LIV GOLF LONDON

July 5, 2023

Lee Westwood

Ian Poulter

Henrik Stenson

Sam Horsfield

Laurie Canter

Centurion Club

Majesticks GC

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Let's welcome the Majesticks GC to the LIV Golf London 2023 press conference. We are joined by Henrik Stenson; co-captain Ian Poulter; co-captain Sam Horsfield, who's out for injury but has graced us with his presence today; Laurie Canter, who's in for Sam Horsfield; and co-captain Lee Westwood. Welcome, guys.

I just wanted to start with Lee and Ian. I asked the same question previously to G-Mac. It's been exactly one year since we were here last year for a very first LIV event at Centurion. Can you reflect for me on what has transpired over this past year and where we are today and what are you guys feeling right now?

IAN POULTER: Yeah, I mean, I guess 12 months in, 15 events, the golf landscape has changed a lot in that period of time. I think we as team Majesticks feel pretty happy what we've been able to achieve in that short space of time.

I think what LIV has been able to achieve in that window has been very impressive. So huge kudos to everybody that's worked as hard as they've worked collectively to have this product out there for the fans, which I think is groundbreaking in a way.

I think we offer something a little different, different being good, and I'm pretty excited about where it's going.

LEE WESTWOOD: Not really a lot else to say after that, is there. Thanks.

IAN POULTER: You're welcome.

LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, it's been an interesting year. Feels like more than a year. Golf has changed a lot, and it's nice to see everybody starting to get on the same page and more transparency in the sport now, yeah, so it's good.

THE MODERATOR: Yesterday you guys launched your Little Sticks community impact initiative. It was awesome to see you out there with all the kids and giving back to the community. Can you guys talk a little bit about Little Sticks? I know Sam, you and Lee went head-to-head on who was the better golfer with the kids yesterday.

LEE WESTWOOD: Really Sam is the better golfer. Even injured and not playing, I don't stand above him.

No, Little Sticks is an initiative we've got. We're trying to give back to the communities we come from and the ones we play tournaments in, as well, and trying to help. Areas like Newcastle and Luton, which is close to here, and Orlando, where three of the lads live.

It was nice to get some kids along from different backgrounds, different abilities, see smiles on faces, give them a taste of golf and being at a golf tournament. Didn't show them much of what we can do. I was pretty hopeless at hitting a tennis ball.

Ian was great at being a target, putting that suit on. I think he preferred it here than in Orlando where it was 95 degrees in April.

HENRIK STENSON: You got the suit out again?

LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, we got the suit out again. Yeah, and I think a lot of fun was had by everybody. A few of the kids said it was great to miss a day of school and come and have a day out, day trip out.

IAN POULTER: We even had a couple of Forest fans, as well.

LEE WESTWOOD: I didn't want to mention that.

Q. Sam, how does it feel for you to be part of a team and having the opportunity to give back like that?

SAM HORSFIELD: It was really cool. I remember when I first started playing golf and having so much fun, they had a smile on their faces all day yesterday. Many of them had never been on a golf course before, so just to sort of introduce them to the game and just sort of watch them just stand there and whack balls across the green, whatever entertained them, it was really cool to see.

We did one back in Orlando, like Ian just said, and just to see that everywhere we go, to impact the community is really cool and couldn't be happier doing it.

THE MODERATOR: Henrik, you are leaning up against this beautiful new bag I have to draw attention to. You have a digital billboard on the front of the bag. You guys are today announcing your partnership with Seamless Digital, the very first digital billboard on a golf bag. Can you tell us about this partnership?

HENRIK STENSON: Yeah, it's definitely groundbreaking and something new. Yeah, we can see now it's starting to move, as well. It's not something we've seen before on golf bags. We've seen it in their partnership on Formula 1 cars, and yeah, it brings something special, and we're excited to team up. We'll see how many times it's going to flicker on here in the next minute.

THE MODERATOR: Just last question from me. You guys are really dialed in as a team. Your uniforms, your bags, just in the last two weeks. I think we've announced three partnerships with OKX, Red Family and now Seamless Digital. Is it the magic behind the scenes? What's going on with the Majesticks to make you guys so ahead of the curve from a team perspective?

