KPMG WOMEN'S PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

June 22, 2021

Paul Knopp

Roberta Bowman

Jim Richerson

Atlanta Athletic Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Christina Lance with the LPGA Tour. I'd like to thank you all for being with us this week at the 2021 KPMG Women's PGA. Excited to be back here in June, the time we should be here. The top women athletes in the world will vie for a major championship here at one of the country's most storied golf courses, Atlanta Athletic Club.

Tomorrow 7:10 a.m. is your time to have your eye on the 1st tee, but before we get there, we want to make sure everyone has time with our leadership. We'll start here on my left, introducing everyone to Paul Knopp, KPMG's U.S. chair and chief executive officer. In the middle, we have Roberta Bowman, chief brand and communications officer for the LPGA, and on my right Jim Richerson, president of the PGA of America.

Jim, we'll begin with you. This is the seventh playing of the KPMG Women's PGA Championship. How specifically has the PGA of America's partnership with these two organizations, the LPGA and KPMG, elevated this major championship?

JIM RICHERSON: It's a very unique relationship to have three organizations like this all come together and really leaders in their field. I think, when we all got together seven years ago, we had the shared mission of really trying to create opportunities for women both on and off the golf course. Specifically with this championship, we really wanted to elevate it to make it one of the best golf championships in the entire golf world. And the best women's events by far.

We think we've done that, as you said, by taking it to historically championship golf courses that the men have played on in different times. We were at Aronimink last year. We're here in Atlanta Athletic Club this year. We're going to Congressional next year and Baltusrol the year after that. A lot of history in those events that have taken place on those championships.

I think we've seen with our partner in media, NBC and Golf Channel and now streaming on Peacock, we'll be 24 hours of live coverage for the women, which is, I believe, ten hours more than we've ever had before. Golf fans around the world will get to see the best players in the game. Again, 24 hours of live coverage.

Then on all of our championships, specifically with the PGA, it's about promoting what we do to grow the game, and we have eight women that qualified for this championship that are LPGA teaching and coaching professionals or PGA golf professionals that work every day to grow the game around the country and showcase their talents as well too.

Then we're very excited as a partnership, it's about elevating the women and what they're playing for. This year's purse will be $4.5 million. The winner will get $675,000. We're really proud of the strides we've made there. As a partnership, that's almost double what we were six years ago when we started this venture.

We've got a lot of reasons to be proud. We think collectively we've all shared that mission for seven years and keep driving it to elevate this championship to be the best in women's golf, and we think everybody's going to get a great chance to take advantage and see the best players in the world this week.

THE MODERATOR: Certainly on behalf of the players, all 186 of them, for your support at this event. Thanks to Paul and the KPMG for everything you've done. Paul, KPMG has been at the forefront, elevating the women's game, working hand in hand with LPGA of America. As we just press send on that, more exciting news as well, if you could tell us more.

PAUL KNOPP: As part of our long-term commitment to elevate the game of golf for women, we're really pleased and proud to announce a new solution, a new data and analytics solution for the women's golf game. It's called KPMG Performance Insights. What's really powerful about this tool is that it's going to give the women that play this game the kind of data that they need to improve and diagnose their performance, and it's going to be the same type of data that the men have on the men's tour.

So for the first time ever, we're going to bring our business leadership to bear to capture this data, to process the data, put it in the hands of the women golfers so that they can improve their game.

What's also really interesting about it is that it's not just the women that will have access to this data. It's going to be their coaches, their caddies, the fans, the media, and our broadcast partners at the Golf Channel, NBC, and Peacock will also have the opportunity to digest this data and provide insights and perspectives to everybody watching the event. So we couldn't be prouder to be partnering with all of you to bring that solution to the game of women's golf. It's going to be rolled out here this week for the first time on the LPGA Tour, and it's going to be used in the future at all LPGA Tour events.

We're extremely excited about bringing that new rich data and analytics to the women's game.

THE MODERATOR: I'm beyond stoked about this. I can't lie. I'm very excited to put those nuggets into action. That's certainly a lot of activation inside the ropes, but KPMG is also focused on outside the ropes and elevating women in the workplace. If you can give us a preview of what we have to look forward to tomorrow at the seventh KPMG women's leadership summit. It's a great lineup.

