|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
THE BARCLAYSAugust 20, 2008Dave ColeBrett CraigMatt KillenLawrence LampertPARAMUS, NEW JERSEY ROB OHNO: Good morning. I'm Rob Ohno, Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing at the PGA TOUR. Welcome to the Ridgewood Country Club, and welcome to the first event of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup. This morning we are here to announce our newest official marketing partner of the PGA TOUR, Transitions Optical. Back in June, Commissioner Finchem announced that Transitions Optical would be the new title of our PGA TOUR event in Tampa starting in 2009. The event is now known as the Transitions Championship. (Applause). From the beginning, Transitions has made it clear, no pun intend, that had they wanted to go beyond a single-event sponsorship. They wanted a broader platform to really educate the public about the importance of healthy sight. With that said, I'm here today and we are pleased to announce that have agreed on a four-year global official marketing partnership. Transition Lenses will now be designated as the Official Eyewear of the PGA TOUR, Champions Tour and Nationwide Tour. We are extremely excited to have this expanded relationship with Transitions. They are a dynamic company. They have got impressive leadership, they are global and they are relevant to our sport. They are relevant to our players and golfers in general and they are relevant to all those who value healthy sight. So please join me in welcoming Transitions to our family of premiere brands who are partners with the TOUR. And I'm going to turn it over to Brett Craig, president of Transitions Optical. BRETT CRAIG: Thank you, Rob, and we are excited. And I want to first thank Ridgewood and also The Barclays for hosting this venue in a very impressive place and some great weather as well. We are excited, it is a natural extension to what we announced two months ago. As you know we did announce the Transitions Championship as the Innisbrook Gold and Resort Club. We are very excited about that partnership. This is a natural extension for our company to really elevate the platform and the awareness, really, of vision, quality of vision in a venue that product utility makes a big difference in performance. A little about who we are, Transitions Optical, in terms of elevating awareness, we are a global company as Rob said, and started actually in Pinellas Park, Florida. We are the largest company in the photochromic space. Photochromics are glasses that go from clear to dark and provide you with visual quality and comfort against the elements of the outdoor competing environment which would be again, glare, UV protection, etc. We are excited about the platform because it does actually heighten the awareness of the need for eye protection, and obviously enhancing visual quality in terms of sports performances like golf and other venues beyond golf. So with that, we want to thank you for coming. Our industry partners are here who are a big part of our success and there are some out there today, and we want to thank you for your support and we'll definitely make sure that we provide you the awareness and again the support in moving forward. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dave Cole, who is our managing director for the Americas to introduce a new program which he will talk about. Dave? DAVE COLE: Thanks, Brett. This is great, the room is getting very crowded, so I'm very happy to see that. We would like to thank you for coming and spending this brief period with us, particularly those that are the industry partners working together to raise this awareness on healthy sight. But those of that came here that would not normally have been at The Barclays, it's great to have you here. So thanks for coming in and spending that time with us. We are very excited, as Rob mentioned, as part of being designated the Official Eyewear of the PGA TOUR, Champions Tour and the Nationwide Tour. We look at that as a tremendous opportunity to get the word out and get consumers to be more and more aware of the need and the importance of healthy sight, as it not only relates to their overall health and wellness, but as it relates to sports performance and we see this as a tremendous opportunity. So in that, we are going to be launching a new program, along with this designation, called Improve Your Vision, Improve Your Game. And a new Website will be out today, which actually includes a widget, which I'm supposed to understand what exactly a widget is, but a widget, let me explain it for those of you who are not as enlightened as I am. It's something that's really just a downloadable program you can have, but the exciting part of that, it will continually update you on not only just things relevant to golf and the PGA TOUR that will be content that will come out; it will also give you information and tips to improve your vision and improve your sports performance, particularly related around golf. So it will be just an updated version that you can have on your computer that you can see every day, and we are very excited about that because it will continue to bring awareness to consumers about the importance of vision and on your sports performance. In addition to that, what we will be doing is tying things in