HILTON GRAND VACATIONS TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS

January 17, 2023

Aaron Stewart

Lake Nona Golf & Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Aaron, tell me a little bit about today's break the glass challenge.

AARON STEWART: Yeah, so it was an awesome event. A fun way to kind of kick off the week. We had three LPGA representatives as well as three of our celebrity field participants. We had Yuka Saso, Marina Alex and Paula Reto representing the LPGA, and we had Alfonso Ribeiro, Brian Baumgartner and Chris Lane representing the celebrities. As expected, the LPGA pros just inched out the win, but it was pretty cool going into two sudden-death glass breaks.

Q. Obviously that shows the celebrity and LPGA angle. What do you think these players on both sides get out of this specific tournament?

AARON STEWART: Well, this is kind of a unique little skills challenge. I think their true talents will be that much more recognizable on the golf course, when you're having to actually play tee to green.

But out here, it kind of is a little bit of an equilibrium, if you will. People don't necessarily practice this kind of shot all the time, so I think it gives the celebrities a little bit more of a chance, whereas if we're doing like a short game or something like that, the pros are going to outshine them.

Q. Why should fans tune in this week? What's special?

AARON STEWART: I think there's several unique aspects of our event. The first event of the season, there is no cut, so the players are playing all four days. That allows us to kind of do some creative and fun things that aren't typical at your professional golf tournaments usually, such as having music out on the golf course. We've got a DJ on the 18th tee. There's a ton of unique food and beverage activations throughout the course, and fans are going to be able to see their heroes from all different walks of life, whether it's NFL, NBA, motocross, wakeboarding.

We've got literally representatives from so many different sports out here in the celebrity field. It's going to bring out their fans that may never have been to a golf tournament before, don't really follow golf day in and day out, but it's going to expose them to the game, and maybe they say, hey, Emmitt Smith is playing this game, I thought it was just something for nerds. Golf is a country club, elitist sport, but you've got Emmitt Smith, Vince Carter, all of these legends in their sport bringing out their fans from that, exposing them to the game, and then they're playing alongside the world's best pros, and then you really get to see the true talent come out, and it's very, very eye-opening.

Q. Talk a little bit about the course conditions and being here at Lake Nona again.

AARON STEWART: Yeah, we're so proud of this partnership and honored to be out here. We want to thank all of the Lake Nona members for allowing us to take down their course and host this great event.

The conditions out there are phenomenal. Got to give a shout-out to Nick and the whole maintenance team out here. They've got the course looking absolutely pristine. Looks like we're going to get some better weather than what we had last year, which is a big sigh of relief for everybody on the staff, so we're excited for a great week.