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KRAFT NABISCO CHAMPIONSHIPApril 2, 2014Annika SorenstamMike WhanRANCHO MIRAGE, CALIFORNIA GABE CODDING: Good afternoon and welcome. My name is Gabe Codding. I'm the tournament director of the Kraft Nabisco Championship. Thank you for being here and supporting women's golf, the LPGA, and golf's first major. This has been an historic week so far and on behalf of Kraft Nabisco and IMG, welcome to the Kraft Nabisco Championship. We are honored to host the special announcement and I want to acknowledge the people to my left: LPGA commissioner, Mike Whan. Representing Rolex, Arnaud Laborde. And three‑time Kraft Nabisco champion, Annika Sorenstam. At this time I would like to introduce the chief communications officer of the LPGA, Mr. Kraig Kann. KRAIG KANN: Good afternoon, everybody. It is great to be here as we continue to celebrate the traditions built mere at Mission Hill Country Club. The list of major champions is a who's who for sure in women's golf and the image of jumping into Poppy's Pond and slipping on the white robe is something that every player past and present dreams of and thinks of. The LPGA's goal is always to elevate women's golf and showcase the talent and the tour. There is no better stage than that of a major championship. It brings together a combination of the best players, certainly the brightest lights, and the most intense pressure to showcase talent and ultimately allow each and every player to perhaps make a very big name for themselves. Today we are proud to announce something that will forever increase the importance of every major opportunity and celebrate the game's greatest players. To help do that, once again the commissioner of the LPGA, Mike Whan. COMMISSIONER WHAN: The announcement today really involves both of the people on my left. I'll start with Rolex. To say that Rolex and the LPGA are intertwined would be an understatement. Rolex is involved in virtually every LPGA event we play in some way, shape or form. What's incredible about Rolex is their vision, the ability to see big before the rest of the world sees big. Whether you're talking about Solheim Cup, International Crown, Evian. It's already the standard by which professional women golfers are measured whether you're talking Rolex Rankings, Player of the Year, Rolex Louise Suggs Rookie of the Year, it's already the standard in the game. About a year ago, as you probably remember, we started in a meeting here which bled over to Augusta the following week, we started talking about a new idea. How could we recognize what happens over the course of all LPGA majors? In a strange way, one word kept coming up over and over again. Do you remember our famous word? Annika. When we started talking about major performance between the LPGA and Rolex, we kept coming back to Annika for all the right reasons. This is too good not to read to you. I'm sure you've heard this before, but bear with me. Annika, 89 professional wins, 72 LPGA wins, 1994 Rolex Louise Suggs Rookie of the Year. This is unbelievable, eight Rolex Player of the Year, six Vare trophies for lowest scoring average. Almost just as importantly, 10 major championship awards. It's safe to say that her résumé deserves to be on what we're going to announce next. KRAIG KANN: No question about it. Before we continue on with the actual specifics of the award, let's have a look at some of her on‑course magic, Annika in this special video.            (Video Shown.)       KRAIG KANN: One of the most accomplished ever to play professional golf, a round of applause for Annika Sorenstam. Mike, I think it's time to talk about this award, the specifics. COMMISSIONER WHAN: The three of us are proud to introduce today the addition of a new award in women's professional golf, the Rolex Annika Major Award. Each year at Evian weekend we will deliver this award to the player that performs the best over all five majors. I'll let Annika do the award specifics, but suffice it to say that that winner each year will receive a Rolex timepiece, this new trophy, and a $100,000 bonus. It's a pretty exciting time and thanks to both of you for making it a reality. KRAIG KANN: Today we have the trophies from each of the LPGA's five major championships displayed on this stage. Later this year, we'll hand out the first ever Rolex Annika Major Award at the Evian, starting a new tradition. That trophy is being crafted, pardon the pun, at this moment, ready for display later this year. Annika, let's get some thoughts and insight from you on this concept and how excited you are to have your name attached to it. ANNIKA SORENSTAM: It's very exciting. I want to thank the LPGA and Rolex for making this possible. This is a dream come true for me. Rolex has been a partner of mine for over 20 years. I always