U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN

July 5, 2023

Mike Whan

Fred Perpall

Shannon Rouillard

Pebble Beach Golf Links

Press Conference

.

THE MODERATOR: Good morning, and welcome to the 2023 U.S. Women's Open at Pebble Beach. Thrilled to have everyone here this morning, and thank you for joining us. We are pleased to have with us at the dais this morning from left to right, USGA CEO Mike Whan, USGA president Fred Perpall, and the USGA's senior director of Women's Open championships Shannon Rouillard.

FRED PERPALL: Good morning. I'd like to welcome you all here to Pebble Beach, to this historic and iconic venue for the 78th U.S. Women's Open. We're so excited to be here this week. I was saying earlier to one of my colleagues, when you have equity and equality, like you don't have to explain it. It just exists.

This excitement that we're experiencing has been building for years within the USGA, to actually elevate our U.S. Women's Open and to put these women on the same venerable stages that the men get to play.

We're so excited to have you all here, and we're thankful that you're here to witness this with us.

We have three special exemptions this week that we'd like to just announce and to reiterate. Annika Sorenstam, who needs no introduction. Annika is our 1995, our 1996 and our 2006 U.S. Women's Open champion. After retiring from a full-time playing career, we thought it would be really cool to have her come and play.

We have So Yeon Ryu, our 2011 champion, from the Republic of Korea. So Yeon has played in 14 consecutive U.S. Opens, and we're excited that she'll be here this week.

Finally, Rose Zhang. Rose is the only player to qualify in five different categories, and we thought that was so impressive. After her move to professional golf, we thought it was fitting, given all of the standards she had met, that she should be here, as well.

These three exemptions represent not only the past but also the future of our game and also the present, so we're really excited.

I have to tell you how appreciative we are of our friends at Pebble Beach for stepping forward to help us elevate this championship. Their commitment has led to truly something that's historic, and it's not only elevating this Women's Open, but it's elevating all of our future Women's Opens.

I just would like to share with you like the next few sites. Like wow, just listen to this lineup.

So in 2023 we're at Pebble Beach.

In 2024 we'll be at Lancaster Country Club.

In 2025 Erin Hills.

In 2026 Riviera Country Club.

In 2027 Inverness club.

In 2028 Oakmont Country Club.

In 2029 Pinehurst Country Club. We're actually going to go back-to-back with the men there.

In 2030, Interlachen Country Club.

In 2031 Oakland Hills Country Club.

In 2032 the Los Angeles Country Club.

In 2033, Chicago Golf Club.

2034 Merion Golf Club.

2035 back here at Pebble Beach. That's pretty cool.

As you can see with Pebble bookending this impressive lineup, we feel like this is a wonderful way for us to indicate to all those little girls who are coming up in golf that we feel just as special about them as we do the men. We hope that this sends a really strong message for the future.

I'd be remiss if I didn't think Heidi Ueberroth, the co-chair of the Pebble Beach Company. When we came to Pebble Beach with this idea for one U.S. Women's Open at Pebble Beach, Heidi thought we should think bigger. She said, if we're going to do one, we ought to do four.

We think that kind of visionary leadership is quite impressive. We'd like to thank Heidi, David Stivers, and all of the leadership at Pebble Beach Club just for this wonderful opportunity.

I'd have to say in closing as a girl dad, I can't wait to see one of these impressive ladies sink the putt on 18 to win a U.S. Open. I know that all the little girls out there also now get to dream their dream about sinking that putt on 18, and what a special gift that is, not just for the little ladies but for the entire game of golf.

With that, I'd like to turn it over to Mike.

MIKE WHAN: Thanks, Fred. You're right, there's a lot to look forward to in the years to come when you think about that lineup, but there's quite a bit to look at right here this week.

I had a lot of records happening this week. Record entries; over 2100 women tried to get into one of these 156 slots. Record purse; we'll be playing for $11 million this week with $2 million going to the winner.