with the eye care professionals, whether it's retail or the independent eye care professionals through the trade channel, to support what we are saying about visual quality, visual comfort and protection, and how that relates to sports performance. So there will be things like point-of-sale and educational materials available to them, and hopefully we'll be making those things available through PGA TOUR golf shops and be able to get the connection there. So this is really just a part of an ongoing commitment of Transitions, not only our commitment, but the industry's commitment to continually raise the awareness for the need for healthy sight and taking care of your eyes. And that commitment we want to work with our partners, and working through the PGA TOUR to get that word out. So I will now introduce Dr. Lampert and Matt Killen, who will begin to tell you a little bit more about how this will specifically relate to golf. Dr. Lampert is a optometric physician and a development/behavioral optometrist with a private office in Boca Raton. In addition to general eye care, he works with children and adults that have visually-related learning problems, and he's developed specific sports vision programs for professional and amateur athletes. Matt Killen is a professional golfer instructor and swing coach. He's the youngest instructor -- you might notice he's a bit young -- he's the youngest instructor to coach and represent three PGA TOUR professionals including Kenny Perry, J.B. Holmes and Shaun Micheel. Dr. Lampert? DR. LAWRENCE LAMPERT: Thank you, Dave. As Dave said, my expertise is in optometry, but I have to tell you that my family loves golf. My family loves to play golf. My family loves to watch golf, and my family has invested a lot in equipment, lessons everything that he can do to make the game a little better for themselves. When I went to optometry school I learned how important vision was to play almost any sport, especially golf. A lot of visual judgment involved. Some of the basic visual skills that you need for golf are things like eye team ago built, how well do your eyes hold together as a team. If this skill is a little off or a little low, you may judge things to be farther, shorter, to the left or to the right of where they really are. Depth perception skills; depth perception has to do with how far away is something, how fast is it moving towards you or away from you. Another thing to look at is eye dominancy; are you right-eyed or right-hand dominant; or are you same left-eyed, left-hand dominance; or are you cross-dominant, right-handed, left-eyed. Knowing that information helps you determine how you should position yourself over the ball. Also, helps you read the greens. Another skill is hand-eye coordination, eye-hand coordination. The eyes read the situation but then the body has to respond to the information the eyes are giving it, and if this is off a little bit, you don't do as well. Then we have visualization skills. You have to be able to visualize what you want to do, the shots you are going to make and you have to have good focusing skills, moving distance front to near and back and forth and having that stamina in the visual system. Basically all this inspired me to write a book called The Pro's Edge: Vision Training for Golf where I go into what we do to learn about your own visual system, tips based on information about your own visual system, and then how to improve your vision system through different drills, exercises and things like that that you can do. Because of my understanding, passion, interest about the importance of eyes in the game of golf, I feel it's important to have healthy sight today and tomorrow, and that's why generally I always in my practice and my book I recommend the Transitions lenses. The lenses adapts to different lighting conditions and they are not too dark, and if you see a lot of pros. When the lenses are too dark, it's difficult to make the readings they have to make. And if they take the glasses off they lose the protection they are getting for their eyes. And the lenses also reduce glare. When you have glare, you tense you up your eyes, and when you reduce the glare, you relax and you're more in the zone, easier to get in the zone. It improves contrast sensitivity. This helps you read the greens. We also know that it blocks 100% of UVA and UVB rays and those rays coming from the sun have been shown to cause and promote cataract in the eye, macular degeneration, skin cancer around the eye, and then squinting, of course, can cause premature wrinkling around the eyes which some people are concerned about that. Basically, proper vision correction and protection means better golf. Now I'd like to turn it over to mat. MATT KILLEN: Thanks, Dr. Lampert. When I work with amateurs and professional, it's very important to evaluate all aspects of their game from equipment all the way to their eyes. It's one thing that's overlooked a lot and I think it's very important because as Dr. Lampert said, your visual cues are really where your golf swing starts, and I think it's very important that your swing is not compromised due to glare or a problem with the sunlight. I often see golfers wearing regular sunglasses on the back of their hats. They will take them on and off, and I think this is because the glasses