LIV GOLF PROMOTIONS

December 7, 2023

Taichi Kho

Kieran Vincent

Abu Dhabi Golf Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Let's welcome Kieran Vincent from Zimbabwe and Taichi Kho from Hong Kong. Taichi, I'll start with you. Can you share some of your thoughts on the course setup this week in Abu Dhabi and your approach heading into this week?

TAICHI KHO: Yeah, Abu Dhabi Golf Club is in great shape. It's a championship layout, and I'm super happy to be here. Played each nine a couple times now, and I can only say great things about this place. I'm really looking forward to seeing it play in a tournament, and yeah, just being here is a real honor.

To have the opportunity to play in one of the best tours in the world is a true dream come true. I'm just really looking forward to playing my game out there. I know I'm really looking forward to playing the course.

KIERAN VINCENT: Can I just say exactly what he said? No, obviously we're super grateful and super thankful to be out here. Not only is the course in real great condition, but so is the weather, so is the place we're staying at, the hospitality, just everything around it. Just super grateful to be out here and excited to get things going over this weekend.

Q. Kieran, with your brother Scott playing on the league this year with the Iron Heads, you might have a closer impression of LIV Golf than most. Can you share some of your personal thoughts of LIV Golf and some of your motivations for wanting to join?

KIERAN VINCENT: Yeah, I think in any situation that you are in to be able to play with some of the best players in the world and to help you get better, it's hard to really say anything bad about it. I'm super grateful for LIV for the opportunity not only to give Asian Tour guys or other outsiders an opportunity to play with the best in the world. I think that's just obviously the best thing that we've -- the opportunity we get, to be able to sit in a seat right here, myself, like Taichi, we're still pretty new to this game and have this opportunity less than about a year or year and a half out of college. We couldn't have dreamed this any better.

Yeah, obviously grateful to have my brother and kind of seen the ups and downs and the rides, enjoyed those moments with him. But yeah, I think it's just been an awesome opportunity for guys to grow themselves and grow their game.

Q. Taichi, what was your impression of LIV Golf in 2023? Did you closely follow it, and what were your overall thoughts of the league?

TAICHI KHO: Yeah, I think LIV has done a world of good for myself and other players on the Asian Tour and just golf on the worldwide scene in my opinion. I think the International Series is a great system for Asian Tour players to have the opportunity to play in LIV, and I think one of the biggest accelerators for my growth this year has been playing with a lot of LIV players in these International Series events.

Being able to play world-class golf firsthand has been a real learning curve for me, and I feel like I've been able to progress my game from just soaking all of it in. I only have great things to say about LIV, and like Kieran said, just to have the opportunity to potentially play in the league next year is a real dream come true. Hopefully I can make most of this week, and yeah, playing a full season on LIV will be really great.

Q. LIV Golf will make its debut in Hong Kong next March. Does that give you any addition motivation to qualify this week, and how do you think LIV Golf is going to be received when it comes to Hong Kong?

TAICHI KHO: Absolutely. I think myself and pretty much the entire golfing scene in Hong Kong is super excited for LIV Golf Hong Kong. I think Hong Kong Golf Club itself is a great place to have that kind of atmosphere in my opinion. As you saw in the Hong Kong Open, the International Series Hong Kong Open, you saw a lot of fans out there cheering on Ben with his win and Cam Smith being there was great, as well.

I think it's a perfect setup to have a LIV event there, and I think from all the great things I've heard about playing in LIV events, it's just an extra motivator for me to have a good week this week because to play in front of my friends and family, my hometown crowd would be really great in that kind of atmosphere.

Q. Taichi, can you give us maybe a couple examples of things that you specifically learned playing with the guys on the International Series, things that maybe specifically to your game itself and how it improved?

TAICHI KHO: Yeah, I think the biggest wake-up call was I played with Dean Burmester who obviously won back-to-back DP events these past two weeks in England. I had a great drive off the first, just left center of the fairway, and he flew me by like 50 yards, and I was like, okay, it's a big boy's game now.

No, I've been able to play with so many great players, including Dean, and I've played a couple rounds with Graeme, and obviously the rounds with Cam and Pat was just real eye opening.

I think everyone does certain things in the game extremely well, but I think the biggest thing is just how they handle themselves in the face of adversity, their level of control over their mind and their emotions are -- it's really world class, which is why most of them are major winners. It's really great to see how they handle some tough situations, and I think from that I can take a lot out of how they approach these kind of situations and try to apply it myself.

Q. What are your thoughts about the format this week? Obviously it's different, and with the resets of the field and the scores, can you kind of give us your thoughts there?

TAICHI KHO: Yeah, I think it's just another innovation from LIV Golf as the league has done since its inception. I think it is different, but I think it's really exciting at the same time.

I don't think many of us have been in a situation in professional golf where it's 18 holes and then another 18 holes, so I think it will be a good test of the mind and the body, as well. I think it will be easy to get overexcited early and try to play a little bit too aggressive, but I think it will be a really fun challenge, I'm really looking forward to it, and I think it also levels out the playing field in a big way. It's really anybody's game. If you have a good round or a good day, the opportunity is right there.

I think it's a revolutionary format, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Q. Kieran, can you give us your thoughts on not having to play on Friday and what kind of advantage that is?

KIERAN VINCENT: Anytime you get a day off, I think it's great, no matter what field you're in. I think it's awesome. Obviously it's a pretty cool opportunity to be in. Yeah, just gives you an extra day of rest, gives you an extra day to see how people are reacting out there, and at the end of the day it's just about figuring out what works for you best and going out there and kind of doing it.

