JOE MAZZEO: Thank you guys for being here. We'll do a little bit of translation in Spanglish if that's OK, or Ken, you can go all Spanish if you want.

KEN JOWDY: No, no, that's OK.

JOE MAZZEO: Cari, simply saying to introduce you from World Wide Technology, Worldwide as the motor and the reason behind all the strength and the reason that this event is able to continue to get stronger and stronger every year, I would love to invite you to start with a few remarks.

CARI WILBER: Thanks, Joe. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Worldwide Technology Championship. I am excited to be back, and as some of you may remember, I speak a little Spanish so I am going to start my remarks today in Spanish.

With more than 14,000 employees, WWT bridges technology and business. The WWT Championship is our marquee brand experience. It connects us with new clients, strengthens existing relationships and provides us an opportunity to build awareness through digital, TV and in-person experiences.

In addition to golf, we host thought-provoking business sessions with conversations focused on AI, digital transformation, cybersecurity. I've got to think of the others -- culture and leadership.

We are very excited this year to have John McEnroe grace our stage. He is a seven-time tennis grand slam singles champion who then reinvented himself as a successful broadcast commentator and analyst.

Through our title sponsor we proudly support the people of Cabo San Lucas. As I said before, WWT's ambition is to make a new world happen, and that includes giving back to our communities. We do that here by partnering with the Diamante chapter of The First Tee. We provide students and participants with snacks, lunch, water bottles, everything all the way up to childcare that's provided through 4PM.

And then this weekend we will host an opportunity for these children to play alongside PGA Tour professionals as well as WWT employees, really enriching the lives of the next generation of leaders in this region.

This year is another exciting one for WWT and for the championship. On the 20th anniversary, we again have many of our WWT brand ambassadors in the field. On the heels of back-to-back wins, I might add, for our 2025 champion, Ben Griffin, as well as Austin Eckroat, our WWT ambassador and also 2024 champion, which we could not have scripted better.

Thank you.

JOE MAZZEO: Thank you, Cari.

JOE MAZZEO: Ken, if you would, some remarks on behalf of yourself and Diamante.

KEN JOWDY: Thank you, Joe. I always hate going after Cari because she shows me up and I've been here 25 years and I still need to say this in English. But thanks anyway, Cari.

So I want to welcome everyone here. I know some of you have traveled some long distances to be here.

When we first were presented with the idea to have a Tour event here, we always wanted to make it an event for all of Los Cabos and to showcase Los Cabos. I hope that the time that you spend here you'll see the things that I saw when I first came here 25 years ago and fell in love with this area, and hope that everyone's that's exposed to it this week and throughout this event has that same feeling that I did.

I know that the partnership with Worldwide has been incredible. Cari touched on The First Tee kids, which is such a great program but it's been -- partnering with them, it's more about the area again and what they can do for the area, what they can give back to this area. We couldn't have had a better partner in this endeavor over the last three years.

Same thing with the PGA Tour. I always say that they don't generally go to places that aren't very nice, so the fact that they choose to come here is a huge compliment to us and a validation to everything that we've done over the last 20 or so years, and I want to thank John for that and hopefully we'll do this for many more years if we can.

And also congratulations to Joe and his team on 20 years of having this tournament. It kind of shows you guys were pioneering in Mexico, as you know and said earlier today, and this now is a second event in a row that's -- PGA Tour event that's in Mexico, which is a pretty incredible thing for this country.

And congratulations to Ben for winning last year. I see you still have the World Wide Technology name on your hat, so you have the chance to win it again this year. I hope you do.

I want to welcome everyone and I hope that everyone has a great week. Thank you.

JOE MAZZEO: Thank you, Ken. Very well said and we appreciate your comments.

Moving on, John Norris, vice president of events PGA Tour. John, some words.

JOHN NORRIS: Thank you, Joe. I might be the only guy named Juan who doesn't speak a lot of Spanish, but I appreciate the new nickname. I have a feeling that's going to stick with me.

On behalf of the PGA Tour, thank you to the group on this stage especially World Wide Technology. Cari, you have been through some times with us that there hasn't been exactly as clear as we thought they would be and we ended up here. What a blessing it's been.

Ken, you have been amazing from the first day we had to find a place to play. You opened your arms, you opened your community, and to see what this place has become in the last several years is fantastic. So to both of you, thank you very much. There's no chance we could do it without you.

And also Joe, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank the team led by you. It's no small coincidence that you've been there every step of the way and you still have a really good head of hair, which is not something that I'm really fond of. But 20 years is pretty amazing.