PAUL KNOPP: We couldn't be prouder to host that event too. Every year in conjunction with the Women's PGA Championship, we host the KPMG Women's Leadership Summit, and we bring together about 300 women from 100 leading companies that are nominated by their CEOs, and they come to hear from business, political, sports leaders, and they're there to be inspired. They're one or two steps away from the C-suite, and or objective is to bring more women into the C-suite through this program.

This year we have award-winning TV and film director Patty Jenkins that's going to be our keynote speaker. We have Carol Lawson, who was an Olympic champion in basketball in 2008 and the current head coach of the Duke basketball program. We have our own brand ambassador Stacy Lewis that's going to be speaking to the group, and Dr. Condi Rice will be back this year with us again.

The other great thing about the summit is 100 percent of the net proceeds of the summit and the KPMG Women's PGA Championship support the KPMG Future Leaders Program. So these are women that are in high school, that are women in need, and this allows for college scholarships, leadership development, mentoring, and almost $3.5 million in scholarships have been awarded over the last seven years to 122 very deserving young women that are going to STEM fields and business fields.

Then one last thing I wanted to mention is that this year for the first time we're doing Birdies For Books. So for every birdie, there will be ten books donated by KPMG to underserved schools in the Atlanta area. So we're really excited about the new birdies for books program too this year.

THE MODERATOR: All amazing work. Thank you so much for all of your support, both again inside the ropes and outside the ropes.

Roberta, I'll turn to you. This is always such a deep list of competitors for us. We've got all 100 players in the top 100 of the money list here this week, and so much of it has to do with the support of these two organization that's are here. How have all three of these groups worked together to build this week into the amazing week that it is?

ROBERTA BOWMAN: In many ways, it's really a testament to the power of partnership. I have an unusual perspective because I was involved with the LPGA right at the start. At the time I was on the LPGA board, and the leaders of KPMG and the PGA of America came together and had a shared vision and a shared value, and we're now on the third generation of leadership with KPMG as part of their transition and succession, and I don't know how many at PGA of America, but the important thing is, even with those transitions, the event has only gotten better because every leader brings their passion, their strength, their belief, and they have actually broken the code of what does it take to put on a world class event?

It's a great venue. It's a rich purse. It's an infrastructure in staging that our players respond to. It's the ability for those players to be on television and to share their talent with viewers around the world.

When you do that, the best players in the world will do their job, and year after year, this event has delivered great drama and great players and great champions. So I cannot wait to see who's carrying the trophy on Sunday night.

THE MODERATOR: Sunday is going to be a great day, and it's going to lead into also an amazing Monday. If you could, Roberta, tell us about the great event that's going to be going on down the road here on Monday regarding the Renee Powell benefit.

ROBERTA BOWMAN: Renee Powell, the second African American woman to play on the LPGA Tour, deep career with the PGA of America as well as a teaching professional. Renee represents everything that's good about golf, and frankly everything that's good about life. She is a generous teacher. She leads with grace. She has given so much to this game. She is living out the legacy of her father.

75 years ago, her father Bill Powell built by hand the first golf course ever designed, built, owned, and operated by a black American. He did it out of passion, but he did it because he had no choice because he was not welcome to play elsewhere. So part of the Clearview vision was let's let golf be that great melting pot of understanding and humanity, and in the 75th year of Clearview Golf Club, we are working with Renee to endow the future of that course, so it will continue to be part of the history of the game and of U.S. history as well.

We are so grateful to have the support of KPMG as a sponsor, Mariah Stackhouse and her foundation, PGA of America is doing a clinic as well, and this will kick off a very long term, and we deeply hope, successful campaign so that Clearview will always be part of our future as it's been of our past.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you so much, Roberta. We're very excited about the Renee Powell benefit on Monday.

Q. I've got two questions, and one of them's fairly easy. KPMG could put their marketing dollars in a lot of places. Why women's golf?

PAUL KNOPP: It's about making the women's game of golf be more equal to the men's game of golf. It's about closing that disparity and creating more equity. So we've always thought about it that way, and we've always thought about using it as a platform not only for women in golf, but women in business.

