresh look. And then the other big announcement we're having with it is we have added our sonic branding some sound to what we're doing and if you kind of just think about your daily lives, whether it's voice activated things in your home, and just how the world is just becoming much more voice centric as opposed to always about touch or site, we needed to add that and wanted to add that element to what we're doing so I think we're going to roll this one spot so keep an eye out for those things.

(Ad played.)

So we're excited to have than a we have another one and that whole notion I was talk before about blending the past and history and someone as fantastic and a long standing ambassador of ours, Tom Watson, and so still trying to have a little fun with the a little bit of the past and the future and how things are evolving but the last thing on that I'll I'm obligated to talk about is contact less again from a payment system outside the U.S. it's a little bit more evolved than it is here in the U.S. We see that as a huge thing, a huge way forward for our business and that's something we're trying to communicate here. But I'll just send end by saying thanks for everybody. There is one other partner I wanted to mention is we're partners with the R & A and The Open Championship and having this event tried tied so directly to another fantastic event with having those three playing spots and seeing how the world of golf is so global and continues to be inter connected is such a great thing for us and then lastly is the support we're so excited to give the foundation and really at the end of the day why we're all here and why what we're all doing matters way bigger than anything that any one of us could do but just the coming together and supporting something as important os the as the foundation so I appreciate your time and thank you.

JOHN BUSH: Thank you Michael we'll turn it over to Justin Rose. Justin, you've always been vocal in your admiration for Mr. Palmer. Talk a little bit about what it means to you to serve as an ambassador to honor his legacy this week.

JUSTIN ROSE: Absolutely. I think just sitting up here today and listening to all of the amazing work that's going on by two exceptional brands, two world class brands. What a testament to Arnold Palmer to be called a brand. Obviously Michael you guys have dropped the logo, dropped the word with the logo. I feel like the umbrella is such an amazing logo too that maybe one day the same will be done with you guys and that's just amazing to see that the work that is it being done by you guys obviously the family, I think and just to be involved in a small small way is a huge honor for me. I think I just have to look around and just have to look at all the quotes that are around the room, all the wonderful things that Arnold Palmer has said through the years. I know that if I get into contention on Sunday afternoon I'm going to look to the right hand side of the 10th tee box and I think it's over there but you must play boldly to win. I'll make a note in my yardage book to do that and try to draw some inspiration from the great man in the moment of in the heat of battle I suppose on Sunday. But I will have the way he played the game, but obviously the way he lived his life, he's an inspiration to all of us on TOUR and I think it's only fitting that the rookie of the year is in his name and his honor because like you guys were talking about it really sets the expectation of hopefully what else is required and the way he went about things I think is he's just such a great role model and the way we're keeping his legacy going and honoring him I think is fantastic and this tournament for me is so innovative in so many ways but it's just steeped in history so it's just such a wonderful balance.

JOHN BUSH: Thank you, Justin. We have time for a few questions this morning. Raise your hand and we'll get a microphone to you. Questions?

Q. The kind of interactive thing with Arnold and I don't know if bringing to life the experiences is the best way to phrase it. But with are did that idea come from an why do you think it's important?
JON PODANY: When I got here there were already some plans in place as we looked to the future for I think everybody knows he's got warehouse of memorabilia and the office up in Latrobe and the family was thinking about what do we do with that longer term. And I just felt that we have such a showcase here in the tournament that if we could do something for the tournament that gives people a sense for our vision going forward that we should try to capitalize on that. So that's how it was initial a Ted but as I said before then to take the team and the effort that they put in to get it to where we are I would say the other thing that we really wanted to do is not just showcase memorabilia and hang things on the wall, we really wanted people to be able to experience his life in multiple ways. So I think that's probably for me what's so exciting about it that you can go in and see a movie on his life, you can see his memorabilia, of course, which is amazing, there's imagery all over the walls, there's five swing simulators, so you can replicate three of his famous shots. You can try to drive the green at Cherry Hills you can try to hit driver off the deck here at 18 like he did in his last round during the Arnold Palmer Invitational, or you can try to hit it out of the blackberry bush at Royal Birkdale like he did in 1961. And then once you do that, you immediately get an e-mail of your swing side by side with Mr. Palmer's shot under those same circumstances. And then you can take your picture with him as you're exiting with the thumbs up and there's some messaging around what the foundation's trying to do with people if people are so inclined to donate as they leave, there's opportunities to do that, so I just think the combination of all those elements is a way for people to understand who he was and the complete aspect of his life and to really be able to engage and we think in a pretty exciting way.

