BETH MAJOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the 81st U.S. Women's Open Championship being played this week at the Riviera Country Club in beautiful Los Angeles. We're very excited to be here and grateful to have all of you with us throughout the week.
My name, for those who don't know, Beth Major, I oversee communications and content here at the USGA. Thank you for your interest in this championship.
Pleased to have with me three teammates today. To my immediate left, USGA's chief commercial officer Jon Podany. In the center, the USGA's senior director of championships, Shannon Rouillard. And to the far end, John Bodenhamer, the USGA's chief championship officer.
JB, maybe I'll start with you for comments this morning.
JOHN BODENHAMER: Thank you, Beth. They always put me on the far end, so I don't know if there's a signal for that or not.
It's a privilege to be with all of you this morning. Welcome to Riviera Country Club. We've been waiting for this day for several years and the 81St U.S. Women's Open Championship. We couldn't be more excited. We're thrilled to bring the U.S. Women's Open to Los Angeles for the very first time.
Think about that, the very first time in Los Angeles for this championship; pretty amazing. We don't intend for that to happen again. We'll be back.
Just a few thoughts about the U.S. Women's Open. It is the oldest women's major, as most of you know, going back to 1946. 39 players teed it up at Spokane Country Club in Washington. They played that first year, the only year that was played as match play. As they played, the purse that year was $19,700, and all of that purse money was paid in war bonds the year after the war concluded.
Legendary champion Patty Berg defeated Betty Jameson in the finals. Patty took home $5,600 in war bonds.
This year we've had 1,897 players file an entry to follow their dream to become the U.S. Women's Open champion. 156 players in the field from 28 different countries. This year we'll be playing for a purse of $12.5 million. That's an increase -- I was a political science major, not a math major, but I'll just put it out there -- an increase of $500,000 from last year.
And I must say that we're quite proud of that, in that going back to 2022 when we really stepped up our purse and increased to $10 million, and that journey continues. We're proud that it continues this year, and we're proud to lead on that front as we lift up the women's game.
Best players in the world from both professional tours and amateur golfers from around the world. In fact, we have 9 of the top 10 ranked amateurs from the World Amateur golf ranking in the field this year. That's is pretty cool.
I would also say, as many of you know our strategies, we have four of them -- I'll close with that, but it really is the lynchpin -- our venues. We're really proud of the journey that we built with the U.S. Women's Open with our venues. This year at Riviera Country Club marks a jumping off point for us within that new strategy of naming new venues going forward over a 15-, 20-year period.
Think about this road, just over the next 10 years. Riviera of course this year.
2027 will be at Inverness Club, which recently hosted the Solheim Cup.
2028 Oakmont, which has had 10 U.S. Opens, and Paula Creamer won the U.S. Women's Open as recently as 2010. They've had a couple of U.S. Women's Opens.
2029 Pinehurst, we'll do back to back again where Michelle won in 2014.
And in 2030 we'll celebrate Bob Jones' grand slam year where he won the U.S. Open at Interlochen Country Club which was magnificent.
And then in 2031 Oakland Hills Country Club. Won't it be amazing to see which woman tames the monster as Ben Hogan did in 1931.
2032 right back here at in Los Angeles at Los Angeles Country Club.
2033, that masterpiece that C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor created at Chicago Golf Club.
2034, Merion Golf Club, where Bob Jones won the grand slam and Ben Hogan hot the 1-after the an automobile accident. Talk about history.
And then rounding it off in 2035 is Pebble Beach and back to back again at Shinnecock Hills, where the U.S. Open is in about a week and a half for the Women's Open that year.
By the way, more to come. Don't think we're done quite naming sites for the future. Bucking up. More to can.
As I mentioned, just to conclude, venues are really critical. It's a critical part of our strategy. We believe that we go to America's greatest venues. Certainly with the U.S. Women's Open and all of our championships we think of them as the cathedrals of the game. Because we believe, and we truly do, that it's important where players wins their U.S. Open, men and women. When a player is asked, where did you win and they can say Riviera Country Club, it just means more.
And that's the lynchpin of our strategy.
Openness, we have doubled down on that. It's been in our DNA from the beginning. We welcome the world. Part of our qualifying and openness process really represents all the great values of our country: hard work, perseverance; the world is welcome.
