PIF SAUDI INTERNATIONAL POWERED BY SOFTBANK INVESTMENT ADVISERS

January 31, 2023

Harold Varner

Royal Greens Golf and Country Club

Press Conference

HAROLD VARNER III: Watched some great shows and thank God for telephones.

Yeah, super excited to get going. Absolutely played the LIV event. So went back in between defending, but this work is the first four-day tournament I've played since the British. Are you allowed to call it the British? My caddie gets mad when I call it the British. It's called The Open Championship. I apologize to anyone who's offended.

Yeah, super thrilled to get going. I just want to compete. I know I'm a little rusty. So i just want get in the fire. It's the best feeling in the world.

THE MODERATOR: How is your game? How often are you playing?

HAROLD VARNER III: I am not playing that often. Not tournament golf. I guess last year I played two or three tournaments before. I missed both of those cuts, so I guess I wasn't playing great according to the scores.

But I'm fairly cocky. I think I'm playing well.

THE MODERATOR: How fresh is the memory of that amazing putt? Is it still with you?

HAROLD VARNER III: I don't think I've walked on this side of this golf course without anyone telling me about it. I don't think I've forgotten about it either. I have great memories. I like this place. It's in unbelievable shape.

I just want to play well. I don't care where we play. We can play in the desert out there if we had to. You want to win. You want to compete. And that's why you play.

THE MODERATOR: Have you tried the club (indiscernible) in your bag?

HAROLD VARNER III: No, I have not tried. We're doing this little exhibition thing. I'm sure these guys we're playing with are going to try for sure.

Q. Harold, how nice is it coming back to defend a tournament?

HAROLD VARNER III: I think any time you defend a tournament it's pretty awesome. It's well documented I've never played well in the states or won, so I like my chances (laughter).

Q. Did you have to defend a PGA title?

HAROLD VARNER III: I finished like sixth. This is my first time defending any tournament really. So just you got to play good golf. That's what I keep telling people.

At the end of the day, it's history. It was cool. I had a great time. I'm probably still running around the green back there, but come Thursday, it's time to play golf.

Q. Just quickly on the back of some discussion about the winning putt. Overall, what did you do well over the four days last year, do you think?

HAROLD VARNER III: I played the best. Like I think all around I was the best player. I was very in control. It was super windy like today. Opposite direction, but I just was in control.

The only thing that got me, I guess, was 14 and 15 when I made the double. It rattled me a little bit. And then everyone talks about the putt. The best shot was the drive on 17, in my opinion, because it gave me a chance on 18 to not have to make eagle.

When it's blowing like that, it's almost hard to swing because the wind is moving the club. Only good thing is I can only take it to my knee because my swing's so short. So I can only move so much.

Q. Just a quick one. How is this year shaping up now that parenthood is involved as well?

HAROLD VARNER III: So, it's been great. He is awesome. I've been home a lot, which is very weird, just like how my golf career has gone and things have changed.

We did the worst habit ever, if anyone has a kid in here, he's been sleeping with us, and that's been awesome. My wife hates it, but it's freakin' great. So if we want to have another kid, we had to put him back in the crib, and that's been very difficult because he does not like the crib.

It's been fun. He's pretty crazy. I don't ever question where he gets it from. I just kind of relieve my wife as much as possible. I've come upon this thing where doing bath time is really fun. I guess it helps her, but I enjoy it because he like dunks the stuff in the net now and splashes everywhere.

We took a shower together the other day. I forgot I took showers with my dad. So just things like that we talk about. It's been great. My wife handles most of the stuff. So it makes my life a lot easier.

He got kicked out of the jungle gym yesterday for running over two kids, yeah, I don't know.

Q. Doing the press conference in Boston, you said that joining LIV gives you time off playing competitive golf throughout the year, and that you wanted to do so much for the kids, not just your kid, but for the kids platform in North Carolina and stuff like that. How much have you been able to do that?

