PIF SAUDI INTERNATIONAL POWERED BY SOFTBANK INVESTMENT ADVISERS

February 2, 2022

Patrick Reed

Royal Greens Golf and Country Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Thanks, everyone, for joining us this afternoon. Patrick, thank you for joining us, too. Welcome back. You've been here a few times before and you've always told us how much you enjoy being here. You must be delighted to be back.

PATRICK REED: Yeah, it's unbelievable to be back. Coming in and playing every year has been amazing. Every year you get here it's hard to believe that it can keep on getting better and better. The golf course is in amazing shape, and it just keeps on maturing and getting better every year.

The hospitality is unbelievable. It's a place that you can't wait to come to, especially with how amazing the weather is every year and how pure the golf course is.

THE MODERATOR: You've just been out on the course in today's pro-am. You had a practice yesterday. How is your swing feeling?

PATRICK REED: Swing is feeling good. Game feels like it's trending, going in the right direction. There's been a lot of work that David, Sean and I have been doing, and I really feel like I'm starting to get grasp of it and get comfortable with the swing, and I think that's the biggest thing is once you're able to get comfortable with a new move and things like that, it allows to you go out and be confident when you're out there playing and go on attack mode.

Q. I think yesterday, as well, you went to the World Academy School again to see the Patrick Reed fan club. How did that go?

PATRICK REED: It was unbelievable. To be able to go over there, to see the kids over there in the academy is amazing. To think the first time I did it, first year I played where they knew what golf was but none of them really played, and to see the turnout every year of the kids coming over here, watching us play and then actually today going out -- well, yesterday going out on that football field and hitting some golf shots with them and to see how many of them now actually enjoy the game is amazing.

That's my goal in playing worldwide and playing in these tournaments is to help try to grow the game around the world, and to see it growing in such a short period of time over here is amazing.

Q. On that very topic, this is obviously now an Asian Tour event. It's got the biggest purse of any Asian Tour event. How do you feel seeing that type of investment going into the Asian Tour?

PATRICK REED: You know, it's huge. To be able to grow golf everywhere and to see the support around the world with golf is what it's all about. Our job obviously out here is to play the best golf we can, to provide for our families and everything, but it's also our job as golfers and as a brand to help grow the game and for the next generation and for generations after that.

To see just the minor changes here and there that really help the overall picture is amazing. To have Asian Tour be here and playing and to see it be their largest purse, hopefully that just is a domino effect for their events going forward that it just helps grow the game and helps also the players on that Tour and build hopefully a bigger and better Tour.

Q. When you came over here last year, you were around sixth or seventh ranked in the world, and you've been consistently around fourth, fifth, seventh. What made you change your swing? What was the thought process behind it?

PATRICK REED: Really for me it was more on getting clarity of my golf swing, understanding what's causing certain misses and what's causing the inconsistencies in the ball-striking. My short game has always been there, whether it's been a good year, a not-so-good year, whether it's amateur golf, junior golf or professional golf, I've always been really gifted around the greens and on the greens. But my ball-striking has always kind of been a little up and down. When it's on, it's on, but then on days it hasn't been on, it's been really bad.

I knew to get to where I wanted to get to, which is hopefully to have a chance to get to No. 1 in the world, you have to do every aspect really well. I felt like this was a change that needed to be made. I've seen where it can go. I've played some rounds of golf and made some swings in practice and stuff and you see how the ball flight is and the control ability that you have and I know it's the right thing to do. It's just going to take time, obviously. You need to put in the reps, and just started working back again with David and Sean mid-December, so it hasn't been long. The more reps you get, the more comfortable you'll get with it.

Q. Was it quite drastic, the things that you did?

PATRICK REED: No. I wouldn't say it's really as much of it being a huge change as it is just it's uncomfortable. I've always allowed myself to aim way right, get kind of long and lifty and have to rely so much on my hands. Now we're just working on getting better alignment and more compact golf swing. When you're able to do that, it allows you to use your body more than you have to use your hands, and timing is everything is in golf, so if you're having to use those hands, it can get sideways pretty quick.

Q. It's not a Ryder Cup year, but still a big year this year. You've got the dinner ahead of the Masters, also the International versus the Americans in the Presidents Cup. Is that a big goal? And aside from Augusta, of the other three majors, what are you looking forward to most in regard to playing those?

PATRICK REED: Yeah, every year these days it's a huge year. If it's not a Ryder Cup year, you have the Presidents Cup, but also how big the events are and how strong the competition has been getting, you have to be on no matter what. Honestly for me everyone looks at the majors as the biggest events to hopefully be kicking and really in great form during, and besides Augusta, we always look forward to going back to the Open, especially it being at St Andrews.

With it being at St Andrews, it's a place that when I played it was blowing like 100 miles an hour and raining sideways, an umbrella didn't do anything. So I'd like to get a little revenge at that place. Just the history that goes on with golf there, it's always a treat to go back and play and really test your game.

You look at all the other events we play throughout the year, 95 per cent of them you're playing ball in air and trying to just get the ball to land softly. But then when you go to the Open you have to play all kind of different golf shots. You're testing yourself, hitting 7-irons from 100 yards, or vice versa, hitting 7-irons from 230. Being able to trust those things, trust those feels and play golf that way is something that I feel like is a true test.

Q. This is the fourth edition of the tournament and Golf Saudi has been working really well on making the tournament year on year bigger. How do you think the progress of the tournament has been, and the second part of the question was about your visits to the school which you touched on, but can you elaborate more, and how do you feel about growing golf as a game here in Saudi?

PATRICK REED: Well, first of all, of the event, I'm shocked with how -- obviously the first year it was already an amazing event when we got over here. The golf course was pretty new, so there were some things you kind of had to figure out. But as the years have gone on, the golf course has just continued to get even in better shape every year.

As an event, the turnouts, obviously haven't seen this year obviously with the tournament not starting until tomorrow, but every year the fans, there's been more and more fans that have come out, and the awesome thing is there's been more and more kids that come out from the academy, and to get the kids out, to experience what golf is like and to see what it is is amazing.

There's a lot of things that golf teaches you that help you with things outside of just golf. It teaches you how to be disciplined, how to handle adversity because there's so many ups and downs in golf as it is. It teaches you the responsibilities and really focus on work ethic. Those are things that help you in everything you do, whatever your job is.

Every time I go over there and I talk to the kids, that's what we always talk about is what golf can do for you long-term. The question that gets asked every single year while I'm over there is, well, what did you do to get you to this point. I try to instill in them as much as I can that you have to be disciplined, you have to work really hard, and at the same time you have to have fun. At the end of the day it's golf. It's a game. We're here playing a game for a living. It doesn't get any better than that. Being able to play a game for a living, you have to enjoy it. Yeah, you're going to have bad days, you're going to have good days, but even on the bad days, going out and playing on nice green grass and sunshine, there's not very many things I'd rather do than do that.

To be able to have those type of opportunities, you have to sit there and -- of course it's our job and we have to work hard, but at the end of the day it's still just a game, and you have to enjoy every moment because life is too short to sit there and dwell on the things you're doing.