LIV Golf UK by JCB | Press Conference | Majesticks GC

LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil joins JCB CEO Graeme Macdonald to help preview this week’s LIV Golf UK event, and to announce that the tournament is coming back to the venue again in 2026!

O’Neil and Macdonald made the announcement alongside Co-Captains of Majesticks GC: Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, and Henrik Stenson, along with player, Sam Horsfield.

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All right, good morning everyone and thank you for joining us here at JCB Golf and Country Club for Live Golf UK by JCB. We’re welcome uh we’re delighted to welcome you as we kick off another exciting week of Worldass Golf and Entertainment here in Staffordshire. Please join me in wel welcoming to the stage Scott O’Neal CEO of Live Golf, Graeme McDonald, CEO of JCB and the full Majestics GC team, co- captains Henrik Stenson, Ian Palter, Lee Westward, and the teammate Sam Horsefield. Welcome guys. Today’s press conference is going to run in two parts. So, first we’re going to hear from Scott and Graeme who will speak on the continued success of this event and the venue and show an exciting announcement about Live Golf’s future here in the UK. Then we’ll hand over to Majestics GC to uh discuss their preparations for the tournament this week and some of the broader activities taking place as a team. And then there’ll be opportunities for media questions at the end of each segment. So without further ado, Scott, over to you. Thank you for joining us today and know you’ve got some exciting news to share. Thanks, Will. Uh thank you all for coming today. Uh the the without at risk of burying the lead, um I just want to say first off how gracious and enjoyable it’s been. Um Graham and his his staff here have been absolutely spectacular and wonderful partners. I got a chance to get out and and play a little bit a couple days ago. Didn’t go as well as I would have hoped. Um but it was a it’s a beautiful course. It has it certainly um represents all the best in golf. It’s certainly a challenging course and um and it’s been just wonderful to to be partners uh with Graham and his team. They they truly understand what world class looks like and feels like and um it kind of represents everything we’re trying to build at Live. So, thank you for that. Uh we would like to announce that July 24th through the 26th of next year, we will returning we will be returning to JCB. We are um thrilled to be back uh with a wonderful partner and an incredible course in a in a country that I absolutely love. So uh it’s good to be back and thank you very much for that. All right, Ian. Yeah. Yeah. Um a couple just small notes. We we’re putting tickets on sale. This event sold out last year. Um we have some tickets available yet left, but we’re anticipating it to sell out this year. And so if you want to get um in the front of the line, tickets are on sale now for the first time. So it’s great. Uh just one more second on on on live for those of you uh who are new to us. Um this is team golf and so we have the Majestics up here. Um and you’ll hear from them, but three four amazing I was going to say three amazing people and and you know, one pretty good guy, but uh four good friends, amazing golfers, and wonderful examples and ambassadors of the game of golf. uh for those of us I see plenty of my colleagues um in the back and on behalf of them I can tell you how amazing this experience is to be part of revolutionizing and changing the world of golf and it starts with partners like Graham at JCB but really starts and continues around the world and the chance to get amazing players like we have up here and throughout the 54 person field and be able to take them around the world to grow the game of golf is is quite Um quite a treat. Great. Thanks, Scott. Um on behalf of everybody at JCB, I’d like to welcome you here um to our golf club. Uh when we set out in this journey uh back in 2013, we um we our ambition was to build a a tournament venue and host worldass players, the best players in the world here in in Staferture in Little Stafford. And last year when we had our inaugural live golf by JCB uh event, we certainly fulfilled that ambition and we did listen to feedback from both the Liv team and the players and we’ve made uh a big investment over the last 12 months. Uh we’ve made a lot of modifications, improvements to the golf course and and it’s great and and we really do value the the relationship we have with liver. I do believe that we share a lot of the same core principles. Um, innovation, um, disruption, you know, both of us love to disrupt very traditional industries. Us with the construction equipment industry and you with the the golf industry. And I think that’s, um, it brings lots of new people into into this uh, wonderful sport. And we’re delighted that um, we’ve agreed a one-year extension uh, for next year. So fingers crossed the weather is going to be good this week. We’re going to have a bigger and better event than we did last year and we’re really excited about not just this week but also into 2026. Thank you. Thank you very much Graeme. Thank you very much Scott. Um Sam, just you’re a member here at JCB Golf and Country Club. From a players perspective, what does this announcement mean and what does it say to the quality of this venue? Yeah, it’s amazing, right? Um, you know, there’s not any other week of the year that you don’t get to live out of a suitcase in a hotel room. So, um, you