HAROLD VARNER III: A lot. I like to move in silence. I don't feel, if you're doing something good, you need to tell anybody. We raised $400,000 in December in our gala event. We started two more mentorships, one in Charleston, one in Akron.

Yeah, it's great. I hate talking about it. It's important to me, and I don't need anyone else's agreeance or satisfaction to know that's the right thing to do.

The time has helped. I've been able to get on phone calls and do stuff that I like doing. I figured out I really like playing golf today, just having fun out there talking and wanting to beat them. But at the end of the day, everyone talks about that putt. In about ten years, I don't think you'll remember that putt, but that kid in ten years from now that is getting helped and getting mentored is going to remember that for the rest of their life.

So that's just what I think, and I believe wholeheartedly in that.

Q. I can safely say on the Tour everybody loves Harold. Most of the players I've spoken to have only good things to say about that. But in this one year, has anything changed? Have you felt bad about any relationship going south?

HAROLD VARNER III: Man, I want to answer this to start off with something, but I'm going to leave that in my head.

I think it's actually made things more clear. It's something I wanted to do. I made the decision. I enjoy it. I really enjoy it. I enjoy the money that comes with it. I enjoy the time.

But what ended up happening is people you thought were your friends, colleagues -- you know who's legit when you do something they don't want you to do and you want to do it and it doesn't harm them, and they still reach out to you, they still talk to you.

I've been super fortunate. I don't like -- I'm very transparent. I didn't like how some of the stuff came out where you started talking about people's family. I just don't like that. I also don't like the bitterness and the pettiness of both LIV and the PGA TOUR. So there's things like that I just try to stay away. I don't think that's good for golf.

I don't think golf is a very -- I don't think it's a sport where 50 million people are going to watch and we can afford to have people -- because some people are like, I don't really want to watch it because people are arguing. We don't have that luxury in golf to have so many people watching we can still get away with it.

At the end of the day, it's golf. I don't care what tour it is, it's golf. But try not to take away from that. The arguing and the bickering and stuff like that, that's just not great for the game. People enjoy investing in golf because it's clean, respect and a gentleman's game, and that's going right down the toilet right now.

Q. So just going on from what you were talking about about the impact the changes have had, do you think it's made you a better golfer? Has it changed the way you look at the world? How has it impacted your life generally?

HAROLD VARNER III: I think it's made me a bigger asshole, but I have some unbelievable people around me that keep me grounded because I get set on something and I want to do it.

Before, you would have to play a tournament, so you didn't have time to do it. You're like, well, I can't do it right now. Now that you have time, you have to sit back, you've got to sleep on it. You've got to do things -- I guess what successful and retired people do, they think about how they want to go about their life.

When you're playing 40 weeks out of the year, it's like where's the next tournament? I'll get someone else to figure it out. Where's this person going to be? Those are things you're worried about, not so much like how I can impact it myself.

One thing that people love is when they want to be a part of what you want to do, if you make the time to talk to them, fly somewhere to speak, whatever that is, you have a way better chance of sticking and a way better chance of raising more money. So that's been awesome for me.

Q. In the past I saw you many times practicing with Tiger Woods for your majors. Are you willing to do it again?

HAROLD VARNER III: I'll definitely be pinging him for sure. I think he knows that place down in Augusta pretty decent, so I think he'd be a great guy to play a practice round with.

We were just talking about this five, ten minutes ago. He's been unbelievable to me. He's spent time with me. When people do that, especially when his time is so like -- I couldn't do it. No way I could do it. But when it's like that, he chooses to spend time with you, I just feel so appreciative because I do think he's the best player that I've ever seen play.

All you Jack Nicklaus fans, don't hate me, but he is the best player. He's changed the game by himself. He's done it unbelievably. You can sit here and critique everything that he's done off the golf course, but no one in this room's perfect, and that's the way I feel about it. I think people deserve a second chance. People seem not to give it to him.

That's my dog. He's cool. He's awesome.

THE MODERATOR: Harold, thank you for your time. Good luck this week.