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KPMG WOMEN'S PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

June 23, 2019

Karrie Webb

Chaska, Minnesota

THE MODERATOR: We're here with Karrie Webb, perhaps this might be a proud moment for you. Karrie, of course, great LPGA winner, 7 time Major Champion but I think in this moment, the giver of the Karrie Webb Scholarship.

Tell us how proud you are of the way Hannah played this week.

KARRIE WEBB: Yeah, so -- I caught myself a few times getting ahead of myself for Hannah and just amazing she was handling herself out there and thinking about how much winning this event would change her life, and I start choking up about how proud I was of her. So proud of her.

You know, I've seen this for years. Years ago, I watched her at the amateur in Portland and I could just tell the way she carries herself on the golf course and how she is mentally that she was made to win golf tournaments on the LPGA, made to win Majors.

So, you know, for this to be her first win and her first Major, it's just fantastic.

THE MODERATOR: Did you have advice for her this morning before she headed out?

KARRIE WEBB: Wasn't as much advice. She was pretty quiet. She cooked herself some eggs and talked about what we had at the barbeque last night and who was over, who were still in the field, talked about how much fun that was.

That was really key for her because we were just laughing and telling stories. You know, I think it kept her relaxed.

This morning I spoke to her, we had a huge storm last night and there was a crack of thunder that shook the house and I asked her if she heard it. She didn't hear it. So ehs' fine today because she slept well last night.

So, if you get a good night's sleep sitting on the lead going into the last day, then you're going to carry yourself really well.

THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions.

Q. Karrie, obviously you're more nervous for someone when you're not playing. Are you more excited for her than you were when you were winning Majors?
KARRIE WEBB: I just said I felt like I won. I feel like I won a golf tournament today I'm so excited for her. It's the same emotions. You didn't do it yourself but, you know, you supported someone to realize that dream.

Q. Also, you've been there when things have gone kind of sideways in the middle of a round. How do you fight through that and could you see that in Hannah?
KARRIE WEBB: I'm a big body language person, I've always watched my opponents' body language and especially later years and so I just thought how she was today was just amazing, like the pace she played never changed.

I played a practice round with her on Wednesday and looked like it was Wednesday playing 9 holes the way she was carrying herself out there. When things got a little tough there through the middle stretch, I think we were more stressed than she was because then she just followed that up with a great par on 13 and birdie chance on 14, 15 and birdied 16.

That's world class the way she closed out that tournament.

Q. How much does winning your first Major change your life?
KARRIE WEBB: Yeah. I said that on 18, this has just changed her life. She won't realize until she wakes up tomorrow morning.

Q. Where does this piece of paying it forward in seeing it rewarded this way rank in your golfing resume?
KARRIE WEBB: Yeah. This is one of the best days I've had at a golf course, especially.in the long haul. It ranks really high because I'm glad that it happened when I was still playing and I was here at the event to watch it in-person.

Q. When you started your program, how long ago was that and what was the purpose of doing it, was it to create a Major Champion or was it something different?
KARRIE WEBB: I've been trying to create something for quite a few years and then the Women's amateur body and Men's amateur body were separate at the time and when they merged and became Golf Australia that's when I got a bit of traction on trying to work on getting something.

Golf Australia helped me come up with this concept, and the idea of coming over to stay with me was mine and that it be at a Mayor Championship was mine.

That was the first year -- they played 2007, 2008 was the first series and 2008 U.S. Open actually here in Minnesota in Minneapolis was the first year for it, and it couldn't have gone any better, actually.

When I said I wanted it to be the U.S. Open, you know, people in my camp, "Are you sure you want to have that during the U.S. Open?" No, I'm not sure, but for their experience they need to come to the biggest events that we play.

If we just went to a standard LPGA event, just doesn't have that same buzz. It's the buzz of the Majors that is so electric that's different from any other week.

I wanted them to feel that so that's why I chose the U.S. Open. Last couple of years U.S. Open has been too early in the schedule and coming to the Women's PGA fit perfectly for them to play some more amateur events following coming over here.

Q. I think a lot of people will look at today and this weekend, I guess, as kind much a shocker but for Hannah, you see this maybe as just the first of many to come?
KARRIE WEBB: Yeah. I think for Hannah it will feel pretty sudden. Knowing the results she had, you know, I guess I would even say it has happened quickly.

She had such a great first year on Symetra Tour. She set the goal of winning three times and did, finished second. I just think last year was a bigger shock to her system than she thought. I think, it didn't -- it didn't quite have the same family feel that all the girls traveling around on the Symetra Tour had in sticking together.