I pointed this out a couple weeks ago at LACC. I'm not sure why, but I find this pretty cool, $8000 check to everybody who doesn't make the cut.

At the USGA we feel like greatest cut to make is to get into one of these championships, so obviously you'll make more if we see you on Saturday, but I think it's important to know that everybody will get paid in the field.

Record TV; 26 hours of Live From and Golf Central leading into this championship, and 26 hours of championship coverage. That doesn't include a lot of extras. If you just think about 3:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. East Coast on Saturday and Sunday, 12 hours of network TV this weekend, only four minutes an hour of commercial interruptions. All my friends on social media will be happy to hear that. And zero interruptions in the last hour.

On behalf of both of those points, thank you to Rolex for making that happen.

I hope you've been watching the Path to Pebble, three-part documentary series that was started last Wednesday, again tonight, and then next Wednesday. Pretty cool, a process -- it's made Shannon so popular that she has an agent, but it's quite a documentary. Hope you'll get a chance to watch it.

Like I said, all of those things I threw out doesn't even include the up 10 hours a day of live streaming thanks to American Express that you can do on featured pairings and the rest.

We talk a lot about being here with Pebble and thanks so Heidi and David and so many that put us on this stage and what they've done to make this the next step in women's golf.

I also just want to say to the folks that are probably producing this right now, to NBC, Golf Channel and the rest, thank you, because this wasn't contractual. They didn't have to give us these number of hours, didn't have to place that thing right down on 18 that they did.

They're here to lift the game with us, so I want to say thank you for that.

It's also going to be a first in terms of ShotCast by Cisco. Think the first ShotLink in the women's game this week, where we have essentially radar involved tracking, shot tracking on every player, every shot, every day.

We've probably come to just think of that as natural in the men's game, but this will be a first in the women's game.

I will throw a shout out to the PGA TOUR, that about a year ago when we said we'd like to bring ShotLink to our business, they worked with us not only to do it at the men's U.S. Open, but the Women's Open at the same time.

There's been a lot going on this week. I don't know if you feel like I feel, but I made a mistake and told my wife, if you come to the U.S. Women's Open I'll have a lot more time to see you than if you come to LACC, but I've clearly screwed up that promise based on what's going on.

Monday we had the Reunion of Champions, 39 U.S. Women's Open champions together. Tuesday we had the 4th of July celebration on the lawn here with an all-women's flyover, which was really cool.

Today in just a few hours we'll be all in at The Hay, just Pebble Beach's short course. 22 champions in that field, young women from all over coming in to play in that event.

And thanks to Pebble Beach and its many partners, they've raised million and a half, $1.5 million donation to LPGA USGA Girls Golf. I can tell you as a former commissioner of the LPGA that's the largest single donation ever made to Girls Golf in one location at one time.

Again, so many things we can thank Pebble for, but Pebble and all its partners made that a reality. It's been their idea from the beginning. And to me, this week is a great example of past, present, and future. Obviously we brought together the past and some of the champions that have represented this great championship.

We're playing the future -- we're playing for the present right now on one of golf's greatest venues in the world with an $11 million purse and record TV numbers, and to make that kind of donation, that kind of commitment to the future in the same week is quite a trifecta for the women's game.

I'm going to end with something I guess I've been asked the most this week, and I probably didn't think that coming in, so I pulled ^ an audible as it relates to -- I know that makes Beth nervous -- as it relates to a media day. But I've been asked the question a lot about what is anchor site, site and explain this I guess because we are really sitting here at Pebble for the first time.

I would tell you the anchor site is really three core items. Number one, it is a long-term two-way commitment by both us and the site into growing the game. Not just a championship, but growing the game. If you want to know what anchor site feels like, think about what I just talked about in terms of Monday to Wednesday, and we haven't even got to Thursday yet and what Pebble has already done for the game.

It's a commitment to men and women, amateurs and pros alike, making sure that they're going to be partnered with us in growing the game, not just growing a championship.

