KPMG WOMEN'S PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

June 23, 2021

Stacy Lewis

Atlanta Athletic Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We're here with Stacy Lewis, KPMG ambassador. You and Mariah are official and unofficial hosts for the week. Mariah, her hometown, this certainly is a big tournament, so important to you. I just want to start off by saying how are you feeling right now as you get ready for a major championship?

STACY LEWIS: I'm excited. Golf-wise I feel like my preparation has been really good. I wish we had the Summit and everything going on normal on-site. It doesn't quite have the same feel to it. But just to be here, see what KPMG is doing, they step the bar up every year.

Just always a great week and proud of what we've done.

THE MODERATOR: You mentioned the Summit. You came here from just speaking in that Summit with Michele Tafoya and alongside Kara Lawson, Olympic champion, the head women's basketball coach at Duke. What overall is that experience like now that you have the opportunity as an Olympian, as a major winner, as a mom, as so many hats, to share your knowledge with such a wide group of people?

STACY LEWIS: Well, for me it's to see I think just the professional athlete side. A lot of the women in there, they're getting the business talk all day, and just to kind of put a different spin on it. I wanted to go play for Kara while we were -- I was ready to go in and go play for her. She was so fun to listen to.

I feel like we can always learn as people, and we can always grow. I love to listen to podcasts or read or whatever it is, and I think we can just always learn and grow.

I like listening to all the speakers, as well, whether it's related to business or sports, whatever it is.

THE MODERATOR: I know as part of that, we just unveiled your new Drive On story with the LPGA. We know the story of your back surgery and what you've overcome to reach world No. 1, to become a major champion. But we look back at the letter to Chesnee, and I just watched the spot before I came down, and you close with "I fight for my daughter so she can see it's never wrong to fight for what's right." That is so powerful. What do you hope in 20, 30, 40 years Chesnee thinks when she looks back at this time in her life.

STACY LEWIS: I hope 20, 30 years from now we're not having the conversations about inequalities in the workplace, inequalities in sports. That's my ultimate goal with all of this.

I've always been the person to ask why, why do we make less money than the guys, why don't we get on better golf courses. Why? If somebody can give me a legitimate reason, then okay, but let's make things better across the board and continue to push the envelope, push the bar.

You know, it's just everything I do now is for Chesnee, and I hope when she's older, she sees what I did as far as just having her while I was still playing but just for -- keep pushing the bar. I think I'm just doing it for her. I don't know how else to say it.

THE MODERATOR: Those whys have also helped your fellow athletes, your fellow LPGA Tour players. It gets us to places like Atlanta Athletic Club, Baltusrol, Congressional, Olympic two weeks ago. You've still got competition; yes, you're the host; yes, there's a lot going on, but tomorrow you're going to hit a ball in competition. How does this course set up for you? What are the challenges you're going to face out there.

STACY LEWIS: The golf course is good for me. I actually really like it. You know, it's not -- I don't think it's tailored to bombers because there's holes that are pretty tight off the tee where I don't necessarily think they're going to hit driver on every hole, so while length is always a factor, I just -- I don't think it will be as much this year. It's going to be more of a second-shot, keeping the ball below the hole.

These greens have a lot of tilt from back to front, and speed on the greens I think is ultimately having good pace, not -- there's some putts, some downhill putts that are crazy fast, and the greens have been slow from all the rain. If it's warmer the next few days, the greens are going to get faster, but the golf course is so pure. It's so good.

Played with a member yesterday in the pro-am and they've been hitting off mats for two months to get ready for us, and I can't recall another tournament that's done that for us before.

It just makes you feel like they want us here and they want us to be here. They want to show this place off. I just feel really welcome this week.

Q. I wanted to ask you about your preparation. You said you feel good about it. What have you been focused on?

STACY LEWIS: Well, it's really been over the last couple weeks trying to get driver better, and then specifically this week has mainly just been putter. Just kind of had a little bit of issues with speed last week. Greens were pretty slow but still had some speed issues, so just kind of been dialing those in.

But just the last few weeks I've had two good days or three good days and just haven't put four days together yet. That's really the goal this week is try to put four good days together and see what happens.

Q. And then your Summit session that you just had, what was your biggest takeaway from listening to your counterpart in terms of athlete to athlete? What did you learn from her?

STACY LEWIS: I mean, I just loved her energy. You could tell she's a coach. You could tell, you kind of want to go jump in with her. If she says, let's go jump in that lake, I'm going. That's what I see from talking to her.

You know, just all the barriers she's broken and what she's doing in the game of basketball. I just saw that she wasn't hired as the Boston Celtics coach. I was hoping she'd do that.

But I don't know, I love listening to other athletes talk and hear them because she said she loves competitive people. She loves people who have fire, and I would have to be one of those people that she'd kind of have to put the fire out in.

You can just relate a lot to it, and it's nice to hear the same struggles but also the same, I guess, kind of triumphs too.

Q. I know Kara was talking with the Celtics. Becky Hammon is, as well. That's awesome that women are in the conversation now, and I think a lot of that comes back to what you and so many other women athletes are doing. Is that fulfilling, a step in the right direction?

STACY LEWIS: It is. Like I said, why haven't women been coaches before? Why not? It takes one person asking that question, whoever is making that hire to say, hey, let's interview a female. It's a pretty simple task when you really add it up. It's just encouraging to see it across all sports, in business. Things are changing, and we're getting there, and it's nice to see it be more normal, I guess.

Q. We have seen in the last two to three years a ton of first-time major winners and I wanted to get your thoughts on what that says about the state of the women's game and perhaps what it means for the future, whether we're going to see fewer people do what you did, which is to win currently multiple majors and perhaps more hopefully.

