|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
KPMG WOMEN'S PGA CHAMPIONSHIPJune 18, 2019Danielle KangChaska, Minnesota THE MODERATOR: We're back with Danielle Kang, two time LPGA Tour Champion, including the 2017 KPMG Women's PGA Championship. She is competing here for the 9th time. Last year finished tied for 33rd. Danielle, that break-through win in 2017 at Olympia Fields, it was an amazing expense for all of us to watch. What is your most vivid memory of that week? DANIELLE KANG: I remember the final 9 holes like it was yesterday. I could replay that in my head anytime I would like. It's something that no one can take away from me. It's a very treasurable memory. Because of the week I'm called a Major champion. Anytime I come to the KPMG Women's PGA Championship I feel a little bit special, little extra special by being here and even lockers where they have special place for the past champions or having my face with all the great players, it's exciting. THE MODERATOR: Tell me about the growth of this championship over the last five years. You've seen it most pre and during the KPMG days. How has it changed over last five years as KPMG has become a big part of the LPGA Tour in this tournament? DANIELLE KANG: To be quite honest, no disrespect to the years of sponsorships and I played it since it was in Rochester and I played it for 8, 9 years now, but after the PGA of America has taken over with the new sponsor, KPMG, the tournament has become so incredible. The magnitude of this event has gone up so high and it's neck and neck with the USGA and U.S. Open, hopefully. It's a No. 1 event so-called people will say. I tell people you have to see the KPMG Women's PGA Championship because we play golf courses that's are unexplainable, Olympia Fields, Sahalee, Hazeltine. It's just when you get here and people talk so much about the golf course and they, oh, you're going to play Hazeltine, it's a great golf course. They talk it up so much. I don't want to be disappointed. No, never a disappointment. I know PGA of America will set it up tough and going to set it up long. I know they don't like really low scores so they know how to -- I don't know, I think they know how to maneuver it. THE MODERATOR: You like the challenge of a hard golf course, don't you? DANIELLE KANG: I do, I really, really like it. I like it when there aren't a lot of birdie opportunities. I like it when it's challenging on every aspect of the game. So, I like it if you miss, you go off the fairway you should be penalized. If you miss the green you should be penalized. But I do think part of the game, part of a Major Championship is to have those tough lies, have those tough shots and being able to produce what you need to produce or something close to it and have the 6, 7-foot par putts that you have to make. That's what's fun for me because of the pressure, because of the stress, and I enjoy it. THE MODERATOR: You've been out there, seen the golf course. Is it going to give you stress? DANIELLE KANG: Yeah, little bit. I really like it a lot. I think it's a ball-striker's golf course. The greens are rolling -- the greens are very, very pure. Uphills are slow, downhills are fast. Little bit undulated but not too much. Around the greens rough. Very challenging holes but there are opportunities as well and a lot of the par-5s this week are not reachable so -- which was interesting, which means wedge game. I'm -- I try to dial in a lot of numbers. I think it will be challenging for a lot of different reasons. THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions. Q. Danielle, you referenced this but how much does it enhance the experience for you guys to play venues that share Major Championship history with the men? The second part is, having watched the U.S. Open at Peeble Beach, how much excites you about the possibility of going there? DANIELLE KANG: Having the history here before us shows that we are headed in the right direction, though we are here and are playing the same venue. I know that Ryder Cup was held here and I know it played a little bit differently than we're going to play. I know they wanted to see lots of birdies and all that. But the fact that we are playing that high of caliber golf course is very honoring for us because women's golf game have come a long ways to be here and able to play such prestigious golf courses. Second question to that, having watched the men play the Peeble Beach, I actually didn't get to watch much of it but Peeble Beach is some place everybody wants to play. I know that the scores aren't -- scores -- I don't know. I've heard a lot of mixed feelings about Peeble beach this year. I didn't watch all four rounds but I saw a few holes. They said it played so easy, one said it played too hard. I don't really know what happened out there but I do know that Peeble Beach is going to be a very, very great golf course for women and because there are a lot of different shots you have to hit. Very challenging for us -- for the U.S. Women's Open as well. Very excited to head out. Q. You played today with Maverick. Did you know that was happening? DANIELLE KANG: No, I didn't. I found out yesterday when he surprised me yesterday, which I didn't know he was here. So, yeah. It was quite a surprise. I was very, very shocked. Q. You're prepping for a Major. Are you talking to him about your stats or just letting you do your thing? How do you guys help each other I guess? DANIELLE KANG: We help each other in many different ways. We talk about golf a lot. That's mostly part of your lives so -- but it was great to have him out with me in the practice round. He was walking around with me. He calls it Tour Boyfriend Things. Throws the golf balls, shows me the different lies, what kind of shot I might get and if he sees something and he just goes, hey, remember it's going to be really into the grain over there. I go oh, yeah. There's nothing really -- we joke around but he dates me for my ball-striking and I date him for around the greens. Around the greens I've got help. Certain lies, try this shot. Oh, okay. Then that's the kind of things we talked about and today we played together so a lot of the strategies we do, I don't think off the tee him and I hit very -- hold on a second. He took lines today that were not even in play for us because he played my tees. He's going over these trees. My caddy goes, "I can't caddy for him. I don't know where he's going." He's hitting it so far. 330 into the wind he's trying to drive the green. Okay, driver, driver, 9-iron is good. Yeah, we definitely help each other out, learning different types of what is that, drills on the greens and speed and ask him if he sees anything, what's going on or anything that notable, things that I should know