You earn your way through hard work into our championships. Doesn't matter where you come from, the clubs in your bag, the clothes on your back, or the color of your skin, if you can get your golf ball in the hole, you can play. We're super proud of that.
Player focus is another one of our four strategies. If you were to go into where the players were experiencing what they'll do with dining and all of the recovery and fitness this week, it's second to none. We really made some significant investments in recent years there, and more to come on that front too.
We're really proud of that because we want to build a relationship with the players from the time they play in the girls junior through our amateur championships. By the time they get to the open, we know them, their families, their college coaches, and their agents. That's our journey.
Before I turn it over to Shannon to talk about really tough but fair, our fourth pillar of our strategy, and really it's not about any score, it's not about even-par, having a winner at even-par, it's about the players getting every club in their bag dirty.
You've heard me say that before. You've heard all of us say that, all 15 of them, the 14 they hit from their bag and the one between their ears. Shannon will cover that.
But let me speak from the heart a little bit as I conclude. It has special meaning for the USGA to be at Riviera for this great championship. As I've said, we've been waiting for a long time.
But it has extra special meaning because we're so excited to be in this community and celebrate not only the women's game, but the resilience of this community, the Los Angeles/Pacific Palisades community, with what happened a few years ago with the wildfires.
It's just a great celebration of that resilience in this community, and we're proud of everybody.
In fact, if you visit and go behind the 17th green this week, you'll see a hosted heroes pavilion that we have for first responders and all those that made heroic efforts during those wildfires. We're proud of that.
I would also say that really this year kicks off our first venue that we named in that 20-year journey, and it was Riviera intentionally. We thought about where would we go on the first year of about a 20-year strategy, and we approached the Watanabes, Naburo and Megan. Think about that, Megan as a female CEO of one of America's great clubs and this iconic venue. It's a place where you can't buy history, you can only earn it, and Riviera certainly has it, during their centennial year, their 100th birthday party.
The women deserve to play at these great venues where the men have played over the years and made great history. We believe it's our obligation to do it, to lift up the women's game. We've been doing it since 1895 when we played our first championships, the U.S. Amateur at Newport Country Club as an afterthought the next day, the U.S. Open, and then just a few weeks later the U.S. Women's Amateur.
We've been about the game, men and women, professional and amateur, since day one. I don't know who else can say that, but we sure can, and we'll continue to do so.
Most importantly, we look at this championship, particularly being at Riviera Country Club and the women crowning our first U.S. Women's Open champion here, that's going to inspire millions of little girls and little boys, and we think it's just a further lift for the women's game. We couldn't be more excited.
I'll turn it over to Shannon.
SHANNON ROUILLARD: Thank you, John. Marshall Dick and his team have done a fantastic job preparing the golf course for the biggest stage in women's golf. The golf course is just in fantastic condition, and we're really excited to start keeping score tomorrow.
We intend to bring this George Thomas architecture to life through our Women's Open setup plan. Riviera was known to be George Thomas' masterpiece. He said the strategy of the golf course is the soul of the game. He drew 15 different routings before landing on the routing that is today.
So it just goes to show how intentional he was in his design. Balance, variety, and strategy were critically important to George Thomas. This golf course is right in front of these players. Nothing tricky, nothing fancy, natural terrain out there with only two major elevation changes. He employed natural hazards and helpful kick slopes to help players if they decide to utilize those design features.
So how will it play? It will reward strategic thinking and shot making. George Thomas was brilliant at creating options for players. He wanted players to think their way around this golf course. He created high shot values. He wanted players to think about working the ball left to right, right to left. There are many holes where he is asking for both of those types of shots.
The centerpiece of the design are his par-3s. Each one of those par-3s here at Riviera are unique and demanding in their own right. The 4th hole, one of the most famous par-3s in all of golf, gives players the opportunity to literally play away from the putting green to funnel it onto the putting surface.
You look at the 6th hole, he eliminated the center of the green as a natural target.
The 14th hole, wide green, but he put a spine down the middle of that putting green and put a swale about 20 yards short of that putting green to create a psychological challenge, to make that hole look a little bit longer.
Then the short par-3 hole 16, which is really his island green surrounded by bunkers. You can't take that one for granted coming down the stretch.