IAN POULTER: I think collectively as a group we've bought into the idea of being a team. Team means we all kind of do exactly the same things, but behind the scenes, James Dunkley and the whole team are pushing boundaries. I think more than anything else, they're hungry. They see the vision of it. That's why we've got Seamless Digital on the bag. This is for us quite an exciting project. Announcing obviously Redvanly, OKX, as well, they partner with Manchester City and obviously McLaren, as well.

We want to get our stuff done. We want to obviously get our stuff done on the golf course, not as well as obviously just off the golf course. We're working hard. The guys and girls are doing a great job for us, and I think we kind of stand out from the rest. We now need to take that on the golf course and --

HENRIK STENSON: A few more birdies, please. A few more birdies, attention all players.

Q. Lee and Ian, I want to take you back to a year ago, especially on Sunday. We had one team swept the individual podium. It hasn't been done since. Just curious if you thought that that was an aberration and that we may never see that again, especially because of the depth of the roster that's come about begins then?

LEE WESTWOOD: Well, I don't think you can ever say never see it again, but it was certainly a surprise to see the three Stingers up there on the podium. They were clearly going to win the team event that week. They all obviously played very well, and they sort of settled into this format pretty quickly because Gracey won a couple of weeks later in Portland, so he must have felt a little bit left out.

It was just one of those things. Those things creep up every now and again. But like you say, there is definitely depth in the league and in the roster now since that first event we held, gaining more great players all the time. People are getting used to the format, the 54 holes, going to come out a lot quicker now. There's no time to settle into a tournament. You've got to come out of the blocks fast and just keep going hard, as we've seen.

There's not many people win tournaments from being too far behind on the first day. You really do need a good start.

Yeah, that probably won't happen again, but never say never, I guess.

IAN POULTER: Yeah, obviously it was interesting to see, and I think as Lee said, there's been a number of teams, Torque have done a great job, RangeGoats obviously transitioning to get Talor Gooch was clearly a very good idea. He's been pretty impressive. DJ and Brooks and -- there's so many good, solid teams.

We stand here as Team Majesticks not doing quite as well as what we want to do, but looking at all those other teams to see why they're coming out of the blocks probably a bit quicker than us and finishing off a bit better than us.

There is strength and depth between all of the teams, and it's impressive to see, and it's good for the fans, as well, to see not the same team winning every single week.

Q. Laurie, I wanted to ask you, you're 40th in points right now, I think. How much are you kind of paying attention right now to trying to get in that top 24?

LAURIE CANTER: Yeah, that's obviously my big focus. I think if you can do that, it gives you that kind of piece of mind and certainty that you're going to be back in the league next year, which is obviously the biggest goal I have at the moment.

Q. Can you talk about yesterday?

LAURIE CANTER: Yeah, yeah.

IAN POULTER: Congratulations, by the way, getting in the Open. Well done.

LAURIE CANTER: Thank you. It was a pretty long day. It was probably the only -- it was definitely the only event that I would kind of come straight off a tournament in Spain and have a pretty decent drive west out to Wales and give it a go, especially obviously as you alluded to these events are so important for me at the moment.

Yeah, it was great. I played really nicely. Holed a few putts at the end and was obviously delighted to get a spot.

Q. Henrik, I was wondering where you were a year ago. How much did you watch of this event? How much were you paying attention at the time to LIV?

HENRIK STENSON: Yeah, I was in Sweden at the time playing an event there, and yeah, of course it was the first event at LIV and I was following and seeing how the guys were getting on. Yeah, I do recall 18 being a bit turbulent and difficult at times. Now I'm here. It's the first time for me to see the golf course today. I'm going to go out and play nine today and we've got nine in the pro-am tomorrow, so I've got some catching up to do in learning the golf course and trying to figure that part out.

Yeah, I did watch from a distance, and now we're here getting ready.

Q. Obviously so much more than golf as we've seen over the last year. You've had that insight into the PIF. How do you think people should assess how PIF Saudi has now got this huge foothold in golf, and as a football fan, as well, now, football with perhaps players you might have hoped would join Arsenal are now all flooding into Saudi Arabia?