Because it's a long-term two-way commitment, it's a commitment to invest together, too. You'll see over the years things we're doing together with Pebble Beach that can make this championship better for players, for fans, for media, and for the USGA and for Pebble Beach, things that will actually work great for our championship, and quite frankly work when we're not playing a championship, and you'll see that at all of our anchor sites.

We really felt like by making these long-term two-way commitments we stopped playing championships every time for the first time. We were in the habit of playing a championship, having a recap three months later, and then saying see ya, and in about 15 years saying what if we do it again, and we didn't do all the things we thought we would change based on the last time we were together.

Anyway, when Beth said two minutes to talk, that was my version of two minutes.

I'm going to turn it over to Chip; Shannon Rouillard will now take you now through Thursday to Sunday.

SHANNON ROUILLARD: Great. Thank you, Mike. Before I talk about some course highlights, I wanted to mention some strategic championship objectives that we have at the USGA.

First and foremost is it's really important for us to play at the cathedrals of the game, the very best venues that the nation has to offer, because it truly is important where players win their U.S. Open.

Second is our openness. We take tremendous pride in the Openness of our championships. They're really like no other. They are the ultimate meritocracies, and you're able to earn your way into our championships, either through an exemption or through qualifying.

It doesn't matter what town you live in, the clothes on your back, or the clubs that you play with. If you can get the ball in the hole, you have an opportunity to play in the U.S. Women's Open.

Mike had mentioned our entry numbers just went through the roof this year. 2107 entries. About 250 entries from our last record.

The third objective is a tough but fair test. That's what we're known for. That's in our DNA. We strive to ensure that a player gets every club dirty.

In doing so, it's really important to also test their mental and physical abilities, too. But in achieving that objective, it's important for us to consider what the architect intended.

In this case, Pebble Beach, we're going to let Pebble Beach be Pebble Beach, and while at some venues we may add a tee or we may narrow fairways strategically, it's important to allow the golf course to be the golf course and let it shine.

What do we think about when we think about Pebble Beach? I know I think about Jack Nicklaus and the 1-iron he hit on 17; Tom Watson's chip on 17, as well; Tiger Woods' second shot on 6 and winning by 15 shots; and Gary Woodland's long birdie putt on 18. While he didn't need it to win the championship, boy, did the crowd go crazy when he did.

This course produces iconic moments in golf and in U.S. Open history, and the women will now have an opportunity to place their stamp on Pebble Beach this week.

Given the small greens at Pebble Beach, this is really a second-shot golf course. The players will be required to have an excellent iron game and a short game around the greens. Being below the hole will be particularly key as there's really more slope in these greens than they appear.

The last point I wanted to mention was the grounds crew. The grounds crew here has done a tremendous job in getting this golf course prepared for the championship to begin tomorrow. But to conduct a championship of this magnitude, we also need volunteers.

For the third year in a row we have Women in Turf, and 37 women from that industry are here helping on the grounds crew. This is an enthusiastic group that loves women's golf, loves their profession, and loves the Women's Open. Thank you.

THE MODERATOR: Before we open it to questions, Fred, I do think you have a special announcement you'd like to share with everyone today.

FRED PERPALL: Thank you, Beth. We have one more exciting piece of information to announce and to share.

As we mentioned earlier, what we're doing this week at Pebble Beach with the U.S. Women's Open really is a tide that is lifting all boats. It does trickle down to our other championships.

This notion of equality and equity is not just about golf, but it's what we hope our country also will become, right, to live in a world where our little girls can dream the same thing our little boys dream, that in some ways that we have a responsibility as the United States Golf Association to all Americans and to make sure that we exemplify that fairness and that equality.

I'd like to announce today our 2034 Curtis Cup match and where we will play that. After Merion and after Bel Air Country Club and after National Golf Links, the 2034 Curtis Cup matches will be played at Pine Valley Golf Club in New Jersey.