Having a day off will give us that extra time to process through things and figure out a game plan so come Saturday we can go execute it the best we can.

Q. What do you do on Friday?

KIERAN VINCENT: Practice probably a little bit, maybe a little bit of sleeping. Extra lunch never hurt nobody. Yeah just kind of figure out ways to keep myself level-headed, keep myself present. Don't have to really worry too much about what's going on around me, just kind of see what we can do and how we can play the best we can.

Q. Were you in Jeddah? You weren't with your brother in Jeddah?

KIERAN VINCENT: I was, actually.

Q. Can you take us through the emotions of that week, especially on Sunday?

KIERAN VINCENT: Yeah. I mean, it was a roller coaster to say the least. I was following very closely on the leaderboard. I wasn't really walking too much out there because Jeddah was pretty warm, for those who were there.

I was able to get out there and watch a couple holes but was following very closely. When it was coming down the last, he obviously was very -- really made a great second shot into 18 and followed it up with two putts so was sitting right on the cut line, and I didn't actually realize that not only was Sergio, but there was a couple other people out on the course that could have bumped him out of the top 24 spot. So when he came walking up after he completed 18, I shook his hand, said well done, and we were nervously waiting as Sergio hit his third shot on the green. He walked away and said, I can't watch, and I'm sitting over, like, what am I going to do then.

Obviously Sergio put a good roll on it. I honestly was telling everybody around me, that's going in, and for some reason it didn't.

Obviously it all boils down to one moment, but I think as a lot of people -- well, other people have said, he's probably one of the hardest workers out there. It was good to see the coin flip end up on his side because he's deserved it for a very, very long time. I think he'd been on the other side of the coin flip for a while now, so it was good to see his luck kind of happen, so I'm excited to see the roller coaster of emotions for next year.

Q. I guess it's easy to say that he's kind of carved out a path that you would like to follow, but are there other golfers on LIV that you look at their career path and say I'd like to do that, too?

KIERAN VINCENT: Yeah, I think there's a lot of people that have done some very unique things in the game of golf. We see even people like James Piot have been so young to be able to go out there and play on LIV, which is new, and there's been some older guys that have had a long tenure and been able to enjoy some time out on LIV.

I think at the end of the day, just kind of see the way that guys have grown, have changed, because just like Taichi, we're pretty new to this whole pro aspect of things, so we're all just getting our feet wet. Just to be able to carve our own path while we're out there, I think that's going to be the biggest thing we're going to try and do. Whether it's similar to some of the others we see, that would be great, but I think just like Taichi, I think he's got a great future ahead of him, so the world is at his fingertips and everyone's fingertips. We'll just have to wait and see.

Q. Have you had a Burmester type moment like Taichi did?

KIERAN VINCENT: Hit it past him by 50? I don't think so. He hits it pretty far. Burmy has done some pretty cool things recently. Going for the three-peat right now, I think, this week. It would be awesome for him.

Q. Was there a moment that you've learned something playing on the International Series about your game, anything specifically that you realized you needed to do or work on?

KIERAN VINCENT: Yeah, I think you can always get better. I think if we stay in a complacent situation, we're going to be able to not necessarily grow. I think growing on and off the golf course has been the biggest thing that I've learnt, being able to manage time and see how effective we can be with our time because sometimes we get in super late or we get in super early, and it's just about figuring out what we can do out there to best manage our time. That's been the biggest thing.

We've obviously been lucky to see the way that people execute shots and what they do on the camera, but there's so much that goes on off the camera that the likes of us are able to see being in the same change room or seeing how early they get to the golf course or how late they're leaving or see the physios working on them day in and day out, it's kind of never ending. But just to be able to see that firsthand I think gives you a very real situation of how hard these guys work day in and day out.

Q. Taichi, in terms of current LIV players, are there one or two that maybe you look at like you would like to emulate them, maybe a path that you would like to follow that they've already carved out?

TAICHI KHO: Yeah, I think like Kieran said, golf is such a unique sport where you can't really play for anything. If you play well at the right times, things open up and you have more opportunities. This would be a great week to play well.

But part of it's kind of out of my control. I have to just prepare well for each week and try my best there.

I played a couple rounds with Kieran's brother Scott in Singapore, and just to see him keep his card this year was a real motivator for me, and just to see what he's done on the Asian Tour and the Japan Tour, it's really motivating. I think if anything, it's Scott, and to see him play firsthand was really inspiring.

A couple weeks later he kept his card on LIV.

The opportunity is definitely there. Like Kieran said, I noticed how much attention to detail he has. Every part of his warmup and warm-down, it's very deliberate. So just to see that was kind of a wake-up call for me to try to be a little bit better, as well.

Q. In terms of your home country, do you feel like when you're out there on the course that you're not just playing for yourself but you've got an entire country backing you?

TAICHI KHO: Yeah, definitely. I think Hong Kong is such a great support system for me. Yeah, I've played well representing Hong Kong or I've played well being in Hong Kong because I feel like there's a world of support around me. I feel like I can never fail out there. It's just such positive support. I don't really feel any pressure from any of those guys. It's always encouraging.

I'm super grateful for just the golfing community in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Golf Club, obviously my home club. Really grateful for these two great support systems to always have my back, and every time I go out there, it's a team effort.