know, to be able to stay in my own bed and, you know, be able to drive my own car up here is really, really nice. Um, you know, I’ve been fortunate enough that Graham has let me come up here the last couple years and practice and play. Um, you know, and like Graeme was just saying, they made some amazing changes to the golf course. uh over the last 12 months, they added some new tea boxes for us to make it a little bit longer and a little bit ch more challenging. Um and yeah, they made made some great changes, right? So, um they took all the feedback that us as players told them and obviously did something with it, which is awesome to see, you know, from a player side. And, you know, the staff here is amazing. Callum’s done a amazing job setting up the golf course and is ready for us. Um, you know, obviously the weather hasn’t been great the last few weeks, but it’s still playing amazing out there. Um, so yeah, I’m just really fortunate to be able to call this place my home course and uh looking forward to the next year or so. Scott, quick follow up from me. Um, can you just give us a sense of the momentum that Live Golf is building and the role the UK plays in that journey as we head into tail end of this year into next year? Sure. about three quarters into my first year as CEO of Live Golf and and coming in uh one thing I noticed really quickly was the incredible players. I mean that that’s the one thing and and and um what I think separates us a bit is we have a bit of personality and and a bit of flare and we we bring some fun to golf. That’s the first thing. And the second thing I noticed was it’s global. you know, you have some of the best golf over the last, I guess, since Tiger 20 years has been played inside the continental US and and and the growth of the game and the love of this game is around the world. And so for us to be able to take it around the world gives us quite an opportunity in terms of momentum, I it’s almost where where can you possibly begin um from a television distribution end, you know, we added Fox and ITV here in the UK. We’re now in 125 countries around the world, you know, and having players from from 18 different countries. It’s it’s nice to be able to travel and go home and be home. Um, and to show up in a market, we were in Spain um last week, two weeks ago, and um our press conferences were held in Spanish. We were in Korea, and our press conferences were held in Korean. So, and um it’s it’s pretty special, you know, to to see this all materialize. And so we’re now in almost 900 million homes distri um around the world for each of our broadcasts. From a sponsorship end, you probably saw the hopefully you’ve seen the HSBC announcement. It’s one of several new partners. Um we have exponentially grown our sponsorship base which has been great on on building on on Salesforce and Ramco before that. Callaway and Ping have come on. Um in terms of the impact we’re having, we continue to drive impact and put more clubs in kids’ hands, drive sustainability efforts around the world. That’s been at least a passion point for a lot of us. and um and and from a marketing position and you’ve seen us move from from golf but louder to long live golf, which is more than just a tagline. It’s actually how we see ourselves as part of this golf ecosystem. And to that end, you’ve seen pretty good strides. We’ve had open pathways to to two of the majors this year between the US Open and the Open Championship, which was really gracious of of those two leaders, um Mark Darbin and Mike Juan. I think you’ll continue to see progress there. And I I will tell you like the the the future’s really bright and I I can’t be any more excited for what’s coming. Awesome. Thank you very much. Um at this point, we’ll open up to a couple of questions for the media for Scott and Graeme. If you could raise your hands, please. Uh Scott, on the the sponsorship front, you mentioned HSBC, Salesforce. Can you help us understand is it like a a 3x growth, a 5x growth? Is that too simple of a way of of talking about things? But what does that growth actually kind of boil down to? Um, if you look at total contract value year-over-year, it’s uh 10x growth. All right, thank you for that. Uh, on the world ranking front, last week Bryson said that he’s not in the room, but he shares his opinion with you. Um, on all of these guys share this their opinion. Feedback. We have feedback sessions. Um, I was just curious, he’s not in the room, so he can’t really speak to the changes that have been made to the application, but you are, I’m assuming. Can you help us understand the changes that have been made for this second application or maybe third application and kind of the changes that you think might take hold if it gets Yeah, it’s still a bit premature. I have filed our application and I’m in pretty good contact with Trevor Emilman. Uh, we have a call later this week. He’s been a a good source of encouragement, push back, debate, and we’ve both agreed to to keep those conversations between the two of us until we take another step forward. I know that’s not the answer you want to hear, but uh that’s what we agreed to. Any more questions for Scott and Graeme? All good. Okay. Um, if I could just ask everyone to come together for a group photograph. Yeah. Like we love each other. Like we love each other. Scott Graeme, thank you very much for your time this morning. We’ll turn to our home team for the week. All right, let’s turn over to our home team for the week, Majestics. Henrik, Ian, Lee, Sam, thank