But the par-4s were the foundation of his design, and this week we're going to play anywhere from 307 to 437 yards, asking players to utilize all the clubs in their bag from hybrids and woods, which I'm sure you've seen them hit into these long par-4s, down to their wedges, hole 10 and a few others.
Those holes will test course management, accuracy, power, shot making, and their ability to work the ball around architectural features and the bunkers.
So what are the key holes this week? I think the key holes are holes 2, 9, 15, and 18. Playing the bookend par-5s really well under par and playing the 10th hole strategically.
We certainly have our eye on the wind. We're going to have great weather, but the wind is predicted to be southeast, southwest, which is certainly going to play into our overall setup plan and will impact play certainly morning and afternoon. That golf course can look very different from the morning and afternoon.
We're really excited to crown our newest champion on Sunday, and I'm going to take this opportunity to turn it over to my colleague Jon Podany.
JON PODANY: Thank you, Shannon. From my standpoint and my team, our goal is pretty simple: We're trying to create the biggest stage for women's golf anywhere in the world. So we look at how we present the championship on television, on our digital channels, on site here, and try to be the best. I'll give you just a little bit of detail for each of these.
From a television standpoint, we've got 100 hours of coverage overall, including our streaming, 26 hours of live coverage across NBC, USA Network, Peacock, and NBC SPORTS Network. We're going to be in primetime on network TV for the weekend for only the second time, I believe, in women's golf history.
The first one was Pebble Beach in '23, which happened to be the most viewed women's golf tournament in the world over the past 10 years. Prior to that, it was 2014 at Pinehurst when Michelle Wie won.
We've got big expectations for this week being in primetime every night, but again on NBC both Saturday and Sunday.
We have limited commercial interruption for the Women's Open, only four minutes an hour, so you can get into the storylines throughout the broadcast. And we've worked with our partners, with NBC and USA Network on technology enhancements. We're going to have drone coverage. We're going to have tracing technology all over the golf course. We're going to have reverse tracing, and we're going to have predictive tracing for the first time in a women's championship.
So a lot of these things you may see at PGA TOUR events or at the U.S. Open, we're trying to bring to the women's game. Of course Live From will be here all week, nearly 20 hours of coverage. From a broadcast standpoint, we've got it pretty well covered.
From a digital streaming standpoint, we have two featured groups both in the morning and afternoon every day to supplement that coverage. You may remember in 2023 we introduced ShotLink, first women's event to do so. So we've got the Shotcast product continuing.
New this year, we'll also have your U.S. Women's Open, where you can select your favorite players, and with that, you'll get an Ai recap of the round within minutes after a player finishes a round -- every player in the field, not just the stars. You'll have performance insights on how they played, number of greens they may have hit, their average driving distance, things of that nature.
Also, for the first time, we have Rangecast on the driving range. Again, first time that's ever been brought to a women's championship. You may have seen it debut at THE PLAYERS Championship. Augusta had their version of it. You'll be able to see every shot by every player on the range.
See how many balls they hit before they warm up, practice session after, what kind of clubs and shots they're hitting throughout their practice session. So that will be pretty cool.
From an onsite standpoint here, obviously starts with the kind of stage that we have with Riviera, which John and Shannon spoke to, but you may notice, if you were here for Genesis, that we've basically kept the same kind of footprint and build that they had for the PGA TOUR at Genesis.
So in terms of the hospital on 18 and throughout the golf course. Looks terrific. Honestly, I think that Riviera is one of the best spectator courses we play. It's all right in front of you. You can navigate between holes. Obviously a big amphitheater on 18. As Shannon alluded to, some of the best par-3s in the game. So exciting, I think, for fans.
Lastly, I just want to touch on how our partners are increasingly activating behind the Women's Open, which I think is another reflection on how big it's becoming. Obviously ally is our presenting partner. We have a new global partner here this week, T-Mobile. They've helped us with the enhancements on the range.
You may have recently seen an announcement on Rules Ai, where you can ask any rules question. Deloitte has a presentation of that in the fan village, so you can get a taste for ask any rule and get an answer instantaneously there, and a host of other partners that are here, too.
So we're excited they're doing that.