they are wearing don't change in the light conditions. By wearing Transitions, the lenses automatically change and you don't have to do that. I think that's really important because when you're taking them off, putting them back on or having that change in your vision or depth perception all the time, I think it's very difficult to have to change glasses. I think it's much more relevant and consistent to just keep them on as I personally do. My vision plays a huge role in my career, both to protect it and to use it as a tool to teach people. So I wear Transitions personally because I teach in a learning center, most of the time when I'm at home, and I'm teaching out of a bay and the doors are always opening and closing, and the light is always changing. And when I'm sitting there, I can wear my glasses all the time and never have to take them off. People say, well, you never take your glasses off; well, I have the Transitions and the light changes. I wear them a ton when I'm out here, and when I play and they are changing I don't have to take them on and off, and that's something that I don't think a lot of people look at and they should. I think this partnership is a great opportunity to remind golfers of how important their eyesight is, both to protect it and how important their eyesight is in improving their game. I want to pass this back to Brett. BRETT CRAIG: Thank you. So you can tell from Rob's statements and Transitions' statements that we as two brands are very excited about the relationship and the affiliation. Dr. Lampert and Matt talked about the practicality of Matt's case, and Dr. Lampert, the clinical reasons why the two match up very well in our sport as well as our launch. We are excited, and think it's a great platform and there's a lot of product utility in the game of golf as there are in other sports, and we are excited about carrying this forward for the next four years. With that, we'll conclude our official comments and open up to the floor for any questions you may have. Q. Talking about vision and golf, and we've got Kenny's coach up there; how's Kenny's eye? MATT KILLEN: Kenny's eye is great now. He's went to the doctor the last couple of weeks and he's in good shape. He's ready for this week. Q. Regular amateurs, when you're on a golf course, you don't see many people wearing sunglasses. Do you think this will change that if the word is out there? DAVE COLE: Actually, this relationship now that we have with the PGA TOUR, working with our -- working with our trade partners, we think that's an excellent opportunity to continue to get the awareness out, because you're exactly right. It's amazing to me, and to us in the industry, how undervalued we -- we actually put a very high value to our sight, but how the awareness level is so low about protecting that sight; and also about potentially improving your visual performance. And we just see this as one of those great opportunities for us to get the awareness out, because you're exactly right; there are so many people that what they are doing every day is they are lathering up, they are going out to play golf and they are lathering up with sunscreen and they are not protecting their eyes. And also, as Dr. Lampert had mentioned, maybe not giving themselves the best opportunity for optimal performance, as well. So we'll use this as a definitive platform to get the awareness out. Q. The reason I don't wear them is because I have a hard time wearing them, so I just wear my regular glasses. Are these easier to play with? DAVE COLE: Well, we believe they are. And that's one of the things that's really very critical is even when you're playing golf, whether it's early in the morning or a cloudy day or whether you're like me and you're in the trees; the light is always changing, and I think that's a big challenge for us. And Transitions has a very unique opportunity because our lenses change with the different lighting conditions, and make a big difference in that overall visual performance. But at the end of the day, the most important thing is, is that people are actually protecting their eyes over the long-term when they are outside. Whether they are wearing Transition lenses or not, of course we think Transitions are ideal for this, but whether or not they are, they should still be protecting their eyes. Q. Does this represent kind of a first foray for Transitions into positioning the product to the consumer as a sport product, and will there be other organized sport affiliations to follow this? DAVE COLE: First of all, with the PGA TOUR and the representation and the reputation of the PGA TOUR, we see this as an excellent avenue to get the word out. But yes, for Transition lenses, the opportunity for sport performance, for protection, it makes sense in many other sports, as well. There may be opportunities and platforms that we might use in the future to get that word out. Right now we are obviously concentrating on this one. But absolutely, I think for the long term there will be more and more things that we will do. BRETT CRAIG: Transitions as a lens is a primary lens, is a prescription lens, so we will continue to operate in that realm. Yes, we may, in fact, move into the dynamic sunwear market, and, in fact, we will as a secondary platform Activated by Transitions, and that will have