I think that was a huge shock to her and so I think it just -- it's just taken her 12 to 18 months to sort of settle in and feel like she belongs out here, and what a way to show it, the way she played for four days leading a Major wire to wire, you know, that's really impressive and the up and down on the last was world class, like, you know, you couldn't put the best women or male players in the world under that situation, how many of them would get it up and down?

It was real world class.

Q. Minjee has been a highly ranked player. What does it mean to have another Australian, a 22 year old so early in her career win a Major title?
KARRIE WEBB: It's huge, especially back in Australia women's sport has really been in the forefront in the last few years. You know, couple of different kinds of football and women's cricket been really in the forefront of sports news for the last couple of years and now with Ashleigh winning the French Open and becoming World No. 1 today, we're really playing catch-up as far as where golf fits in that.

It's huge that what Minjee has been doing and the fact that Hannah now has joined that, I just think it's such great timing for us to grow the women's game and have young juniors want to be Hannah Green and Minjee Lee.

I think it couldn't have happened at a better time as far as for the growth of women's golf in Australia.

Q. When you're looking at the development of young players like Hannah, how valuable is it that they learn how to win at some stage before they get here, like she won three times on the Symetra Tour. How valuable was that this week?
KARRIE WEBB: Obviously the experience of leading a Major doesn't compare at all to any of the experiences she's had, but the fact that she -- winning her first Symetra, that was just as important to her at that time in her life as it was winning today.

So, you know, she's had those feelings of leading, trying to win a golf tournament and even though it's on a different stage it's still the same thing, you still have to do the same thing to get the ball in the hole at the end of the day.

Q. What was the puzzle you guys made?
KARRIE WEBB: Map of the U.S., actually?

Q. Minnesota in there, too?
KARRIE WEBB: Covered by this big road trip of the U.S.A.

Q. Secondly, how does an Aussie barbeque differ than an American one?
KARRIE WEBB: Mostly Australians there. We had the one -- we had the one barbeque with Australian beef, Rissoles, which is like a ground beef patty, I guess, but has all the secret herbs and spices in it that make it a review sew.

We had that and seems as though I was chef for the day because I didn't get the pleasure of playing Hazeltine again, we had some short rib, barbeque short ribs. Bit of American in there as well.

Q. Well-known, one or two moments will define a Major. Can you pick out one or two from her round today that worked?
KARRIE WEBB: Yeah. I'd say well, birdie on 16. That tee shot is never easy. I was glad to see they -- glad to see they put the tee back. I think the women need to stay -- that's probably one of the hardest tee shots on the golf course and especially today into the wind off the right.

We only had that wind on Monday in the practice round. So, for Hannah to get up there -- she missed a few fairways through the middle of the round. Hit those two shots and make the par, I think that was huge and then obviously that up and down on the last, the putt for par didn't look like missing.

I can't wait to talk to her and ask her how much her hands are shaking over that putt and it's amazing how you can overcome that and put a good strike on it.

Q. Do you plan the barbeque many days before or was that one of your ways of taking her mind off of leading this tournament?
KARRIE WEBB: No. Stacy Keithing was one of my first -- she was at the first trip over at Interlachen in '08. She's is the female high performance developer for Golf Australia. Stacy was on Wednesday. Whenever she's at an event now she tries to have an Australia dinner or whatever.

Stacy had organized it and had planned to be the chef and I said, "Go out and watch Hannah. I'll take care of it." Stacy is as big a golf geek as you can get. She was glad to go out.

Q. Wire to wire means she slept three nights with the lead. How hard is that, especially at a Major?
KARRIE WEBB: Yeah. Really hard. I think that's what so impressive about Hannah, she's so level. You know, really the only chat I had with her was Saturday morning before she went to the course because I had read some of the transcripts of her press conference and I had seen that she had gotten some lucky breaks throughout and that seemed to be like the topic in here, you know, how lucky she had been, and I just wanted to tell her that, you know, lucky breaks happen to people that win. That always happens the weeks that you win, you get those lucky breaks.

I said, "Don't be embarrassed by them, enjoy them. You get enough bad breaks out on the golf course. Enjoy these and let that be some of your moments."

I told her it was Saturday and a long way to go and that every single person that was up there that had a chance to win, it was just as important to them as it was to her and that they're all going to feel exactly the same way as she did. Doesn't matter what their experience was. They would all feel the same way. She needs to remember that. It's not just her feeling that nervous. Everyone would be.

Q. What was in the cans you poured on her head?
KARRIE WEBB: It was Budweiser. I watched top LPGA events, those bubbles -- I said this is not happening today.

THE MODERATOR: Anything else? Thank you so much, Karrie. Hannah, will be on her way here momentarily, hopefully within the next five minutes .

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