We'd like to offer a huge thank you to Jim Davis and to all the members at Pine Valley Golf Club for their support and for their vision to help us truly sort of showcase these amazing ladies.

It's going to be a thrill to watch them play at Pine Valley. Always featured as one of the most iconic and venerable sites in all of golf, consistently ranked as one of the top places in all of the world to play golf, and it's just our pleasure and our honor to partner with them to actually put the ladies on this site.

I hope you all are as excited as we at the USGA are. I know Shannon and Mike are.

With that, I'll turn it back over to Mike.

MIKE WHAN: Yeah, to all my friends out there that are watching this, tickets are not yet available, so stop texting me. I just got to say as someone who has spent a lot of his life on the women's side of the game, to be sitting at Pebble Beach talking about going to Pine Valley, talking about 12 hours of network TV and playing for $11 million, some things are better than what you dream of.

When you go back 10 or 15 years ago, those are pretty big moments, and I hope that all of us aren't both so callused and in a hurry and iPhone driven that we've missed that kind of breakthrough moment.

I'm not sure if it's the chill coming off the ocean, but I actually knew what you were going to say and I got a chill when you said it.

It's really special, and to the people from Pebble and Pine Valley, to be able to say anything that includes Pebble and Pine Valley in the same sentence is pretty powerful golf vernacular, and we're really proud to be part of it.

Q. As we're here and we've been talking about the importance of being here, in your mind, I don't want to say what took so long, but what was the change do you think in leadership thinking that led to the women playing in some of these courses? I would add the PGA of America and the R&A frankly and what they've done with their championships, as well. What do you think led us to this point?

MIKE WHAN: I'm not really sure to be honest with you. I'm not sure I'm long enough in the tooth to give you a historical perspective. But it's been a lot of people breaking down a lot of sort of unseen barriers.

I remember when we were going to play Oakmont I think my first year as commissioner, and people were saying, the women can't play Oakmont. That course is too tough. And there was Paula lifting the trophy on Sunday in a glorious moment.

I think it's like any evolution like Fred was talking about before. I don't think this was a magic moment. I don't think there was a special meeting and somebody was at the easel chart. I think it slowly started to build its own momentum.

Now if you think about the company that Curtis Cup hangs in or the U.S. Women's Open hangs in even the U.S. Senior Women's Open hangs in, it's the best of the best.

I don't know that there was ever a meeting that changed that. I think it was an evolutionary process, and it just keeps getting -- now the incoming phone calls are as good as the outgoing phone calls.

Q. What do expect this to do for the women's game going forward, when you see after this week how the women's game is going to progress based on playing a U.S. Women's Open at Pebble Beach?

MIKE WHAN: Yeah, I don't know that it's -- to me, as great as this is, I don't think this is about next week or next month or next year on the LPGA.

To Fred's comment before, I think this was about the young lady sitting in front of you. I think this is about changing dreams on a much bigger scale for younger girls and realizing there's no boundaries to their dream.

Fred makes a good point, which is sometimes you have a little girl and a little boy and you didn't want them to have different dreams in terms of where they were going to play, where they were going to raise their trophy, how much coverage they were going to get.

So I think this just sets another, a new standard, a new gold standard that I think others will challenge.

I remember last year, maybe a year and a half ago when we announced going from a $5 and a half million purse to a 10. Somebody said to me, what do you think that will do women's golf? I said, I don't know what it'll do for women's golf, but I'm pretty couple years from now we're going to be talking about higher purses across the board, and that's where we are.

Occasionally we're going to be the leader in that, and occasionally we're going to be the follower in that, and I think we have to be excited whether we're the leader or the follower when it comes to lifting the landscape.

Q. Shannon, I went out and talked to those 37 women this morning at the maintenance building. It was awfully cold but they were very happy to be here. I also rode the bus in with a group of volunteers. They were like going to see Santa at the mall. How many volunteers do you have total, and how many did you turn away?

