DONALD TRUMP
DEREK SPRAGUE
PETE BEVACQUA
MAYOR JIM KNIGHT
JULIUS MASON: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm The PGA of America's Julius Mason. Thank you for joining us today. As we get settled in, please enjoy this tribute to major championship golf (video shown).
I think that sets the stage nicely for what we're about to share with you today, ladies and gentlemen. We do have some guests joining us that I'd like you to meet right now.
Beginning with from the City of Rancho Palos Verdes, Mayor Pro Tem, Susan Brooks; Council members Brian Campbell; Jerry Duhovic.
MAYOR JIM KNIGHT: Just a note, Jerry sent me a note, he's unable to make it but he congratulates the organization on this fine event today.
JULIUS MASON: You make sure he knows he missed a really cool video. (Laughter).
Another Council member, Anthony Misetich; representing the 15th District of Los Angeles, Chief of Staff, Jenny Chavez.
From The PGA of America, senior director of championships, David Charles. PGA Reach Senior Director, Scott Kmiec; from the Southern California PGA Section, Executive Director and past PGA of America President, Tom Addis. District Director, Bill Hulbert. And from Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells, PGA of America vice president, Paul Levy.
It's my pleasure now, ladies and gentlemen, to call upon the president of The PGA of America, and the PGA general manager and director of golf at Malone Golf Club in Malone, New York, please welcome Derek Sprague.
DEREK SPRAGUE: Thanks, Julius. They said there's a lot of stars in California and we just saw a number of them here.
It's good to be with you here this morning. Since 1979 The PGA of America has proudly concluded every season with the PGA Grand Slam of Golf. It's an event that is based on the most difficult qualification requirement in all of golf. You have to win a major championship to play in the Grand Slam of Golf.
For more than 30 years, the PGA Grand Slam of Golf has been contested on many fine golf courses, with notable winners such as Phil, Tiger, Adam Scott, and our defending champion, Martin Kaymer.
The foursome for this year's event, of course, will feature the winners of the Masters Tournament at Augusta National, the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay, The Open Championship at St. Andrews, and of course, our PGA Champion playing at Whistling Straits this year in Kohler, Wisconsin.
On behalf of The PGA of America, we are pleased to report that the 2015 PGA Grand Slam of Golf will be played on October 1921 right here at Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles (applause).
Donald, we are thrilled to align with you and your organization, and create the next chapter in the great history of this event. Let's take a closer look at the PGA Grand Slam of Golf in this short video (video shown).
Bringing together the four major champions is an exciting way to conclude the professional golf season 2015, but we are taking the PGA Grand Slam to a new level right here at Trump National L.A.
As a complement to this event, we are thrilled to announce The PGA of America will host the 2015 PGA Junior League Golf championship during the same week beginning on Saturday of the Grand Slam of Golf. This is a perfect fit, because PGA Junior League Golf represents the future stars of the game, now playing on the same course as the 2015 major champions. The PGA Junior League Golf is the key program of PGA REACH, our charitable arm of The PGA of America.
It is also one of the game's most innovative youth player development programs. It's the fastest growing junior golf program in America. It introduces kids to the team concept while promoting the values of hard work and sportsmanship under the direction of PGA golf professionals. I want you to watch this short video on the PGA Junior League and see how much fun these kids are having contesting in these events.
And I'm pleased to welcome this morning, we have one of our PGA Junior League teams here from southern California, PGA coach Seth Jamison and his team from Braemar Country Club.
So there you have it, the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, the PGA Junior National Team Championship joining forces with The Trump Organization here playing at Trump National L.A., doesn't get any better than that.
We expect this will be a new, exciting chapter in the Grand Slam of Golf and the PGA Junior Team Championship. We can't wait. Thank you.
JULIUS MASON: Thank you, Derek, very much.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the chairman and president of The Trump Organization, Mr.Donald Trump.
DONALD TRUMP: Thank you. Well, I want to thank everybody for being here. It's very exciting, and always being involved with Pete and Derek and the whole group has been just a great experience. They do such great work, and The PGA of America is really rocking. I know they have plans that are going to be very, very inspiring to the people in the golf world.
I've known, actually, Pete a long time, long before he became the head, and I will tell you, they have an outstanding person there, and I think Derek and everybody really appreciate it. He's really outstanding.
I want to just mention a couple of my folks who are here, my general manager, Lili Amini, she's been fantastic. She's been here a long time, many years. She's young and she looks young but she's been here a long time; Joey Lewis, our head golf professional; our director of agronomy, Martin Howard, has done a fantastic job. He's been here from the beginning.
I also want to thank Larry Glick and Amanda and my whole team. They love what they do and they do it well and I really appreciate it.
So Trump National Los Angeles has become just a real love affair for everybody that touches it. It's got the largest frontage anywhere in California on the ocean, and it's direct ocean; we say this is not the bay, this is the ocean, and every hole is either on the ocean or it's got a view of the ocean, but most of them are on the ocean. Almost all of them are on the ocean.
It's very unique because it's 25 minutes from Los Angeles. We are actually in Los Angeles. The Council and the Mayor have been so terrific on making this event and other things possible and I have to thank you all, Mayor and Council, I have to thank you all, you've been so spectacular.
And we are doing a lot of things and a lot of great money is being raised for children and for charities and for many other things, and it's just an honor to be involved.
And I have to say that the golf business and the golf industry is doing really, really well. You don't hear that from too many people because they focus on other things, but if you have the right product and the right location, you are doing really, really well. It's a great industry to be in and it's a very successful industry and a very important industry.