Q. Justin, there's usually takes a long time to do those commercials. In the down time did you have any opportunity to pick Tom Watson's brain, any good stories from spending time with him that day?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I learned what Tom's, he's very passionate horseman now and I learned what cutting was. I had no idea. He was showing me some videos, he was more inclined to talk more about his horse riding than his golf. But obviously it's great to see he has a passion for that. But I did get some good insights into his mentality and how he went about business and he's taking full credit for the fact that I won in San Diego that week. He was obviously the inspiration that I needed that week. He talked about a few times in his career when he knew he was going to I know with the tournament early on and basically three or four times in his career he said that he just flat out knew that that week he was going to win. We were talking about mindset, mentality, and, yeah, he is obviously a wealth of knowledge. But it was a great to spend the day with him, shoulder to shoulder sitting on the golf cart or back in the green room waiting for the next shot. It was an honor to be working with him on this project.

Q. Have you ever had one of those weeks where you felt you were going to win and done it?
JUSTIN ROSE: No. Not yet.

(Laughter.) Still got to get there.

Q. You mentioned some maybe special things, 90 days leading into Arnold's 90th birthday and didn't know if you had any details of that and also curious we'll be coming up on 20 years since the passing of Winnie Palmer, later this year as well, and didn't know if there was anything special in that regard and of course does that tie into the fact that the charity was renamed from Arnie's Army?
JON PODANY: Good questions. So let me start with that one. Yes, I think that we recently changed the name of the foundation from Arnie's Army Charitable Foundation to the Arnold & Winnie Palmer Foundation and it was exactly what you just mentioned. I think to pay tribute to Winnie and the important role that she had in Mr. Palmer's life and her charitable spirit and how important that was to her. So I think you'll see an integrate immigration of Winnie Palmer in much more of what we do. And from the 90th, plans are still coming together but I can tell you that one thing we are going to do is we're going to have a count down, the 90 days leading into his birthday where we celebrate 90 amazing moments of Arnold Palmer's life. And a lot of the things that you'll see in the experience and more. Just to help people and it will be we'll have some video and imagery and stories and things like that to capitalize on that. Whether it's the flight around the world or the opening of the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children 30 years ago, certainly his golf accomplishments, his unique relationship with presidents, his unique relationship with celebrities, his roots in Latrobe, there's just the amazing thing is would he have so much to work with we could do 180 moments instead of 90. So it will be a fun project. We have already enlisted the help of Doc Giffin who this media center is named after and Charlie Meacham who both have a long history with Arnold Palmer, along with our team. So it's going to be a fun project to pull that together and then that will lead into a big celebration we're still working through with those plans and some plans related to the foundation and how we carry that forward, which again we'll share that at a later date. But it will kick off pretty soon after the Arnold Palmer Cup, which will be at the Alotian Club in early June. It will be right around the U.S. Open timing, which will be kind of cool too.

Q. Because of the gambling aspects that are starting to evolve in different sports now, how much will Mastercard be involved, how much are you pushing to be able to create that environment at events that you're involved in?
MICHAEL ROBICHAUD: That's not something we're really looking at. It's just I think part of the evolution of sports here in the U.S., it's obviously been something that's not new outside the U.S. and in golfing anybody that goes to the Open championship that's always a big part of it. But it's nothing really perspective I would say that we're looking at, anything that's legal, we can support through our platform.

Q. Justin, you mentioned what a testament to be called a brand, do you feel like Justin Rose has become a brand and if so how would you describe the brand?
JUSTIN ROSE: I would say I mean not in -- it doesn't even feel right to call it a brand sitting here and looking at what, where we are in the scale of what we're talking about here as a brand. But everything has to start somewhere. I think for me I'm trying to build my brand on the golf course right now. I still feel like I'm in the doing phase of my career, so for me I'm trying to do it the right way, I'm trying to play as hard as I can to the best ability I can and in the best way I know how. So and if that creates a brand ultimately down the road, then I think that's the organic way that it needs to happen. I don't think you can force it or otherwise it becomes too contrived. So for me it's just about trying to be a pro and learn from the best.

JOHN BUSH: All right. Thank you everyone.

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