SHANNON ROUILLARD: I don't know if I can tell you how many got turned away, but there's 100-plus grounds crew members out there total, between Bubba's staff and our volunteers. It's a wonderful number that really allows us to dial the golf course in exactly how we want to, because we're really able to put those fine-tuned adjustments on the golf course in preparation for tomorrow.

They've been here since Monday, and they've all been working really hard, and you're all seeing the fruits of their labor.

Q. Mike, I think I watched a Shell's Wonderful World of Golf at Pine Valley with Sam Snead in it. Have they ever had a televised event since then?

MIKE WHAN: I don't know. Do we know the answer?

THE MODERATOR: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if the Walker Cup was televised. That would be the only other possibility.

MIKE WHAN: I think to your first question, I don't know if this person would want me to mention this, but in a recent superintendent meeting one of the people working here on the grounds has been on the grounds crew for 28 years, and said, in my tenue here -- so 28 years is a lot of championships -- in my tenure I've never been more excited for a championship than this one and I've never been so honored and nervous because I'm assigned cutting the 18th green.

But it was pretty cool for somebody who's been around a few championships before saying that this was the one they're most excited and honored to be part of.

Do you mean total volunteers?

THE MODERATOR: 2500 and 500 on the waiting list.

MIKE WHAN: There, go 2500 plus 500.

Q. What's the status on a search for another presenting sponsor, and what allowed for the opportunity to increase the purse without one?

MIKE WHAN: Yeah, I think fairness to our last -- our relationship with ProMedica, our separate agreement with ProMedica allowed us to just keep right on going. We announced when we did the ProMedica deal that we're not -- this is our plan. We're not looking back from our plan.

So this was always our plan. I think we announced we talked about going from 10 to 11 and 11 to 12 and we're on that path.

I think as far as being honest with you, we're closer than I probably am allowed to tell you on what would happen post ProMedica, but we're not at that point now. There's a bunch of people right now crossing fingers, don't say anything, don't say anything.

But yeah, we're pretty -- it's been both surprising and enlightening and maybe encouraging, the level of interest in partnering with us on this championship, for the obvious reason of raising the bar across the board. Hold on that thought. I'll be back to you.

Q. So you are still looking for a presenting sponsor, right?

MIKE WHAN: Yeah. Honestly, we committed to the board -- and Fred knows this. When we parted ways with ProMedica, we decided to kind of sit tight for a year because we didn't want to be in the midst of this running around and changing signage and that kind of stuff.

And so we sort of said to ourselves, let's wait a year, and in that wait -- I don't wait well as Fred knows -- in that wait we actually had four or five partners kind of reach out to us, so we've been pretty deep in the dialogue with a couple of them.

Q. Women's golf is having a moment right now, so a lot of kids might be watching it on TV for the first time. Can you give us a few tips for kids about how you can enjoy watching a tournament on TV?

MIKE WHAN: How old are you?

Q. 11.

MIKE WHAN: I don't know if I'm more impressed that you're 11 or that you don't have a coat on. Do you want me to go? Do you guys want to go?

You might have better tips for a young 11 year old than I do. I'm 58 so I don't probably relate well. One of the things I think -- well, you should enjoy when you watch this. Whether a young girl, young boy, or anybody as a fan of the game, we've got players here from virtually all over the world. They have incredibly unique backgrounds. They didn't have the same family, they didn't practice on the same golf course. A lot of them didn't speak the same language growing up. They didn't go to the same schools.

But here they are, 156 of them from around the world. 190 countries are going to be watching them play this week. I don't know if a lot of eight year old girls believe that their dad would rush home from work to turn on the TV in 190 countries to watch girls play at maybe the best venue of the game, and that's happening.

I think sometimes you can forget -- this isn't going to be about your mom, your sister, even your dad is going to be, shush, shush, she's about to putt. I think that's a pretty cool experience.

