KPMG WOMEN'S PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

June 23, 2021

Joanna Coe

Atlanta Athletic Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Describe what it's like to be a working PGA club professional.

JOANNA COE: Every day is so much fun and thrilling. I love the game of golf so much, and I love sharing that passion with my members and guests at BCC every single day. Golf's done so much for me over my life, so to inspire women, children, men, seniors, everyone to pick up the club and to play is just so much fun.

It's great. It's exhausting. I sleep well every single night. It's physically demanding, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Q. How much fun do you have coaching people of all abilities?

JOANNA COE: Every day I look forward to waking up and doing it. To see people hit it in the air for the first time ever or their first birdie or first par, they break 90. I get those texts every day, get a phone call. I love it, and it drives me every day to bring my best to the club.

Q. Why are you a coach?

JOANNA COE: The game of golf. It's the best sport in the world. There's nothing like it. It's a game that's extremely challenging. Every day is new. Every shot is different. Every experience, every person you play with, you learn the best life lessons. There's no better way to get to know someone. There's no better way to understand, again, life lessons.

It's unbelievable, and I wouldn't want any other profession, to be honest.

Q. Describe how you're able to balance coaching with playing and your passion to be able to perform at the highest level.

JOANNA COE: It's getting more difficult each and every day, each and every year, especially with the popularity of golf right now and the COVID boom we're experiencing. We want to ride that momentum. We want to keep it going for years to come. So I feel as though it's my responsibility to keep that momentum going at my club and elsewhere to grow the game of golf and share my passion for it.

I honestly need to do a better job of balancing it for myself, to block out time to practice and play. I play more than I practice now. We go on member trips. I go and play some fun places, and member engagement is super important at my club, so we'll plan trips to the Greenbrier, or I'm going to Ireland in a couple months with some ladies from the club. That's more my practice nowadays.

Q. That's great. Why did you decide to pursue a career as a PGA professional?

JOANNA COE: So I gave the Tour life a shot for three years. I didn't feel extremely fulfilled. It's a difficult life what these girls are going through this week. It's strenuous. It's tough to just rely on your scores. So I thought I'd go into either college coaching or teaching.

I always taught as a job on the side, and I learned a lot from my coach at home about my golf swing and how to coach and teach people, so I always knew that would be a really strong backup plan. Honestly, it wasn't really backup. It should have been probably what I should have been doing from the very beginning, but because I tried to give the Tour route a shot for a few years, I feel like I can really relate to a lot of different levels of golf as well.

Q. How much of an honor is it to be a member of the PGA of America and represent the organization this week?

JOANNA COE: It's the women's PGA Championship for the PGA of America, so to be one of the few women here at a major setting Atlanta Athletic Club with all this history is just unbelievable. Now it's my fourth in a row, and I never know when it will be my last one, so I'm going to soak it all up.

Q. Describe the support you get from students and faculty back at home.

JOANNA COE: It was great. Right at the end of our member-guest, which finished up on Saturday, my director of golf made a huge announcement to everyone sitting for the awards and to wish me luck. I've been getting texts and e-mails. Every single time I'm either playing in something or represent the PGA of America, they're all about it, and they're really excited to see the BCC logo and to see me out there putting myself out there against the best in the world.

Q. How special and unique is this atmosphere?

JOANNA COE: It's great. The collaboration between the KPMG, L PGA, and the PGA of America, between the Women's Leadership Summit, I attended that a couple years ago. I saw Condoleezza Rice. I got to meet Mia Hamm, which was like the biggest moment of my life. She inspired me to play sports in general, so that was huge to meet her, and it's all because of this collaboration.

It's unbelievable the venues they're putting together, how they're treating the players, and to see the lineup the next few years of the venues, it's special, and it's golf at the biggest stage.

Q. What goals do you have this week?

JOANNA COE: I have zero expectations, to be honest. I want to play happy. I want to focus on my rhythm and timing and get the ball in play. If I can get the ball in play, I can be pretty good, but I have zero expectations.

Q. How much do you thrive and just the thrill of competition?

JOANNA COE: I love it. It's my high in life, to be in front of people. Now fans are going to be back, that's going to be fun to hear some clapping -- hopefully clapping. That would be awkward if not, but it's fine. It's always a thrill to tee it up, especially warming up against the best players in the world.

I get to see some friends out here too that I've known for years, so it's great. I love this atmosphere.

Q. Now I'm curious, as a coach, do you tell your students to play more and practice less or practice more and play less?

JOANNA COE: There's a moment when you first start playing golf, you need to put the reps and the hours in. You just have to figure out how to hit certain shots. You have to have the technical skills. I feel like now I've played golf so long that I have the technical skills. I just need to be able to perform on the golf course. So it is a balancing act in the beginning. I would encourage hours at the range, chipping, greens, putting, but there's an element, okay, let's get on the golf course and see what you can do now.

Q. You played four consecutive PGA tournaments. Do you mentally feel like you have that now?

JOANNA COE: It is a pencil that could be erased because the qualifier is getting harder and harder each year. It's at Kingsmill the end of July, and that's to qualify for Congressional, and that would be really cool because Congressional is in my backyard.

Again, I hired a friend of mine to teach at my club with me, and she used to play on the Symetra Tour, and she's a really good player. She could beat me, and I could be bumped out and she's in. But I'm glad that there's more women joining the industry and there's stiffer competition. So we'll see about the future, but it's okay.

Q. You played for the PGA Championships and people know you, the fact that there's a boom in golf and the fact that people respect more and more women coaches. Do you think that's what's happening to you and to other women coaches?

JOANNA COE: I do. I think there was always a need for that in the game for the coaches and the professionals to represent what the clients and what the people at our golf course actually look like.

Women just have a different way of relating to people as well. Maybe there's more patience and a different way of communicating. I feel as though women don't focus so much on technical language and they can relate to people a little bit more, and we're not speaking like a scientist. There's just so many -- at least the women I know, they can relate to people really well.

We just have our strengths, and the industry needed it. Perfect timing.

Q. In addition to no expectations, which I think might work for you, the mental preparation for this, it's a huge deal for the professional players. What is it for a club pro preparing for it?

JOANNA COE: It's great timing because I actually had guest instructors at my club a few weeks ago, VISION54, Lynn Marriott and Pia Nilsson, who are PGA professionals, and they were the mental coaches of Annika Sorenstam. You can't really get any better than that. I literally sat in. We had four sessions for our members, and I sat in for four hours each. I was with them for 16 hours.

It's easier said than done, but what they talk about with having a think box and a play box and a memory box and controlling your emotions and not being attached to emotion and thinking about golf more in a factual way. There's just so much I learned from them, that that was my mental preparation. It was for my members and a little bit for me.