So we're committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion at KPMG, and we think we do our part by hosting the women's summit, by being the title sponsor of the KPMG Women's PGA Championship, and we couldn't be prouder to be in that position, and we look at it as a long-term partnership, the PGA of America and the LPGA Tour, and it's just a great partnership.

Q. Second question, which may be a little bit tougher, can you walk me through the mechanics of what this analytics thing is? Am I going to be able to tell out there who's hitting it closer?

PAUL KNOPP: It's a lot of the same data used by the men on the men's tour, so scoring gains, proximity averages, performance indexes, so shot by shot data will be captured that the women can then use to diagnose their performance.

So the caddies will initially capture the data through a preformatted scorecard. That data will then be processed by KPMG, analyzed, and put in the hands of all the various stakeholder, most importantly, the women that play the game of golf. So we think it's going to be closing, again, that disparity that's existed for many years where men have had that kind of data at their disposal to improve their game but women have not.

We just couldn't be prouder to bring our data and analytics experts to bear to provide that solution for the LPGA Tour.

Q. Roberta, I know that the Drive On platform has been very important to the LPGA and near and dear to your heart. How do you think this new data and analytics platform will further tell a different side of the LPGA story?

ROBERTA BOWMAN: I was telling Paul earlier that not only does the data and analytics help the individual player, but it also gives the players the respect they deserve. We know how good they are, and I think nothing like statistics and data to show that these players are among the best in the world, and we always have these conversations around, well, they're good women golfers. No, they're good golfers. They're the best in the world, and now we'll have the data and analytics to show.

So interestingly, we are filling out our brand profile because we've always known we have great players. The data helps us reach the serious golfer that loves the data and the analytics. Drive On creates that emotional connection to bring more people in as well. So we're very excited, and because I have the microphone, I will tell you we are so excited. We've got a new Drive On story this week, and it will be Stacy Lewis' story.

Q. Jeff, you've had a neat perspective in watching this championship build and grow. As you look at the pie chart that makes a great championship, what role or significance is the venue?

JIM RICHERSON: It's huge, right? Kerry Haigh, who's our chief championships officer for the PGA who sets the course up for all of our championships, and we get so many positive comments from the players, whether it's the PGA Championship, the KitchenAid Senior PGA, or here at the KPMG Women's, they talk about how fair the setup is. Kerry always has a tendency to take the characteristics of a golf course and enhance them and bring them out.

He doesn't trick it up. He doesn't try to get to a score, whatever the elements of that golf course are. I think it plays a major role. You really want the story of the week to be about the best players that are at the top of their game and about the golf course and really not about anything else. About you shaved this too far here, you grew the rough too far there, you had the tees too far up or too far back there. You don't want that to be the story. You want it to be the talent of the players.

Kerry has the knack to bring that out. These players are the best in the world. We've had positive comments the last couple days about how great the course conditions are here.

I think it's not only the golf course, but it's the community. The membership here at AAC are so fully behind this event, and there's such excitement with the membership here that Atlanta has such a storied history of golf and golf championships on the women's and men's side, amateur and professional, so I think all of those combined kind of total up to the history of that event because there's been so much history at the golf course. It's played a significant role in major championships over time.

We're just so pleased to add the KPMG Women's PGA Championship to the history of the Atlanta Athletic Club.

Q. In connection with data and analytics, I don't know if you've had an opportunity to look at the data already, but I want to say it will probably show not only how good they are, but how good they are if you take away the factor of distance, and you could compare them as players, not only women, but in every level, no? In terms of the efficiency, short game, putting. So what would be your guess?

JIM RICHERSON: I actually had an opportunity to play in the Pro-Am with Gabriela Ruffels, and her coach is Grant Waite, who played on the men's tour and coaches some of the top players. As we were walking and talking about the golf course and some of the differences, I think in the women's game, their ability to hit different shots with different clubhead speeds with the same club to me is amazing.

They can take a 7-iron and hit 40-yard gaps between different types of shots where they need to run it up, they need to hold it into the wind, they need to play it around a hazard or a bunker, and that's very unique.

People who play this game for a living know how challenging it is at that level, and to see this type of talent these women have, it is the best in the game. So I think the statistics, the analytics will bear that out and really show, I don't think only that they're closing the gap, I don't think there is a gap, and these statistics, I think, will prove that out.