Just realize that they're not all the same. They didn't all come out of great country club lives. Some of them came out of wealthy backgrounds. Some came out of very different and poorer backgrounds. But they believed. They practiced.

As Shannon said, cool thing about golf is it doesn't care where you came from, doesn't care what the color of your skin is, what language you speak. It just matters how many strokes it took you to get the ball in the hole.

You don't have to be 11 to find that inspirational. At 58 I'm pretty jealous of their capabilities. Sometimes just to sit back and appreciate what's really pretty amazing and to know that you could be one of them -- literally you could be one of them, and how cool is that?

Q. Pretty cool.

MIKE WHAN: Yeah, it is.

SHANNON ROUILLARD: Can I piggy-back on that? You're obviously an inspired golfer sitting here. You're the only 11 year old sitting here, and kudos to you for that. I'd encourage you just to observe their mannerisms. Observe how they carry themselves.

As long as I've been working in golf and specifically women's golf, these players are welcoming. They're approachable. They would love to have you walk up to them, ask them for an autograph, say hi. They may as well even engage you in a conversation, too, because that's who they are and what they do.

They know that they play a role in inspiring the next generation of women's golf.

Q. Fred, you've mentioned quite a bit today equity and equality. In more detail, can you explain what that means to the USGA and how you all are enacting that right now?

FRED PERPALL: Yeah. Thank you for that. I think when I think about equity and equality and when we think about that at the USGA, we think a lot about what our country is becoming.

We're in a world that just is demanding a little bit more from us, those of us that have leadership responsibilities, and I view the United States Golf Association as having a preeminent leadership responsibility in the game of golf but also in our society.

We need to look like what our country looks like. We need to actually put our resources in the same places that reflect who is in our country.

We think our future is much more exciting than our past. We think becoming is a great word, and the game of golf is becoming something that is reflective of who we want to become as a country.

When I think about like elevating our women's championships, I don't only think about golf. I think about all of the little girls. Look, I have four sisters and two daughters. Everyone close to me in my life, and obviously a wife, too, are women.

MIKE WHAN: That hurts a little bit.

FRED PERPALL: They ought to dream the same dreams we let our little boys dream, but they also ought to know that our resources are going to be there in an equal way. That's kind of how I think we think about it.

I hope that's exciting. We're becoming.

MIKE WHAN: You may not follow us based on your background. We have 15 championships, so we have championships for young boys, young girls, seniors, juniors, and disabled. That's kind of part of what drives that.

Q. Mike, I might just ask you to talk just a little bit about the growth in the game over the past few years and what really has driven a lot of that growth.

MIKE WHAN: Yeah, I mean, I think COVID gets credit for a lot of golf growth, which is kind of strange to use that as a sentence. But even pre-COVID we've gone from about 33 million people in the U.S. that play this game seven years ago to over 41 million today.

There's all kinds of reasons, and COVID was one, people having the time and trying to find time outdoors and with each other, healthy lifestyle. But when you think about where we'll be this afternoon at The Hay, these short course courses here and The Cradle and the rest around the world have really taken off.

TopGolf, PopStroke, Drive Shack. These have really brought a whole different demographic to the game, more women, more people of color, more juniors. Really in the last three years about 75 percent of golf's growth has been driven by those three pockets, juniors, women, people of color.

We take those three pockets out of the growth path and we'd be talking about pretty good growth, not monstrous. Pretty good time in the game right now. We went from a lot of public golf courses telling us that they were in financial distress to that number being less than five percent. It's an exciting time for the game.

I think a lot of people thought when COVID receded, the game would, as well, but just the opposite has been true.

Q. I know Pebble Beach is such an iconic venue in the golf world. Why did it take 70 iterations of the U.S. Women's Open to finally come here to Pebble Beach?

MIKE WHAN: I'm not really sure I've got a perfect answer for you, other than when you leave here, walk back to the championship wall and you'll realize that we've been having women's championships at different levels, amateurs college events, and everything else here at Pebble Beach, a long time.