IAN POULTER: Yeah, listen, it's exciting. I think when you look at the bigger picture of business, and business that it is, you have to take note, how they want to not just help golf but every sport. From a business aspect, I think it's exciting to see them grow the game of golf, to grow football, to go all sports that they want to grow.

We're happy to see that happen.

Q. Should there be any wariness that you might be a tool of geopolitics, that sport is just a way of Saudi gaining influence, or should sports people just reap the benefits?

IAN POULTER: I'm not here to talk about the politics side of things. I'm here to go out there and play some good golf and deliver a great LIV product, deliver a good Majesticks product and give something out there to the fans.

Q. Lee, how have you assessed things over the last year? Such a huge focus, the PGA originally decrying this whole thing for morality but now deciding to join forces in this peace deal, and how do you think the peace deal will look in readmission to the PGA?

LEE WESTWOOD: I have no idea how the peace deal will look. Obviously the PIF have made a huge financial investment into golf and they're doing it into other sports, as well. I think in golf they've almost forced a transparency from the other organizations, their finances and the way they run their operations, which has got to be good for golf really, to have it all out on the table and people be able to see how it all works.

Q. As a football fan, how would you feel if all those players you might want to see at Forest suddenly go to Saudi?

LEE WESTWOOD: I hadn't really thought about it. I don't know who Forest are trying to sign. We're not going to get Declan Rice, are we.

Q. For Ian and Lee, you congratulated Laurie for making the Open yesterday. Why did you both decide against going through qualifying?

IAN POULTER: How old are you, Laurie?

LAURIE CANTER: 33.

IAN POULTER: I'm 47. Lee is 50.

LEE WESTWOOD: No one needs to say how old I am.

IAN POULTER: It's not easy to play 36 holes, travel back obviously from Europe. Obviously I'd like to have made the Open Championship, but I'd like to have made it obviously through the World Ranking points system, which we know is obviously not there.

For me it's about having the right amount of time off to be fresh and ready to play golf. I've got a big tournament this week to play. Team Majesticks need me as fit as possible. Being 47, I'm not a spring chicken anymore, I've played quite a lot of Opens. It's one of those decisions that I had to make, and I made the right decision golf for my golf.

LEE WESTWOOD: I sit down at the start of the year, do a schedule, and see when the qualifying was for the Open Championship. I knew this was going to be a busy week, knew that I played Valderrama, thought it was a good opportunity to play my first ever seniors event and it be the Seniors Open Championship, which is the week after the Open.

So I'd entered and committed to that. Unfortunately, the Seniors Open doesn't look to be as open as the Open Championship, so was barred from playing in that. So now got three weeks off, and then I'll go into more LIV events.

My idea and goal was to go and play in the Seniors Open Championship the week after, being 50 and it be my first opportunity. I thought that was going to give me the best opportunity to perform well and have a chance at winning that.

Q. Judging by what you just said then, you feel sort of the LIV competitions and tournaments take precedence over everything else in terms of your schedule now, and for both of you there will be a tinge of sadness in a couple of weeks on Thursday when you watch on that first morning?

LEE WESTWOOD: No, I don't think you can rate it like that. It's just that I knew that I was in this event and not for sure in the Open Championship, so you've got to plan for what you know or tournaments that you think you're going to be in without other things kind of transpiring.

You can't always be right. There's always ifs and buts in there. But yeah, I'd planned a schedule.

IAN POULTER: Yeah, look, I've got 14 events on my calendar season. There will be a couple of addition to see that. It's a shorter season than what I have played in the past.

I feel better, fresher, stronger, when I'm competing here on LIV, and as Lee said, if the qualifying date wasn't the date it was, maybe I'd have qualified or attempted to try and qualify. But to sandwich 36 holes right in the middle of two tournaments that I'm working hard to play well on didn't make sense for me at the time.

Q. To not be there, though, will you be sad in a couple of weeks' time to not be part of it?

IAN POULTER: Look, I've missed lots of majors through the years. I've missed the Masters. I've missed lots of opportunities. When you're not top 60, you're not in the U.S. Open; you're not top 50, you're not in the Masters; you're not top 50 or earn it through an Order of Merit position to get in the Open Championship. It's not the first time. It won't be the last time unless we can get some World Ranking points and move back up into a position where I can automatically qualify.