STACY LEWIS: Yeah, I think the state of the game, it shows that these girls are more prepared coming out. That's the biggest thing is they're more prepared for the big stages and to handle the pressure of it, which is a great thing. You don't necessarily want to have to have the huge learning curve and all of that.

Whether we continue to see it, I don't know. It's just so hard to win now. I look back 10 years ago, you probably had maybe a handful of players, 30 players, that probably could win that week, and now you could probably go down to 70 or 80. Just the quality of golf is just so much better. I think that's where all your first-time winners are coming from.

Q. That would have to be a positive sign in your opinion, just the fact that there are so many more, like you said, people at that level who are capable of winning?

STACY LEWIS: Absolutely. I think it's a great thing. I think it creates competition. It's making the golf out here be better.

You could have somewhat of a bad day and still maybe win a tournament, but you cannot do that anymore. You have to have four really good days to even have a chance to win.

Just the quality of golf is better. It shows better on TV. It's better in person. These girls are so good. I get in awe sometimes of watching Jess and Nelly, the iron shots, they're high and they're far and their drives go so far. I could only dream of hitting it that far, so I get caught watching it sometimes, too.

Q. Does it also conversely make it a little bit harder for a superstar to develop somebody who's going to go do maybe who Inbee Park did or have a career where you win seven or eight majors?

STACY LEWIS: Yeah, I think it's going to be a while before you see anyone do what Inbee has done. Even you look at what Yani did, which was amazing, but it was only a couple years. I just think the level of talent is too good right now to really have somebody dominate. But I think it's a good thing for the game. It's a lot of pressure on one person, and you can only kind of carry that torch for so long, so I think it's a great thing.

Q. You mentioned asking consistently the whys, the inequalities of the game of golf between men and women. Who have you asked and what answers have you gotten about it?

STACY LEWIS: It's from sponsors to people at Golf Channel and TV. I think our biggest barrier is TV, and it has to do with the viewership and the number of people watching. That's our biggest barrier right now because that ultimately is what's going to drive the money in.

But it's like, which one comes first. If we're not on network TV, you're not going to have as much sponsorship money, but who's going to put the money up to put us on network TV to have the potential for more sponsors to come in. So which one comes first?

It takes somebody like a KPMG or like a USGA that's stepping up and saying we're going to raise the purses, we're going to lose money on this golf tournament but we're going to make women's golf better 10 years from now, and that's just what we need more of.

Q. You just mentioned about how it can be difficult carrying the torch as the top player in the world. How difficult was it for you when you were the No. 1 to go through that?

STACY LEWIS: Yeah, it was really hard. I wouldn't change it for the world because to say for -- I don't know how many weeks it was, I was the best player in the world, I have so much pride in that, and I worked so hard to get there. But it was one of the hardest positions, especially as an American, because you're pulled in so many different directions. Sponsors want you to come to parties or go meet with this person and then your press conferences and then you have your fan stuff. Your time is just gone.

That's why I think more than anything, it's hard to sustain that for a long time; just you just get worn out. So that's why I think competition is a good thing.

Q. Last year was Aronimink, earlier this month it was Olympic Club, now it's Atlanta Athletic Club. What do you think it means to women's professional golf to play and compete on these venues, and how important is it to growing the Tour?

STACY LEWIS: I think part of wanting to do -- wanting KPMG to do this tournament was just to change the narrative on our majors and the way women's sports are kind of talked about, that maybe they didn't put us on Anna Ron mink because they thought we weren't good enough, I don't know, or maybe the members didn't want us.

But what we've been able to do here, KPMG started to raise the bar. You look at our U.S. Open courses, the bar has been raised there. You look at the R&A is doing for the British Open. Our major championship venues now versus 10, 12 years ago is so much better. It's night and day.

It's just really key. These golf courses are big, they're hard, and they're great. This one is in such good shape. You're going to see great golf. That's the biggest thing is you want to see great golf and the best player win at the end of the week.

Q. To continue in that vein then, how important is the new data insights and analytics and things like that to helping get the message out about how good the women are?

STACY LEWIS: I'm really excited about this. I mean, personally it's going to be great because I think it's going to help everybody get better across the board of just kind of incrementally get better, just little things.

But I think our TV coverage is going to get so much better. There's going to be more to talk about. It's going to be more entertaining. There's going to be proof behind the numbers instead of just an announcer there saying that Inbee Park is the best putter in the world. We're going to have stats that show that she is literally the best putter in the world.

It's going to make -- everything on our Tour is going to be better because of it. I really believe that. So I'm just excited to see kind of this first wave of numbers roll out and how we can all use it and how we can all get better with it.

Q. How proud are you to be able to be an ambassador with KPMG in partnership to make a lot of these initiatives come to pass?

STACY LEWIS: I'm really proud of our relationship. I'm proud of this week. KPMG has really become a family to me. Everyone, they treat me like family, they treat me like I'm part of their little organization, and just really proud of what we've accomplished.

They've raised the bar for women's golf. They've pushed these other tournaments to be better, and they keep surprising me with new ways to make our Tour better.

I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

THE MODERATOR: How does Chesnee spend her time when you're out here? Does she come out and watch you outside the ropes?

STACY LEWIS: No, we're not quite there yet because she clings to Mommy when Mommy is around. I think my parents are hiding her. I don't know if she's seen me down here yet. She comes to practice with me a lot when I'm home, so it's just fun. She'll pick up a club and she'll miss the ball completely but she'll sit there and hold her finish. So you know she's paying attention. She's watching. She's learning, and she gets to hang out in day care all day with her friends.

This week is awesome; they have a park, a playground and slides and swings, and she has a good ol' time.

It's just fun to be together as a family and still be able to do what I love.