Probably if I had to really be honest with you, it's probably because we asked in a significant way, and then their answer, to Fred's point of let's not do one, let's do four, that's probably when the light goes off and says we're talking to anchor site and not just a location for a championship.

I don't think we could kid ourselves. This is a public course that has a pretty good financial stream probably coming through every week, so when we come and say how about a championship, we typically come with how about a championship and nobody gets to pay to play here for 10 or 15 days, which is probably not as exciting to everybody as it could be. And this is a public gem. Like it deserves to be played by the world.

It wasn't an easy lift, I'm sure, on their side or on ours, but looking back now, the best thing about this year is knowing we're going to be back here again four times.

Q. Shannon, a couple of them. Is there a consistency to where the holes are cut on Sunday over the past six men's Opens, and if there is, how much of that can spectators expect to see on Sunday?

SHANNON ROUILLARD: Sure. You can certainly expect to see some of the same hole locations. Let's face it, these putting greens are small. There's only so many places you can go.

You can expect to see the Jack Nicklaus hole location on 17 and Tom Watson hole location on 17, as well, just to name a few.

Q. Is there any plan for movement of tees, substantial movement of tees over the course of the four days?

SHANNON ROUILLARD: Yay, we have our eyes squarely on the weather. I'm not sure if you're looked at the weather forecast, but the weather is currently moving to a northwest wind, which is a typical wind here, but our meteorologist is anticipating gusts up to 25 miles an hour, so that in and of itself will be forcing us to take a holistic look at all of our tees.

MIKE WHAN: You're going to have to wear your jacket this weekend.

Q. We've talked about equality, we've talked about putting women on the same courses as the men at this championship. Is there a goal to have the purse of this championship match the men's Open at some point?

MIKE WHAN: I mean, if I was being honest with you, we probably felt much stronger about that a couple of years ago when the men's purse was at 12 and a half, when we announced we were going from 10 to 12.

I don't think it's a shock to anybody that the men's game has gone through quite a lift in the last 18 months. We said in LACC and I'd say it again, we want all of these championships to be and feel big across the board in week in and week out so that championship has had a quite a lift, too.

Yes, we'd like to get to that day. Is that day as close as we thought it was three years ago? Probably not. But we're pretty excited about the fact that despite that lift, we've seen a five and a half to 11 growth in just two years on the women's, as well.

Q. Is there an ideal timeline to get there?

MIKE WHAN: The ideal timeline was about 20 years ago, but you grow to this thing at the right pace for the overall business. There's no doubt that this event is big on the women's schedule, not just because of the purse but a lot of other things, and we feel the same about the U.S. Open two weeks ago at LACC. That's something that's going to have to happen in time. Some of what happens in the dynamics of the game aren't in control of the USGA, and the last 18 months is a good example of that.

FRED PERPALL: If I would add in on that, too, if we were to speak to our championship team, it's not only about the purse. We would like that to keep rising to the point where it becomes equal, but it's also the eyeballs on the championship. It's also the amount of resources we put in terms of marketing and the build and getting people here and giving the same level of attention and resource to who they're playing in front of and where they're playing.

Equality takes on a lot of different meanings to us, not just the purse. But I think if we keep working on that process, eventually we get more eyeballs. We get more interest. We have the economics rise. And then it's easier for the purse to right, too. Some of this is part of the process, and some of it is part of the journey and not only the destination.

I think we're focused much more on the process to get to that level of equality.

Q. Shannon, you were just talking about the strong winds impacting the tees. Are there any holes in particular you anticipate moving the tees up more for because of that wind?

SHANNON ROUILLARD: You could see some adjustments on holes 13 and 14 are good examples where we may push the tee up more than we had originally intended to. Yeah, 13 and 14.

THE MODERATOR: Mike, Fred, Shannon, thanks so much for joining us today. Looking forward to a great four days of golf ahead.