felt like the performance in major championships defined your career. I was lucky to play well in some of them. To partner with the LPGA and Rolex in this fashion to create kind of a legacy award of this stature, it's really very special. I feel honored you have chosen me to do it. This will continue to keep me being with the LPGA, Rolex, and keep the association we have. I look forward to being part of it, watching the girls play. It's really exciting. KRAIG KANN: Can you take us through the qualifying process. You are part of the criteria building for this award. Take us through that and how somebody gets to hold this trophy each year at the Evian Championships. ANNIKA SORENSTAM: First of all, it's only points in majors. We give points if you finish in the top 10. The way we allocate the points are the same as we do for Rolex Player of the Year, the same allocation, which means if you win you get 60 points, if you finish second, 24 points, if you finish third, 18, it goes down, if you finish 10th you get two points. The award will be handed out at the Evian Championship on the 18th green. I would say the most important factor that differentiates this award to anything else is you have to win a major championship to be eligible. KRAIG KANN: That one little carrot dangles there for everybody, a must‑win. Each year the LPGA's best will compete for this award. We are fortunate to have with us today 2013 LPGA's major winners. I'd like to invite them to come up and spend time with Annika. Last year's winner of the RICOH Women's British Open, Stacy Lewis. Last year's winner of the Evian Championship. Current Rolex number two, Suzann Pettersen could not be here due to injury. Last year's winner of the U.S. Women's Open, the Wegmans LPGA Championship, and defending champion of the Kraft Nabisco Championship, world number one Inbee Park. Annika, I'll let you control the Q&A with these two superstars. ANNIKA SORENSTAM: Inbee, I'm sure you wanted this award to be introduced last year. You probably would have run away with it. INBEE PARK: Should have started last year. ANNIKA SORENSTAM: Does this give you ladies extra motivation to play well? INBEE PARK: Yes, I think it definitely gives us an extra inspiration to play well in majors. Even if there was no awards, we're motivated a lot harder on the majors. This is very good for us. Obviously to honor a player like Annika, it's a great award. I think it's going to give a lot of motivation to players. STACY LEWIS: I was excited to see this because I value consistency and playing well in the majors. Those are two goals of mine. To see this happen, to see it come together, winning a couple majors would be nice, and then to win this award would be just an extra bonus. KRAIG KANN: Specifically for you both, the importance, as Annika talked about, on winning a major is something quite special. This is also about legacy and future, not just about the past and Annika's accomplishments, but about everything everybody will accomplish moving forward. 20 years from now saying you won this award, what would that mean to you? STACY LEWIS: It would be an honor to win this, especially the first year of it. Anytime there's an award, I think we all want to win the first year. To put your name on that trophy, to say you performed the best in the majors for a year, it's a huge accomplishment. INBEE PARK: Yeah, I think so. I think to put your name on any kind of trophy is an honor. But I think this one is going to be even a bigger honor. Out of the many awards, this is going to be one of the ones we really want to win. Yeah, I'm looking really forward to it. KRAIG KANN: With that I'm going to let these two superstars head off the stage. Ladies, thank you for being here and good luck in trying to accomplish this honor this year. Now we'll take some questions from the media. Q. Obviously you have a Player of the Year that includes the major championship winners for points. I know the PGA TOUR has a World Golf Championship overriding award. What was the inspiration to break out the five majors on this tour for a specific award? COMMISSIONER WHAN: In the women's golf arena, majors give us the opportunity to have exposure. Today is a great example when you look around the media center at Kraft Nabisco where we get ratcheted up a notch that quite frankly doesn't happen week in and week out on the women's stage. The world is really paying attention to women's golf like never before in these five majors. We know those women out there on the range are paying attention like never before. The idea was, let's take the greatest moments in women's golf, let's take the greatest performances across all five in women's golf, let's create an award that captures the same momentum. Having just explained this to a few players over the last couple days, winning