LEE WESTWOOD: The Open Championship is the greatest championship in the world as far as I'm concerned. I've played 29, 30 in a row. I had a lot of fun playing in them. But as you get older, things come to an end, and you can't just keep playing.

Maybe I'll try and qualify next year. See when it is.

Q. Henrik, you should have been three months away from captaining the Ryder Cup team. Lee and Ian have been huge parts of Europe's success over two decades, maybe more. It shouldn't have come to this. Given what's happened now, you shouldn't be treated as outcast, should you, or have been treated as outcasts?

HENRIK STENSON: Well, that's nice to hear. Thanks for the support. Yeah, I mean, things could have worked out differently. It worked out the way it did.

But instead of maybe dwelling on that too much, let's look ahead to what's ahead of us and what can be instead. Still, we're in a position where we don't know too much at the moment on what's going to happen. We could stand here and speculate for hours. I'm not going to do that. I've got putting practice, as well, to do, and there's others that are better at speculating than myself, I think.

I'll leave that side a little bit, but just looking ahead, I think it's good for the game where we're at at the moment when things have calmed down a little bit and we can start looking ahead instead, and hopefully there will be a better future in that sense.

We'll see where it takes us. We wish the guys all the best at this point, and hopefully we can all come together going forward.

Q. Ian and Lee, as I said, you've both been huge, as well, mainstays of that team. Do you think there can be a role including if not playing but involved in captaincy going forward for you, and that would put an end to all of what's happened over the last 12 months, as well?

IAN POULTER: Look, I'd like to hope so. It's been a huge part of my 20 years over the last 20 years playing seven, been vice captain for one, and it goes without saying how much I've loved playing Ryder Cup.

To be in a position we are today where the powers that be are actually trying to work things out is good for golf.

I think I've had more comment in the last couple of weeks from members at Woburn Golf Club, comment on social media that were obviously excited about the potential of what could happen. We don't know any of the detail. We don't know how things, discussions and the position of DP World Tour to allow us that opportunity, so we'll just have to wait and see.

But we're in a better position today than we were a month ago.

LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, we're all speculating, aren't we, because it's impossible to know what the golfing landscape is going to look like. We didn't know that everybody had come together three weeks ago or whatever it was. It all changed so fast.

Golf seems to be changing quickly at the moment. So we'd all be guessing what's going to happen next.

Like Henrik said, I'll certainly be cheering Luke and his team on come September. I wore the European flag with pride 11 times, and I'll be hoping that they play great and win in September.

Q. Does the DP World Tour have to show a little bit of acceptance of the situation by rescinding those fines and starting all over again, giving everyone a clean sheet of paper, because maybe that would be a signal that the scars have started to heal?

LEE WESTWOOD: I don't know whether I should be commenting on the European Tour as I'm no longer a member.

IAN POULTER: I'm no longer a member. I can't comment.

Q. But the fines were levied against you --

LEE WESTWOOD: We paid all the fines that were due.

IAN POULTER: I paid my £100,000 fine.

Q. Don't you think you should get them back now? Because I would feel pretty pissed off if I paid a fine and they actually suddenly --

IAN POULTER: I'll leave that to the smart people and see if they're going to be smart.

Q. I just had some questions about the different companies. Can you talk a little bit about Seamless Devices --

IAN POULTER: Digital.

Q. Seamless Digital and Clothes House and what you're going to be doing with them as a team?

IAN POULTER: Well, Seamless Digital, they're the kind of brains behind -- the ability just for us to be different. What they do on a Formula 1 car with McLaren. You've seen it on a number of races just beside the drivers' heads. You've got two areas where during a two-hour window of a race, I don't know how many times the different sponsors that have the ability to be on that reel have. But we have the same ability today.

It's new. It gives us an opportunity to appeal to more sponsors for us to be able to interchange that at certain times during a round of golf is exciting, and there's endless possibilities.

I think for us to be able to one day be coming up the last hole and somebody really wants to be on that bag, then we could have the ability to do that. It's different. It's groundbreaking. I love where the technology is. I love that they're always forward thinking and driving new technology forward. I think that's something that LIV Golf has definitely done with the graphics and stuff that they use, and for us as a team to partner with them is pretty exciting.