Ben, great to have you up here. Coming off a top-4 finish last week, just getting the rust off, that was impressive. Defending champion.

And also Ben is a fantastic example of what great people we have on the PGA Tour. I couldn't think -- I know he's a World Wide Technology ambassador, but he's ambassador of the PGA Tour and we're proud of the way he conducts himself on and off the golf course.

Twenty years, amazing. I'm sure there will be many more, but it's a tremendous accomplishment in this spectacular setting.

And I think Ken talked about, and so did Cari, The First Tee. I had an opportunity as a last-minute fill-in for the par 3 today and it's spectacular. To see the looks on those kids' faces and the pure joy, it gives you goosebumps. We're changing lives and there's nothing better.

And if you think about changing lives, somebody's going to stand on that 18th green Sunday and have their life changed because what we do here changes lives both on and off the golf course.

So we're looking forward to another exciting week. On behalf of all of us at the PGA Tour, thank you to everyone on this stage and for all of you for your support.

JOE MAZZEO: Thank you, John.

Ben, the microphone is yours, please.

BEN GRIFFIN: All right. Yeah, super excited to be back again this year for the Worldwide Technology Championship 2026.

This will be my fourth time competing here and fifth time competing in the Worldwide Technology Championship. Twenty years, that's crazy. I'm 30, so two-thirds of my life this tournament's been around, pretty cool.

But no, super grateful for my partnership with World Wide Technology, super grateful for the PGA Tour to give me this platform to compete against the best players in the world every single week.

This place is very special. Touching on The First Tee program especially this morning, being able to play in that every single year that I've been here has been really special. Seeing familiar faces, seeing kids grow, seeing kids that have the same passion that I kind of had when I was their age with golf and seeing the smiles, that's what it's all about out here.

So it's been really cool to be -- have a little bit of a part of that, and then also yeah, being out here at Diamante, very special venue, very good golf course, Tiger designed. Can be challenging. Can be a little bit forgiving off the tee, but it's a very challenging second shot golf course. Got to make a lot of putts if you're trying to win. Fortunately I did that last year and I'm very hopeful to kind of do the same.

A little bit of wind so far this week to dry out the course, but I'm sure it's going to continue to get tougher. I don't know if we'll quite see as low of scores, we'll see what conditions bring. Nonetheless, very excited to be here in paradise again and defend another title on the PGA Tour.

JOE MAZZEO: Thank you, Ben. Very well said. I'm pretty sure Ken would agree about wanting to see a little bit of wind.

Q. Ben, how do you feel after last week in Vidanta, fourth place, also coming through your injury? And also you changed your caddie. How do you think that's going to help you here in this like fight to win again in the World Wide Technology?

BEN GRIFFIN: For sure, yeah. Always coming off a good week helps when you're defending a title, means I'm coming in with good form.

Last week was my first week with John, new caddie on the bag. Obviously very successful week. He's been incredible to work with so far.

I also had an incredible relationship prior with Alex Ritthamel. Four and a half years, both of us changing each other's lives. So I can't say enough good things about John without first saying good things about Alex. So we had an incredible journey together, it was very special. We played on a Ryder Cup, and all the best really to him moving forward.

And John, it's a new relationship. I haven't necessarily spent a ton of time with John other than a few events early on in my career where I was playing in groups alongside him. But yeah, the relationship we've had so far has been great. He's worked very hard and yeah, as mentioned last week was very great on the course. So obviously we're vibing pretty well and I'm excited about this next week.

I'm probably a little bit more familiar with the course than he is, I think this is his first time caddying out here. But for me as a player, you know, and for him as well as a caddie, we're both trying as hard as we can to prepare our best and we're going to let the shots happen, let the cards play out how they do. We've just got to both work hard and stay patient.

This week I'm very familiar with the golf course. It's not going to be as challenging to prepare, and because of that, we'll have a great practice round today with a couple friends. Yeah, tomorrow in the pro-am will be pretty similar, it will be very relaxed. It's a great vibe. It's a course that I like a lot obviously and I'm excited to tee it up with John alongside me.

JOE MAZZEO: He asked to me what the most special things coming from the first edition until the edition of now, 20th year, but also to Ben, he wants to ask how does it feel coming back to a place where the last time you were here you were being crowned a champion?

BEN GRIFFIN: Yeah, it feels amazing. And I also forgot to mention in the last question my injury. It was a very small procedure that I had done. It was never affecting me much on the golf course so the injury related thing, maybe it was blown up a little bit more than it should have last week. But I feel just as good on the course as I did maybe two months ago.