Final thing I'll say, the Olympics are going to be here, as you probably know, in '28. You look at the field of a U.S. Women's Open, obviously very international as well. So you're basically going to get an Olympic kind of event this week at our championship.
So it will be a great preview for that.
Obviously the U.S. Women's Open stands on its own, but that's another exciting aspect, I think, of seeing Riviera this week and how it might play for the Olympics in a couple of years. Thank you.
Q. Shannon, can you take us through the beginning stages of No. 10 in terms of figuring out where you're going to place the tees and what kind of data you used for what you want the players to produce in terms of being able to reach the green?
SHANNON ROUILLARD: Sure. I'm going to take you back to 2024, where we obtained club information from players and caddies, those that chose to be a part of that program. Obviously we've been obtaining ShotLink data since 2023. That has been truly helpful.
But obviously knowing the skill and talent level of this group is critically important to my job, right? Pace of play certainly is part of that equation on Thursday and Friday, trying to get 156 players through their round, so to speak, and thought it was really important to make sure that we did so. So that is how we got to playing the back tee for Thursday and Friday.
You can certainly see us look to move up Saturday or Sunday as a result, and we have shown that to the players.
Again, it was a matter of really trying to find that right distance that's going to allow them to give it a go. So that was the process.
Q. I'm going to ask a qualifying question a little bit off topic. In the past, there was a local and then sectional, and now there's only one qualifier. What are the criteria that goes into determining when you might have two stages of qualifying for this championship?
JOHN BODENHAMER: I'll take that one. We look at that, as we do, as we review all of our championships every year, particularly with the Women's Open. I think really, just to put it out there, I think we need to get consistently above the 2,000 entry level, maybe even 2,500, before it really makes sense to really have the dual cutoff because we really want it to be meaningful at the local qualifying where it really means something to advance. Even in final qualifying, who would advance.
So we do deep studies on that. We just did another one this past winter. Just to put it out there, we think minimally it has to be an entry level of 2,000. So we're close. We got about 1,800, 1,900 this year, but like Pebble Beach, we need to get up to 2,000 just to be consistent.
Q. How much do you call back to that historic information of this property when setting up this golf course for women, who are obviously new visitors here?
SHANNON ROUILLARD: Yeah, you know, we take great pride in sticking to the intent of the architect. It's definitely a step in my process to learn about the architect, how did they intend each and every hole to be played, what features are they looking to ensure are part of the strategy of that hole.
Look, I mean with where the female game is today, they're strong players. They're really, really good. These iconic venues allow us to truly highlight, in this case, the George Thomas architecture. I would like to think that he is looking down on this week and is going to be really proud at what's going to be produced.
Q. Shannon, I wanted to talk to you about pace of play; you noted it. The LPGA has had a couple penalties this year due to pace of play. So tell us about kind of what's the philosophy from the USGA standpoint, both specifically rules about it. Have you communicated concerns about pace of play for this week? And how do you go about penalizing pace of play?
SHANNON ROUILLARD: Yeah, I wouldn't say we have concerns about pace of play, but obviously when you think about the 1st hole, going in I knew the majority of the field was going to be able to hit that green in two. So keeping that in mind, I couldn't have two starting holes where we could have a pace of play issue just getting the round started. So that definitely played into my thinking there.
Our pace of play policy is slightly different than the LPGA's. Obviously we have a great segment of LPGA players here this week, but we have 25 amateurs, we have players from the LET, Epson Tour, et cetera, et cetera, JLPGA, from all over the world. So not everybody is playing under the same pace of play policy week in and week out.
But this one has remained pretty -- our pace of play policy has remained fairly consistent year over year. A player has to be over time and out of position prior to necessarily going on the clock, but recognizing too that we also don't want to put them on the clock if there's a wait up ahead.
So we're looking at a lot of different information before we start putting a group on the clock, right? There's an ebb and flow to that pace of play and just making sure that we are monitoring that appropriately.
JOHN BODENHAMER: I would add to that too just that we do it with each of our Open Championships, a predictory sort of way we look at it with our equipment standards team, where we look at holes and the amount of time it should take players to play based on yardage, walking from green to tee, walking between nines.
We'll look at all of that, and we'll predict where the bottlenecks are going to be. We'll predict how certain holes will play. And that's how we get to a certain allotted time.