Q. Just a follow-up, I've gotten a few messages on social about your hat, Sam. It really, really is a sharp-looking hat. Where can fans pick up that stuff?

IAN POULTER: Merch tent.

SAM HORSFIELD: Yeah, in the merch tent.

Q. The Majesticks stuff isn't online?

IAN POULTER: Not right now. We can't open it right now to everyone, so until we can open it to everybody, then I think it'll be in the merch tent, but it's coming. It's coming.

HENRIK STENSON: That's short for Majesticks. (Laughter.)

Q. Guys, you've got three captains on the Majesticks. How does that work? On the Ryder Cup you'd have a captain and two vice captains. Do you share the duties? How do you manage that?

IAN POULTER: Well, when one doesn't do a good job then the other one takes over.

HENRIK STENSON: And when those two don't do a good job I'll take over.

LEE WESTWOOD: Or we could go back to that Brian Clough saying where he said, we have a discussion and then we all decide that I was right.

Q. This is specifically for Ian. What color is London?

IAN POULTER: Blue.

LEE WESTWOOD: Blue, isn't it, this week.

IAN POULTER: This week it's blue, but every other week it's red.

Q. You haven't been on the podium this year. What are you doing to try and change that, and do you think you will be this week?

IAN POULTER: We're going to lean on Laurie this week, I think, because he's clearly got some energy left. Look at him. He looks fresh and ready to go and he's playing great.

We're working hard on our games to obviously be as sharp as we can. We've got stiff competition week in, week out. We podiumed last year. We want to do the same. We think it's a good golf course just like last week was. But collectively tiny little tweaks here and there and getting the rub of the green and holing a few putts is definitely helpful.

We will definitely podium before the end of the year for sure.

Q. For many people in the UK and Europe we can't tell the story of European golf without talking about Lee, Henrik and Ian and what you've meant to so many people. There are loads of journalists who spent 20, 25 years building their career off of the back of the work that you did. How did it make you feel when so many of them just turned on you so unfairly and have now tried to turn back since June 6?

IAN POULTER: I mean, look, we've had relationships with lots of journalists for a very long time. In the last 12 months, we've read some stuff that wasn't as nice as we thought it would be.

But we can't manage what gets put in the paper at the end of the day. It's about us staying strong and doing what we've always done. We'll keep a relationship, some of those relationships aren't as good as they used to be I would say, and that's a shame. I think that we may be in that position. Our brain is not quite big enough to remember every single article that was perhaps put out, but let's just look forward and hope that in the way golf is today and in the way that things will piece itself back together that those relationships can grow back again. We can be in a better collective position as players, and that's something that we can push out to the fans, because at the end of the day, this is really for the fan, and I've certainly seen that in the last three weeks, how energized they are, how excited they are, and hopefully the possibilities of what could be will have to wait and see.

From a journalist's perspective, it's a shame, but it is what it is.

LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah. He's right. The press -- I've got good relationships with most of the guys in this room. They're allowed their opinion. That's what press is all about, putting opinions out there, I guess, and conveying the facts.

Journalists are allowed to change their opinions given certain information as much as the rest of us are. I have no problem with people going a certain way with interviews when they didn't have all the facts and with a certain golfing landscape changing their minds and going down a different road when their eyes have been opened to other things.

Q. Lee and Ian, obviously a year ago it was all quite frenzied. It's very much up in the air now. What do you want to see a year from now? Where do you think LIV will be? One element within that, there's been a certain amount of uncertainty around Greg Norman. What's his role been like behind the scenes? There's been a perception that he's a marginalized figure. Can you offer a fuller viewpoint on that?

LEE WESTWOOD: Let's do the first question. I think it's good that everybody is sitting down now and trying to work together. I see LIV getting stronger and stronger from what I've been told from people that actually know rather than speculate and from people that don't have all the facts.

With regards to Greg, he's the commissioner of this tour. I've always had a great relationship with Greg. I always take people as I find them, and he's always been great to me. He's stuck by his word with regard to LIV and where it's going and never kept us in the dark, always informed us of anything that's going to happen.