Yeah, anytime you can come back after winning you're going to have confidence. Yeah, it feels great to be back. It feels cool to see my photo everywhere. Everyone I've seen so far, "Yeah, I've seen you everywhere already this week" even though they haven't seen me in person. I guess it's part of this digital world we're living in.

JOE MAZZEO: It's good marketing, Cari.

CARI WILBER: Thank you.

BEN GRIFFIN: We're trying to build a new world here.

Yeah, it's a very special place to come back to, I love Cabo. I had my bachelor party here before I got married, this was back in last September so it's a place that I love. I love coming down here to Mexico, I love coming here. I love challenging my Spanish a little bit. I honestly had no clue you even asked a question towards me so that shows how good my Spanish is.

But it's very cool to see the culture. Very cool to again see like the kids in The First Tee and see everything around here. It's a very special week and I'm very excited to be back not only with everyone involved on the Tour, but also really with World Wide Technology and the clients and the customers that come in. They bring in almost a thousand customers and clients so it's very cool to be able to network with them as well as being able to compete on the golf course.

Q. Ken, how do you see the evolution of your golf course since the PGA Tour has been here from year one to year four? What's been the biggest change.

KEN JOWDY: The first year that we were here we didn't find out that we were going to have a PGA Tour event probably till March or April because of the circumstances that allowed us to have it in the first place. So that was really kind of a fire drill to get ready that first year. We closed the golf course in July, dedicated a large amount of staff to getting it ready that year.

One of the best hires we brought in was our superintendent, Kevin Welker, who came in from Mayakoba and it was recommended from one of the PGA Tour agronomists. I give him a hard time that that's the one thing he did tell me that I will tell you it was one of the best hires we ever made. We brought him in here that year to get us ready for that year.

Each year I don't want to say it's gotten easy because nothing's ever easy. Joe knows like you can do this continuously, he's done it for 20 years, and I don't think he'll ever tell you that it's easy for him to do his job, but it has gotten a little bit easier and a little bit less stressful after that first year.

We had a lot of unknowns coming into the first year not just in the golf course, but whole logistics of what happens, that has to transpire to have PGA Tour event. But specifically with the golf course, I think, Ben, you've been here all four years, you played every year. Hopefully you can see a progression of the golf course and the conditions and things like that from year one to now.

I think that the people that are here saying that this year it could be in the best shape that it's been even with all the rain that we got and the conditions that we had to deal with. So we're excited about where it's at, but we've had a great staff and people that worked really hard to get it there. Again, Ben's been here the whole time so hopefully he would agree.

BEN GRIFFIN: For sure, yep.

JOE MAZZEO: Ben, would you want to answer that from year one to year four here, a golf course question for him?

BEN GRIFFIN: Yeah, and I think touched on that maybe from a player's perspective. You know, one of the really unique things about this golf course is the undulations in the greens. So from a pin placement standpoint, year one, rules officials are going to set up a course to make sure it doesn't get too crazy so they might not be as aggressive with certain pin locations. They've learned over the course of time that they can maybe push hole locations a little bit trickier in certain spots on the golf course to make it a little bit more challenging.

Last year it was the lowest score to par that won. Granted, it was mainly wind related. So this year if we get wind and certain tough hole locations, this could be one of the most challenging years that we've seen in terms of scoring on this golf course.

But yeah, no doubt this year one of the first things I noticed hitting my second shot on the first green was just a little bit more firmness than I'm used to on the greens, which is nonetheless a bigger challenge and that's what we expect on the PGA Tour in terms of toughness.

I think this course has gradually for sure gotten a little bit tougher and tougher, and definitely better conditions every single year. It's been awesome. It's been an incredible experience for me every single year I've competed here. I wouldn't have even critiqued it in year one at all. I thought it's been amazing since the get-go.

But just from a player's side I think that's one of the biggest things you'll see differences from year one to now would be maybe a little bit more challenging pin locations. Maybe not necessarily first year you're trying -- every single pin location's new so you don't know exactly how tough it's going to play.

Q. Ben, nice to see you again. You have been very open about your retinal condition, the challenge that you have faced with your vision. Your sunglasses have become part of your signature look, but they're something interesting history behind them. Yes, thank you. Do you remember that the moment did you ever imagine something that the start as a medical necessity would become part of your identity? And also, how has it affected the way you see and experience the golf every time? Thank you so much.