you very much for being here. Um, Lee, I’ll start with you. Can you just explain what it means to return to Live Golf UK and to compete in front of home crowds here this week as part of the Majestics? Yes. Uh I I guess most people know that you know I I I was born and brought up about an hour from here. So um you know anytime I get to play in the UK in England, but especially in the Midlands is very special. Um for all those people that ask me for tickets, can you do it earlier next time and send your email address? Um because last minute is a bit awkward. Um but it’s great it’s great to be uh here at JCB. I think you can see looking out the window what a a special place it is and a great venue. Um it’s a fantastic facility. The practice the practice facilities are incredible. The golf course is improving every year. Um it’s in spectacular condition this year. Um they have made changes and as Graeme said, listen to the players and and listen to live where they can make small improvements. Um I think new courses always get judged a little bit too early in their life lifetime. Um, and you know, to say that 20 years ago this was farmland. Uh, and now to look what you’ve got is uh is a a testament to JCB and the effort and uh uh you know, the the hard work that they put into to the tournament and the and the facility here. So, uh, you know, I’m looking forward to a great week. Um, it’ll be fantastic. The crowds will be great. It’ll be nice playing in front of UK fans. Um, you know, being kind of the home team. um we’ll have a lot of support. Um especially coming off the back of an open championship where everybody’s kind of in that that golfing summertime. I know you don’t look out the window, you don’t necessarily see summertime, but that summertime, you know, sort of great British sporting calendar. This is a great add-on to the uh Open Championship which which came last week. So, uh it should be a fantastic week. Ian, you’ve spoken lots in the past about um mentoring the next generation, growing the game. Um, how does that vision take shape this week with the Majestics, particularly with initiatives like like the Little Sticks program? Yeah, it’s uh it’s amazing. I mean, we’re we’re kind of two years into Little Sticks and, you know, Jordan and his team and with the help of uh my my fellow co- captains and Sam, you know, we’ve uh we’ve built what is we we feel um an incredible curriculum that’s gone into the the PE school system. Uh we’ve got 200 schools now which are which are taking this up. I think that’s 40 plus thousand kids that are going to be reached over uh by the end of 2025. So, uh we’ve got it here this week. We’ll be getting as many kids coming into our Littlest program this week. Just getting a club in their hands for the first time. Um and just really seeing, you know, seeing, you know, what good we can do within, you know, the community and within the the UK school system. Um it’s been pretty rewarding. Uh I think for us to to see the growth in that. I think you know when we sat down and spoke about it and kind of had a vision of you know how many kids we can touch. I think it’s pretty remarkable today you know with the help of Liv and you know everyone involved um that we can we can hit that many kids in in such a short space of time. So, um, you know, big thanks to to everyone involved that’s been able to help us implement that properly and, um, it’s it’s it’s pretty special to see. Henrik, the Majestics and the League recently announced a major partnership with HSBC. Can you just as an example like speak to the momentum that the team is building this season and how partnerships like this reflect the broader growth of the Majestics and Live Golf? Yeah, we got some great momentum going. uh off course. We just need to get it on the course as well. Uh we’ve been lacking on on that end a little bit, but uh yeah, great to to have HSBC come in as a as a league partner and and also as a team partner for us and and the Crushers. Um they’ve been involved with with the game of golf for a long long time. Over the years, we played uh plenty of tournaments around the world uh sponsored and and uh put on by by HSBC. So, uh um yeah, we we know the people. Uh they’re great people to work with and and uh we’re really excited about the the partnership and and what we can do uh together going forward. Awesome. Uh let’s open it up to questions from the media. Go ahead, Mike. Sam, given that you live five minutes away, how many team functions are you hosting this week, if any? Six. Yeah, every night. No. Um, I haven’t had any actually this week. You know, I’ve been going, my life’s a little crazy at the moment, and we’re supposed to have a barbecue on Monday night, but that never came to fruition. Um, bad weather. Bad weather. It was raining. Um, but yeah, no, I’m I would love to have the guys over at some point. You know, obviously this is quite a busy week for us with everything going on. So, um, you know, tomorrow it’ll be into tournament mode for the guys and, you know, they’re fortunate enough to be staying right here. So, uh, um, yeah, I hope they can come over and see the house at some point. And you talked about the course changes. What’s the most signi sign significant one or two changes out there? Yeah, so the third hole last year was a bit controversial. There was a bunker about 30 40 yards short. Um, you know, and it would sort of kick down into the water. Um, you know, so they’ve taken that out, flattened that area, which I think is great. you know, when guys are trying