anything with Annika's name on it on this tour is over the top. You probably knew that already. But I'm floored every time we explain it to a new player, the idea of putting their name on an award next to Annika's is life‑changing. Q. The little codicil about having to win one, is that your idea? ANNIKA SORENSTAM: Yes, I have a little bit to do with that. The reason why is I've played in a lot of major championships. I know what it takes to finish. I know what it takes to come down the winning stretch. I've always said that if tournaments were played for 70 holes, we would have different winners. There is a difference of coming down the 17th and 18th in a major championship. You need to be able to finish. That was one of the things that I told the LPGA. You have to win a major to win the major award. I think it just makes a lot of sense. Of course, if you have five different winners, it's going to be pretty exciting. Even if you have a multiple winner, there could be a chance for somebody to finish second a few times. I think it's going to be exciting at the Evian Championship, you will have a chance to win. KRAIG KANN: This feels like one more step in trying to raise awareness for the best players in the game. Something Annika didn't have a chance to win when she was competing. Do you want to share some thoughts on that opportunity for ladies? COMMISSIONER WHAN: You've seen that as a consistent trend. We're trying to create a grander spotlight for these women, whether it's the race to the CME Globe, the fifth major, the Rolex Annika Major Award. It's all about trying to identify, recognize and showcase the best female golfers on the planet. It's funny, Arnaud and I were talking about this award. Had we had this award before, Annika would have won it eight or nine times. Why don't we just put her name on it right from the beginning because it's an award that would have her name on it already. KRAIG KANN: Annika, your thoughts about that? ANNIKA SORENSTAM: I echo Mike's comments. The majors are where we get a lot of exposure and coverage, things being talked about. I think majors define your career. To be able to do an award like this is to build a legacy and obviously extra motivation for the girls and continue the tradition for the majors. Again, with Rolex as a partner, it makes so much sense. It's a matter of how are we going to finish it out, when are we going to announce it. I'm lucky they wanted me to be a part of it. It is exciting and I feel honored they're looking at my performance and recognize it. It's flattering at the same time. Q. You've won every award in golf multiple times. Now your name is going to be in perpetuity part of the LPGA landscape. Where does this fit in your filing cabinet of trophies mentally? ANNIKA SORENSTAM: I would say pretty front and center in many ways. Even though I stepped away from competitive golf about six years ago, I feel like I'm very involved in the game. I like to do a lot of things with my foundation to inspire young girls to play well. Also I continue to work with some of the LPGA players. We have a partnership with the LPGA and the Symetra Tour. With Rolex, I've been with them for over 20 years. We continue to do more and better things. I would say that's why this is so important. KRAIG KANN: I'll leave you all with this, that will be the buildup and hype over the next five majors. This will be something that everybody follows all year. Can you envision what this might be like on the 18th green in France? COMMISSIONER WHAN: I was doing interviews this morning. I can't remember a time in my five years as commissioner when so many of the best golfers in the world are playing their best golf at the same time. I watched the Kia Classic on TV over the weekend. When you looked at that leaderboard, thought about some of the best players I've seen over the last five years, we've had great years when great players have had great runs. I can't remember when so many are having a great run at the same time. When great players are playing well, the majors become the defining moment. Whether it's this Sunday or the four more Sundays that will follow that, I really think this is going to be a watershed moment for women's golf which will lead us into 2016 and the Olympics, which is the next high watermark for women's golf. I'm excited. I think we have an opportunity to showcase women's golf like we haven't before. KRAIG KANN: Annika, I trust you'll be looking forward to this all year long? ANNIKA SORENSTAM: I will. I'll be at Evian and look forward to presenting the trophy to the player who performed best in the majors. THE MODERATOR: Have a great day, everybody. Enjoy the Kraft Nabisco Championship this week. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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