a different parameter than the Transitions basis, as well both being applicable to sports enthusiasts or basically a sunwear sports enthusiast. Q. As another golfer who spends some time among the trees on occasion, how fast is the Transition, in fact, in terms of the different light? MATT KILLEN: Well, play in them personally. I play in the Activated by Transitions lenses and I have for the last two years and I teach in them. So you're asking me how quickly they do that; my eyes are very, very sensitive to glare. I was outside earlier and I had to come back in and put them on. When I go from one place to another on the golf course or if the cloud cover comes over or whatnot, the change is not to where you make a point of it. It doesn't really stand out to you but you don't have any glare. I would say it's immediate. BRETT CRAIG: One additional note. In addition to golf, I'm an avid cyclist and I've handed some Transition lenses to my group -- than with fixed tint, because of the changeability in the lens and the lighting conditions that we are riding in from morning to evening, and that's a big difference and they change fairly rapidly. Q. Going forward, do you feel that you'll be able to adjust the amount of darkness and lightness possibly in the prescription? I'm thinking of other sports where individuals are prohibited -- DAVE COLE: To answer that in the briefest form would be absolutely, yes. One of the things, we have a very core product. The product I'm wearing today in our core product is very clear eyewear that's clear indoor and dark outdoors. But there are tremendous opportunities now with all of the research and capabilities that we have to make lenses change with particular colors, filters, how dark they get and how fast, and we have an opportunity now as we start getting associations through this particular sporting performance or others to really customize things that fit that particular sports performance. And our research and development and our capabilities are far, far greater than the products that you see just as our core product today. Q. I understand that excessive exposure to really bright sunlight is one of the causes for macular degeneration and in high sunlight areas like California, Arizona, Florida, particularly, where golfers particularly play year round, just how dark does your lens get to protect them with ultimate safety on the golf course? DR. LAWRENCE LAMPERT: You're absolutely correct about higher incidence of cataract, macular degeneration in what we call the Sun Belt areas, higher ultraviolet radiation. The tint is not as critical as the ultraviolet protection in the lens, that you're getting both Ultraviolet A and B. You have to be careful about lenses that claim just ultraviolet protection because that's a broad term and they may not be blocking all of the harmful ultraviolet rays, and it has to be both, which this lens provides; the darkening and lightening of the lens is not what protects you. Q. How much research did you do, is there anything that indicated that your users tend to be golfers, or is there anything that made you think, we should really partner with the PGA TOUR rather than any other sport? BRETT CRAIG: I think Dave hit on this, as well. The fact that the user base -- we know that sports enthusiasts, be it in the golf arena, as an example, who are exposed a lot to the outdoor conditions is a natural technology platform for us to evolve to. As it relates to the PGA TOUR as a brand, and Dave alluded to this, the affiliation starting there was a strong one for us because of the awareness we want to promote, as two companies in particular, the technology and brand platforms that we are speaking to. So the PGA TOUR was the first start for us to potentially move into other arenas for the awareness aspect of really highlighting the need for protection as well as obviously quality of sight. And again, I think it would be remiss to say that we will start here. Q. How did you come across the Transition glasses? What was your introduction to it? MATT KILLEN: Well, I actually had left my sunglasses at home and went into a sunglasses store and I tried them on; and what I was looking for, what's going to provide protection for my eyes, and looks good, too. So I'm trying on, and I just happened to pick up one that was Transitions and I liked it the best and I started to wear it. And I started to wonder a little bit more about how it worked because I noticed it wasn't too dark under cloudy conditions and how when I went inside, I'd always leave my sunglasses on and forget that I had them on. And those were the Activated By Transitions think picked up by the way. I liked them the best and kind of evolved from there. DAVE COLE: How about that, one that actually went out and bought a pair of glasses, which is great for us. BRETT CRAIG: These are all great questions, thank you for joining us today. I want to thank you for coming. You can tell that we are excited about this opportunity. It's a long-term relationship, I want to emphasize that both from what we've done from the Transitions Championship and the O&P announcement. I want to thank Barclays and Ridgewood Country Club for the venue, and thank you for participating and asking great questions. So again, thank you. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|