to land a four iron, fivewood, you know, in 10 short of the green, you don’t want it really bouncing in the water when you’ve hit a good shot. Um, you know, obviously added new T boxes on 12, 13. Um, 13 I think is great. The par five, you know, they’ve cleared out all the trees on the left side and it’s a lot more open um now and I think visually it looks great. um and adding a new T- box back, you can hit driver and not worry about running through into the water. Whereas last year, um I hit 3-wood that to keep it short of the water and it was, you know, you never really want to hit a 3-wood off a par 5T, right? So, um you’re hitting your driver sort of into the same area, but now, you know, it demands a good drive so that you can get there into it’s a great riskreward t-shole. And this is for everybody, but we’ve got the Caddy tournament this afternoon. How much chatter has been amongst the Caddies, especially your guys? Oh, Lee, I don’t Is is Helen even playing? Apparently, she’s just going to put because she’s got a sore arm, but uh um must have been making all the tuna sandwiches last week. Or carrying your waterproofs. Yeah, carrying my waterproofs, right? Um, no. I all the players love watching the caddies play in the caddy tournament because, you know, they they give us advice all year round. Now we get to see how they do it. So, or don’t or don’t do it. So, it uh it gives us plenty of ammunition for the rest of the season. I’m excited though. We got some new additions. U Marcus that that carries for me, he’s he’s a good player. So, I think um we’re in we’re in good uh good shape this year. I’m looking forward to it as well because apparently Marcus has snapped more clubs than Henrik. So I just want to I want to know if he’s using your club his own. Right. That’s impressive. No, I think he’s going to be using mine. But um he’s a strong guy and he’s going to he’s going to hit it hit every every club that I have in the bag further than I do. So u Does he send it? He sends it. Does he? Yeah. Same size of them biceps. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Clarky has. Yeah. So, um definitely a big um addition compared to Gareth Lord. All right, thanks Josh. Uh question for Ian. Um with this being a home event for you guys, um the Ripper GC have seen a lot of success over in in Oz in Adelaide. Do you hope to create a similar atmosphere and a and a similar following uh here this week and in the future? Yeah, I mean I think hope’s the right word. I mean, as Henrik said, uh, earlier, we need to per perform better as a team. So, this, I think, would be an incredible week for us to be able to do that. You know, at JCB, you know, we we we have this as our home venue. I think we’re proud. I think we put a lot of time and effort and the whole team have worked tirelessly hard, you know, with JCB to make this, you know, a really big home event for us. So, you know, the guys are pretty excited. We’re we’re pretty excited to go out there in front of 50 plus thousand fans, have a much younger demographic and audience and more kids for us to play golf in front of and you know hopefully our golf our golf will prove us right at the end of the week and hopefully we can have a successful week like the Rippers did in Australia. Uh and then just on another note with someone who’s got such a strong connection to the Ryder Cup, I just wanted your thoughts on the announcement this week that um they’ll be heading to Spain in 2031. Okay. Hey, I didn’t know that. Uh, fantastic. Um, I think that’ll be that’ll be absolutely amazing. Great venue. Obviously, uh, the last time it was there, Sevy was captain and obviously was victorious. So, um, you know, hopefully Luke and the team have a great a great time out in Beth Paige Black. I know it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be loud. Uh, it’s going to be intense for them, but um, you know, any away Rider Cup is is is super hard. So, you know, hopefully the lads can do a good job and and and bring that trophy back. Any more questions? Uh, you know, Scott’s talking about an application for world ranking points. I was curious the last few years when you guys aren’t receiving them. Has there been other means for trying to understand like where you rank? Are there other rankings that you’ve paid attention to or statistics that you have tried to understand like am I making progress? Am I ranking highly? What have you used to understand that? I think you you was comparing yourself to Sam. I think you just went back in front of Sam, your son. Yeah. With my result last week in the open championship, I moved back above my son in the world rankings, which was nice, you know, but you know, I I I think that just proves that, you know, without world ranking points, you know, it makes a bit of a mockery of the system. So, you know, it’s good that an application’s gone back in. Um, I think mainly it relates back to wanting the best all the best players in the major championships, not wanting this conversation where there’s a few people missing out because we don’t get world rank world ranking points on live. Um you know we either get start to get world ranking points on live or the uh major championships have to revise their qualification system um which they seem u some of them seem to want to do but some seem reluctant to do that right and they’d have to you know have a separate qualification system for live players which I don’t think anybody particularly wants. You want it all to be based off the same system. So, um, you know, it has