It's an industry that raises more money for charity than practically any other, and I think far more money for charity than any other sport. So that's a very good thing. So you should be very proud to be in it and we are very proud to be associated with you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
JULIUS MASON: Thank you very much, Mr.Trump.
And now let's go ahead and hear from the mayor of Rancho Palos Verdes, Jim Knight.
MAYOR JIM KNIGHT: Thank you and welcome to the PGA to the Trump National Golf Club here. We are pleased to have you here. You picked a magnificent venue to your events here. Today wasn't a great weather today, a little bit of fog, but this is a gorgeous course that has yearround weather that can have events any time of the year. We look forward to working with The Trump Organization and hosting this event.
Lili knows that we have an open door with the City in terms of working with you to coordinate these events, and so we even have our director of community affairs here today to talk to.
Just a caveat for you, Don. You've got a great big ocean over here, as mentioned. If you have errant golf balls and maybe a 3iron that gets a little bit errant here, you're going to need more than a SCUBA diver; you're going to need the Coast Guard here, because you have a long course line here on a beautiful golf course so something you have to look for.
So congratulations to The Trump Organization, and we welcome the PGA here and we look forward to coordinating your events with the city.
JULIUS MASON: Thank you very much, Mayor.
And now another video from Jim Knight and his college days at USC (laughter).
From PGA headquarters in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, it's our pleasure to call upon the Chief Executive Officer of The PGA of America, Mr.Pete Bevacqua.
PETE BEVACQUA: Thank you, Julius, and Mr.Trump, and mayor. We are thrilled to be here.
Really what we are doing with The Trump Organization is a fulfillment of our mission. We have a twopart mission at The PGA of America to serve our members and to grow the game, and we have really been able to partner with Mr.Trump and The Trump Organization to help us do that.
When you look at the relationship we're forging with the 2017 Senior PGA Championship presented by KitchenAid at your Washington, D.C. property; at your 2022 PGA Championship at Trump Bedminster in New Jersey; and then obviously today, not only with the 2015 PGA Grand Slam of Golf, but also the PGA Junior League Golf championship; is just really a testament to what you're doing with the game, your passion for the game. Whether you're playing golf with Mr.Trump or seeing his investments in golf, really it's a great statement for the industry, and we are proud to be a part of it, and we know that this will be a partnership that will last for many, many years between The Trump Organization and The PGA of America, so, thank you.
And I would also say, great partnerships and great relationships are what allow you to achieve great things in golf. And we have very good partners in Golf Channel and our friends at Turner Sports and TNT. And when we all sat down in a room, we understood what each entity was trying to do: A change in direction for TNT and Turner in the fall months really gear towards entertainment and original programming that made sense for them and for us, and it allowed us the opportunity to join forces with a great partner in Golf Channel and NBC.
So Golf Channel will be televising the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, they will be building really a weeklong programming around this event, drawing more attention to PGA Junior League Golf, as well, extended coverage, coverage of the ProAm. We think that's another element, another ingredient in this recipe for great success for the PGA Grand Slam of Golf.
And then add in the fact that we will be bringing in four of the best players in the world to L.A. and it should be a home run. This is a tremendously exciting day for us, a proud day for us, and we are looking forward to being back here in the fall, so, thank you all.
JULIUS MASON: Thanks very much, Pete. It's that time of the program, ladies and gentlemen, where we want to hear from you, if you have a question about our news today, please raise your hand, let us know who you are, where you're from and we'll try our best to answer your questions.
Q. Just wondering how this event is going to impact the local economy in RPV.
DONALD TRUMP: Well, I can tell you it's going to bring tremendous income to the local economy. The local economy is doing very well here fortunately but it will bring tremendous additional income. They will be using your restaurants. They will be using your hotels and hotel rooms. It will have a great impact on the local economy. It will be a lot of people coming in and spending money and paying taxes, so I think it will be very helpful.
I think it will also be from the public relations established point fabulous for the area.
DEREK SPRAGUE: I would add, it will be great, with the 80 kids that are going to be here, their parents and grandparents will be experiencing the West Coast here, and it's going to be just fantastic adding to that economic impact that you mentioned.
JULIUS MASON: Questions? Anybody want to see another video?
Q. The event and how it's evolved, it's a challenge sometimes to get players their schedules today. What do you think coming here and involving Mr.Trump will help in maybe getting more of the major winners to commit?
PETE BEVACQUA: Well, I would tell you, we have had a really successful track record of getting the four major champions to the PGA Grand Slam of Golf. But it is getting more difficult. It is getting more challenging as the golf calendar has become more and more crowded, when you think about the FedExCup and a longer PGA Tour schedule and when you think about golf going back into the Olympics after a hundred years starting in 2016; you have our own events like The Ryder Cup, and the PGA TOUR event like the Presidents Cup every year. It's a cramped calendar.
We had unbelievable success in Hawaii and Bermuda, but we thought that the time was right to bring it back to the United States. And to put it on the West Coast and to be able to bring four of the best players in the world to a worldclass golf course, really a breathtaking site for golf; and then to be, as Mr.Trump said, 25 minutes from L.A.
So what else can they accomplish when they are here; how else can they further their own careers, and what else can they do while they are in the Los Angeles area. I think that's definitely a part of our philosophy and our strategy. So, too, is putting it on Golf Channel. How can we really develop with our partners and our friends at Golf Channel a week long program that highlights not only the Grand Slam and the talent of these four premiere players, but also one of the growthegame initiatives that we are the most bullish about with PGA Junior League Golf.