BEN GRIFFIN: Yeah, I think it helps in the bright sun in Cabo. Keeps things nice and cool, keeps me calm and collected.

No, yeah, I battled -- so it kind of started in I think to 2024, I started noticing something was off with my eyesight. I went in to get checked and had retinal holes, eight retinal holes in both of my eyes, which is basically like my retina was getting close to detaching. So I went in and filled those in with laser surgery. Because of that, because my vision was just really bad, I started seeing floaters. With the sunglasses it just kind of darkened the setting for me to make it a little bit easier for me to see clearly.

Or what I like to explain when it first happened is I like to basically convince myself that I had like a windshield over my eyes, so anything that I would see that would maybe flare up, I wouldn't actually notice as much, it would just seem more like a bug hitting a windshield or something like that.

So yeah, it's become a part of my look, which is really cool. I think every golfer on Tour wants to, you know, play really good golf but they also want to have something that makes them identifiable. You think about Rickie Fowler wearing the orange, that's what made him who he is and made him cool.

Yeah, I think the shades is kind of a cool part of my look. When I put them on, people recognize me more than when I'm not wearing them, which is pretty funny.

No, it's been really awesome to wear the sunglasses on the course. And a lot of other players do wear them as well. It's good for eye health, at least I think so. Yeah, it's certainly helped my golf game I think. Before I was wearing sunglasses I never won on the PGA Tour; now I have three, so I guess we've got to credit those some.

Q. Ben, it's possible this year have a better score in this place with this condition with the wind, it's possible? And how difficult is it back-to-back champion in a place like the Cardonal?

BEN GRIFFIN: You're saying how possible is it to win again?

JOE MAZZEO: Have a better score.

BEN GRIFFIN: Have a better score? I mean, anything's possible. No, I think it would be a challenge. I haven't looked in depth at the forecast for the week to see just how much windier it will be or whatnot. We'll have to see how the course conditions change throughout the week.

I think 29 under's going to be really hard to top. I can't believe I shot that low. Even when I was looking in the pamphlets and I saw I shot 29 under last year, honestly I couldn't believe it. I was like wow, that was actually me? I actually made that many birdies in 72 holes? That's almost half the holes.

So I think the record maybe is Hideki Matsuyama at the Sentry, I think it was 35 under is what he won. That was par 73. If it was 72, it would be 31. I guess it's possible, but I think if I were to beat 29 under, I think I'd be up here again next year talking to you again as defending champion. So I'll try to do it, hopefully I do and that would be pretty special.

Q. For Cari, what does it mean for the World Wide Technology to have all your golf ambassadors here and being part of the activities and festivities?

CARI WILBER: It's very special to have so many of our ambassadors in the field. It's wonderful to get to spend time with them. It's wonderful to see them perform, for them to have an opportunity to really engage and interact with our clients.

I think what is the most exciting is when we get to experience something like we did last year when Ben won. That was unbelievable. I can say I actually sat with Dana, his wife, for a bit while we were watching him climb the leaderboard last year and I think my anxiety and excitement was maybe more intense than hers.

BEN GRIFFIN: Which is more than mine too probably.

CARI WILBER: Exactly, we were carrying it for you.

But it's great, we love having them here. It's really special. I think it is wonderful for us to be able to give everybody an opportunity to meet our extended WWT family.

Q. Ben, a little bit off topic from this week but just wanted to get your thoughts on your friend Austin Hitt winning the KFT Championship and getting his PGA Tour card, how excited you are 69?

BEN GRIFFIN: Yeah, so cool. Yeah, honestly, I get emotional talking about Austin because he's like a little brother to me. I don't know why I'm getting emotional. It was so cool watching him win and get his Tour card.

I don't know why I do this.

CARI WILBER: It's because you care.

BEN GRIFFIN: I know. I was honestly crying when he won, too, because his dad passed away, a big Virginia golfer, and it was just so special to see him win in Virginia to get his Tour card, and then obviously to get a spot here. World Wide Technology gave him a spot two years ago as well, which was his first PGA Tour start, and it's really cool to see him progress and get his Tour card. I'm really excited to be on Tour with him next year.

JOE MAZZEO: Our panel, Cari, Ken, John, Ben, thank you guys for being here not just right now during our press conference in this event, but all week and all year. We're so thrilled with the incredible team that we have with all these different entities and everybody a part of it. Thank you for everything that you do and everything that you are.

We'll take a photo of everyone together, and then we'll head to our grand opening ceremony at the clubhouse. thank you, everyone.