to be looked at carefully and, uh, and, you know, somebody has to come up with a I don’t know whether they’re going to backdate it or or what, but, um, you know, we’re all starting from a low position, aren’t we? you know, like I’ I’ve only got one tournament counting on the world rankings, I think, and you know, finishing mid30s last week moved me up something like 3,000 spots, which uh you know, shows that there’s there’s something wrong with the with the system as it stands, I guess. Am I overstating trying to understand where you rank? Like, is that important? There’s no point in even trying, I would say, at this moment in time. Okay. Yeah. I I guess as someone who just is religiously looking at data golf that that’s I think somewhat uh explains a little bit better than the world rankings sometimes a lot better. Um I was just curious if that ever dawned on you to check that stuff out. I’m sure you know there’s other people running their own ranking systems trying to kind of jump in that niche where where the world rankings current are currently lacking. Right. Uh Lee, hi. Uh just just on last week, what how do you reflect back on on your performance? How proud were you of what what you delivered? Yeah, I mean, you know what, a couple of weeks before the uh the Open Championship qualifying, I I was thinking of not even playing. So, you know, in everything you weigh things up and uh you know, I decided that you know, there were more positives to try and qualify than than negatives. Um, you know, I love Port Rush. It’s my favorite links golf course to play. I love the Open Championship. I didn’t qualify the previous two years for various reasons, and I thought I’d give it a crack this year and, you know, came through the qualifying and won the qualifying. So, really, you know, I was on to a winner before I even teed a ball up in in anger at uh at Port Rush. Um, you know, just enjoying the atmosphere and going out there and, you know, you at the age of 52, you don’t know how many open championships you you’ve got left. So, you know, just trying to enjoy playing in front of what I think is the best fans in the world at the Open Championship and, you know, enjoying that walk coming up the 18th green and, you know, maybe making a few birdies, hopefully making more birdies than than bogeies. So, uh, yeah, it was nice to finish under par and being in there for, you know, a little while. And I made a few mistakes on the last day, made a triple on on eight, which really sort of like put me out of um, you know, I was trying to have small goals as the week went on. when I got into a decent position on Saturday, try and have a goal of maybe getting in the top 10 and being being back for next year. But, you know, at the end of the day, I had a fantastic week. Really enjoyed it. And I might try and qualify next year for Burdale cuz, you know, I love Burkedale as well. So, uh um yeah, it was a it was a really positive week and I a lot of good shots and hopefully I’ll carry some of that form into this week. Just one last one. Yeah, Lee, to carry on the the qualifying, you know, from afar, I’m watching you through social media and it seemed like a good group of people were out following you uh during qualifying. Does that like warm your heart when or does it make you feel like some sort of respect of like the the local town came out to really kind of root you on more than anyone else in qualifying? Yeah, I guess I had like 200 250 people walking around and and five dogs. Um, and that’s the great thing about it, you know, like the US Open and the Open Championship, they have a qualification process, so literally anybody can go and try and qualify and play in those tournaments. Now, the other two majors don’t. So, they’re the ones that may really benefit from Liv being included back into the World Golf Rankings. But, you know, I’ve played for 33 years in front of the people that walked around in the open qualifying and, you know, they’ve seen me grow up and they’ve seen my career um move forward and they’ve seen the highs and seen the lows and they like to come out and watch the golf firsthand and that, you know, they get that opportunity at the Open Championship qualifying to come and walk behind and get close to the action, right? So, you know, it’s nice to it I I it’s the first time in 30 years I’ve tried to qualify and tried to qualify for an open championship and 1995 was the last time and in a perverse kind of way. I really enjoyed, you know, the uh the qualification process and playing with the younger kids and, you know, I was playing with a young amateur from Scotland, uh Connor Graham, um who’s a who’s a great young prospect. He’s got a lot of game and he’s at college in the States and it’s nice to kind of watch those people come on and you know that that was one another great thing for me about playing in the open championship. you know, in the practice rounds I played with some good young amateurs as well who’ve got a lot of game and clearly because they qualified for the open they’re going to some sometime rugby tour players or something like that. So, um you know at my age it’s nice to go out and and watch the young crop come through but also have that little bit of needle where you’re trying to beat them and you know just put them in their place. So, it’s uh it it it was good fun actually. I really enjoyed the open championship and the qualifi qualification process this year. Yeah. All right, gents. Thank you very much for your time and good luck this week. Thank you. Thank you.