Q. KPMG is a public accounting company, performs audits to ensure the accuracy of the data presented by publicly listed clients to ensure investor confidence in their financial statements. What steps are you taking to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data received from the caddies for these KPMG Performance Insights that I can also imagine bettors would also use and rely upon as the PGA unfurls more betting options?

PAUL KNOPP: I would start by saying it's one of those things where it's in the best interests to capture accurate data to start with. If the caddie is trying to help their professional, they're going to want to capture accurate information to be able to help improve the performance of the golfer.

So I think reliably speaking that data will be very rich and robust and very accurate as it's captured by the caddie and then ingested through the data and analytics platform to provide the information back to the golfers and to the media partners and to the fans to use that information to improve the game and to provide additional insights to the viewers at home and the viewers on the golf course.

I think naturally speaking it's worked very well, by the way, on the men's European Tour. They use the same process on the men's European Tour, so we're pretty confident it's going to work well here too.

JIM RICHERSON: To add to that, the biggest benefit is going to be to the players, being able to take that analytical data to help improve their own games. There really isn't a personal reason for the players or the caddies to not have accurate information. It's only going to help the players day in and day out.

THE MODERATOR: Selfishly as a media professional, it's going to give me data to play with, and to our media friends, we'll have performance and insights for you later on.

Q. With the leadership summit and how that's developed, what has struck you as the most impactful part of it?

PAUL KNOPP: 20 percent of the women that have participated in the leadership summit in the last seven years have been promoted to the C-suite. 50 percent, almost 50 percent have been promoted. That's one huge impact statement there. We realize we play a small part in that, but these women continue to mentor and go to leadership development opportunities through this program. They network with the women every year that are at the summit. They stay in contact. We continue to provide rich information for them to use to help elevate them to the C-suite.

I think that one statistic alone is really very meaningful that shows the impact they have. We get great reviews from women who participate in the summit too. We like to measure things at KPMG. We measure that too. The feedback has been phenomenal over the years.

ROBERTA BOWMAN: I'll also observe that a great form of flattery is adopting the idea. In our last normal year, 2019, fully two-thirds of our LPGA events had some type of women's leadership convening on site. So this marriage of the best of women on the golf course with the best of women in business is really a winning idea. Thank you for that.

Q. We were doing some interviews with the club pros and talking about their coaching side. They were talking about the increase in participation in the game but especially the increase in participation of women and young girls in the last two years. I wonder what's been your experience with this.

JIM RICHERSON: Absolutely. One silver lining of the pandemic, which was horrible that the entire world had to go through, the people found that golf was an activity they could do in a healthy manner, and we saw droves of people come out for the first time or come back to the game. Paul and I were talking about this earlier. There's a lot of activities that you can go to support your kids or your grandkids or your nieces and nephews, but golf is unique because you can participate together.

You can have a grandparent, parents, or kids all playing the game, creating those memories for a lifetime together. There's not many activities that you can do that with. You can go and support. You can go watch as a fan. You actually can participate together, and the life lessons that golf teaches someone, individual hard work, you need to be honest, you need to follow the rules. What you put into it, you'll get out of it, and then the opportunities that this type of partnership is creating then for young girls to look up to and aspire to for their opportunities not only on the golf course but also in the C-suite, I think is really inspiring.

We're getting them into the game. We've got to keep them engaged in the game, and then make sure that we showcase and show them the opportunities that are out there in the game but also attached to the game, much like what KPMG is doing with the leadership conference.

ROBERTA BOWMAN: If I might add, for 70 years, the LPGA has been intentional about bringing more women into the game. I think about 15 years ago we got very focused on starting them young and early. So the statistics of the number of young girls in the game has grown from about 15 percent to approaching 40 percent now, and that's what intentional action is all about.

I will say, like a lot of associations and organizations, including what KPMG represents and PGA of America, we are redoubling our commitment to bringing more under represented men and women to the game as well, and that will be our mission for the next 70 years is really bringing and changing the face of golf.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you all very much for what you're doing for leading your three organizations, for bringing us here this week. Pray for no rain, and thank you all very much for your support. We appreciate your time.