on the golf course. I think it just helps each other in a lot of different ways. Q. If either one of you has a bad day, a bad round, do you talk about it or just ignore it? DANIELLE KANG: We talk about it, yeah, we talk about it. It's golf. You have to talk about it. You're not -- we get upset on the golf course as golfers in general. You go home, but it's really great to have someone that understands how you feel and one of us has a bad day we both know there's not much the other person can do. So this is advice to probably everybody that's a golfer that has a friend golfer, mom, dad, brother, sister, friends, whatever, there's not anything to say. Just want to vent. Kind of sit there and go, "Uh-huh, yeah, that sucks. Yeah, I understand. Yeah. Oh, that happened? Damn", like there's not much -- it's okay when it doesn't work because it's not okay because you three-putted from five feet. That's not okay. Yeah, we talk about it. Q. So you're from the West Coast and Minnesota is certainly not the West Coast. What things maybe growing up did you hear about Minnesota and now being here what are your thoughts about what have you noticed so far? DANIELLE KANG: I didn't really hear that much about Minnesota growing up where I'm from. I do know it's a Delta Hub. I stop over at the airport a lot. I go to that airport a lot. So I know a lot of those A, B, C and D and E terminals and gates. But I am very excited to have left the airport for the first time in my life, Minnesota, so it's quite -- it's very green and I like that there are a lot of trees. The weather is really nice. Vegas -- I live in Las Vegas, it's hundred degrees right now. I would rather take this weather. But so far everyone has been very friendly. The golf course is in great shape. Food is great. No complaints. Q. Thank you. Appreciate that. My second question would be on a different page, 16 looks to be a hole that come the weekend could decide the tournament whether they move the tees up, play it back, water left and right and short. What goes into your thought processes as far as being aggressive on that hole? What variables are you talking about with your caddy whether you'll play it safe or go for it? DANIELLE KANG: As you can tell, I'm very blunt and I'm a very aggressive player. I don't usually lay back. Specifically on 16, there isn't really much to do to be aggressive, in my opinion. Yeah, it's a dogleg left to right. There is water through it, there's trees on the right but you have to cover a lot of the water in the front and there's a lot of wind off the right, which will hold it. Aim left and play a really hard cut. The fairway is quite wide as long as the ball is curving right. I think it's a pretty -- deciding factor? I'm not sure. 18th hole is pretty tough. You don't hit the fairway you have 180 yards up the hill out of a bunker. It's sneaky out here. THE MODERATOR: Sneaky tough? DANIELLE KANG: Yes. Q. In addition to hosting the KPMG Women's PGA Championship, KPMG is hosting a Women's Leadership Summit tomorrow. The theme of the week is "Inspire Greatness". Wondering if you could just talk a little bit about someone in your life, a female in your life that has inspired you both on and off the golf course. DANIELLE KANG: Well, I don't know how to answer this but my mom is actually my biggest women's inspiration. I have never seen anyone care for another human being the way she does. She's a doctor so it's her nature. I've never seen a mom -- everyone's mom -- their mom is their best mom, right? So my mom is my best mom and she inspired me to be better, to be a better person everyday and to be the best I can be as a person before a golfer. To me, being great and being inspired, all of that means being kind and being who you are and being true to yourself and always sticking to walking that straight line and no matter how hard it gets. She has shown me the right ways and she's my greatest inspiration. Q. So talking about all the amazing golf courses that you get to play in this event, is there any course that's on your list that you like, "This would be perfect for me, this is where I want to play"? DANIELLE KANG: Perfect for me and where I want to play? Any golf course that is the most penalizing golf course would be the golf course I like to play, which will be Peeble Beach, probably, I think. I want it to be absolutely demoralizing, penalizing. I don't want anyone to be okay if they miss the fairway. I will take that chance and I will also miss a fairway but I would -- there's so much more that comes with golf when things go wrong. So I like it when things go wrong. When people are on the tee and different pressures and you could hit the perfect shot, sometimes you might get the wrong bounce and have the toughest shot into the green with a 75-yard shot; having the greens being firm, all of that. That's where -- that to me is where somebody can step up and do that and I feel that I can handle drama very well, very dramatic. I like drama. Any golf course that will bring drama is where I want to play. THE MODERATOR: As we talk about inspiration, something you do is inspire work with UNICEF. That's something you wanted to do for a long time. What is it about UNICEF and their goals that resonated with you? DANIELLE KANG: Just children that are limited, helping the child. What they do is that they go out of their way to do whatever they can around the world, around the globe to help children and put them first, whether it's nutrition, safety, healthcare, education, all of that. And what resonates with me with UNICEF, why I wanted to work with them, children are our future and someone asked me a question today about little girls coming out, how do you decide to inspire them? Actually it's the other way around, they inspire me to be who I am to be inspiring for them in the future and there are a lot of great things in life but also a lot of wrong things going on around the world. Children is the way we can shape. The basic needs is not a given -- it's not a given right to us and some people can't afford it and other kids don't get to choose where they come from or where they're born and all of that. The fact that UNICEF can go around and help where they're needed is where I sit with. If I could help one kid's life to be inspired or changed in anyway possible, it's the best I'm going to do because they're going to grow up to be somebody great. I know they can change the world. What is LPGA's quote, "Leave the Tour better than you found it"? Wish we could leave the world better than we found it. THE MODERATOR: Thank you for doing that. Danielle is off No. 1 at 2:33 with Sung Hyun Park and Anna Nordqvist. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
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
|