I'm delighted with the way Greg has handled all this and the way he's conveyed everything to me. I can't talk for the other guys, but no complaints.

IAN POULTER: Yeah, I'll always take Greg as I've always found him. He's been good to me. I think he's done a great job. It's not an easy job. I think he's done a great job.

I can only comment on facts, and the facts that I know is that LIV is moving forward; it's business as usual. So for us, that's exciting.

Can't speculate on the speculation that's out there, but we are full steam ahead at LIV and as Team Majesticks.

Q. Does the future in terms of development for LIV, how much of that's going to be tied to player recruitment because obviously within the framework agreement there was a no-solicitation clause in there. Is LIV going to be able to sort of maintain pace, if you will, if it's not able to continue pulling big names over from the PGA TOUR?

IAN POULTER: I mean, look, I can only talk about the stuff that I know, which is that LIV is moving full steam ahead. It's business as usual. I don't know all the incidentals of the framework agreement, how that framework agreement is going to be pulled together on either party, either of the three. I don't know the investment piece of all of the three and how the evaluations are going.

It's really difficult for me to make a comment on something that I just don't know.

Q. The last few weeks, is that a vindication, or is it just another staging post and another kind of sort of raft of uncertainties?

IAN POULTER: I don't know. I don't know if it's vindication --

LEE WESTWOOD: I just think people are better informed now, aren't they. Like I said earlier, there's more transparency as to what goes on in all of the golfing organizations. It's not so much vindication, it's just that people know the true facts now.

Q. Lee, you've mentioned that a few times now. Were you tempted when all this was going on to maybe speak out and give more facts out, or were you biting your tongue thinking, just let it develop sort of naturally?

LEE WESTWOOD: I don't really want to get involved in all that. We used it a year ago, but I'm just a golfer at the end of the day going out there and just wanting to play golf. The politics of it all and the way tours are run, it's kind of above my pay grade. But it is nice to see it down in black and white what's been going on and how it all is run.

Q. So with everything that's coming out, all the information that's coming out, what's the overriding feeling from you guys? Is it relief, even a sense of smugness, I told you so? Do you want to tell people that?

LEE WESTWOOD: No, not really. I think we're happy with the position we're in and the choices we've made, and then it's up to everybody else to form an opinion on it. Now it's an informed opinion.

Q. If any relationships that you had with other players did change because of what's happened, have they improved in the last sort of four weeks, or was that not necessary?

LEE WESTWOOD: Not really necessary. I still have and hoped and still have good relationships with -- I haven't really fallen out with anybody. We all still talk to each other.

Q. Ian, I think there's a quote from you in the Sunday Times on a similar line with Rory. You say nothing has changed there, things like that?

IAN POULTER: Yeah, look, nothing has changed. There's obviously been a lot out there in the media.

But I spoke to Rory several months ago, and my relationship with him is the same as it's always been. I've got massive respect for him for what he's been able to achieve.

A business decision is a business decision at the end of the day, and that should never get in a way of a personal relationship, and that would be disappointing and a shame if it ever did.

As Lee said, my relationships haven't changed with any of the players. Still class them all as friends. We've spent a lot of time in the last quarter of a century building relationships, and just because you have a slight difference of opinion shouldn't change any of that.

Q. Lee, would that transparency you speak about have arrived without a new tour, a breakaway tour?

LEE WESTWOOD: Probably not.

Q. So why has it taken this for that to come?

LEE WESTWOOD: I don't know.

Q. It's something you obviously feel strongly about. Did the tours previously not want transparency? Why do you think we're in this situation?

LEE WESTWOOD: I honestly don't know. I haven't thought about it. But it clearly did take another Tour, LIV to form, to I guess be a threat to the -- everybody uses this word, "ecosystem," don't they, be a threat to that golfing ecosystem.

HENRIK STENSON: Or establishment.

LEE WESTWOOD: Establishment, yeah, if you want to call it that, and be competition. It's been competition to exist in. Golf bodies, I suppose.

Q. Do you think the players on those tours are better served by what has happened, by what has emerged?

LEE WESTWOOD: There's certainly more money coming to the players' pockets for sure. On all tours.

THE MODERATOR: Home game for you guys this week. Good luck and congrats.