It's pretty intentional. We put a lot of effort into it, but it's a scientific process that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't because of the weather, but we do put a lot of effort into it that leads to our policy.
Q. Just to follow up, what would be your penalty, beyond a warning, if you had to determine that a player has continued to be too slow and you had to penalize them? What is the penalty?
SHANNON ROUILLARD: The first penalty is a one-stroke penalty, and then a two-stroke penalty, and then a disqualification.
Q. Since Riviera has long sought a U.S. Open since 1948 that had Ben Hogan here, why, I guess, did it take so long? What was the biggest challenge in getting back here that you guys had to overcome?
JOHN BODENHAMER: Great question. Again, I'll be transparent and say Riviera is a relatively small footprint, and when you come here, you have to think about things like parking, transportation, how you get fans on and off the golf course, security, all of those things, and there can be challenges here.
I'll just say a number of years ago, eight or nine years ago, our strategies changed. We put at the top of our pyramid going to America's greatest venues. When we say that, we mean it, and we start with the golf course, and this is one of America's greatest venues.
So how do we do that? Some of my team might not like hearing this, but it starts there, and we figure the rest out. We've been looking to come to Riviera for 40 years. We love Riviera. The players love Riviera. That's really what we think about.
I want to be thoughtful and say there is a lot to think about, but I think that was the challenge, it's really the footprint, getting people on and off the golf course. And candidly our motto years ago at the USGA, if we couldn't fit 35,000 people on property and sell X amount of corporate hospitality or activate our partners, we just wouldn't go. That thinking is a little bit different now.
We go to places -- and Shinnecock Hills in two weeks will be one of those places, a very similar sort of footprint, challenges in conducting the event logistically -- but boy, you talk about cathedrals. With Riviera and Shinnecock, there aren't any better.
I think that's probably why really just those challenges, but I like to think we're past that and our business model is different. We put a lot of emphasis on what the players think and where they want to win their U.S. Open.
Q. John, what do you hope that bringing this championship to venues like Riviera and all the ones that you have lined up, what do you hope that will do for the women's game?
JOHN BODENHAMER: Well, you look at the demographics, and it depends how you look at it. You look at percentage, and women are the fastest growing part of coming out of COVID. People of color are probably the largest numbers, which is -- well, what a great thing for our game, right? It took a pandemic to really get us down that road, but so exciting, so amazing. We want to keep that going.
I think for us it really is about inspiration. As I said a minute ago, it's about the millions of little girls and little boys that are going to be watching these great, the world's greatest players win this week. Not just these players play, but at Riviera Country Club, and so many of them will say to themselves, boy, I want to do that. I want to play golf instead of X, Y, Z sport. I think we're going to see better athletes, we're going to see more women playing as a result of it. It really is about inspiration.
I think that's the whole journey. Not just our venues, but the purse. The women deserve to play with the monetary returns that we're providing, and the game is following, and we want to lift that side of it up, the experience that the players have and how they can recover from a day on the golf course and all of those things.
We're thinking about it holistically. We're treating the men and the women equitably in that manner. What we do at the U.S. Open, we'll do at the U.S. Women's Open. That's really important.
But I think it's just a holistic approach and trying to lift up and be inspirational to those that are coming in future generations, the little girls and the little boys.
Q. Beyond growing the game, do you feel like there -- there's been a lot of talk about growing the attention and the eyeballs on the women's game. Does the USGA feel that pressure to do that?
JON PODANY: I could take that. Yeah, I think pretty much what I was talking about before in terms of how we present this championship and create visibility for it with television being the biggest reach of those channels, but if you look at our digital channels, our social, the content we're putting out, we have, I think, 130-ish media here this week, which is a great turnout and more than we anticipated, so I think all those factors work together.
People aren't just consuming their content or their information in one way. So we're trying to be everywhere that people are doing that, whether that's, again, social, TikTok, Instagram, whatever, and you all are a part that have as well. So we appreciate what you're doing to get the word out.
BETH MAJOR: If I could add really quickly to JB's comments. When we were here for media day, someone asked Maja Stark about did you ever dream of playing a U.S. Women's Open at Riviera? She said no. She said that wasn't something that was really on our radar, whether it was Riviera, Pebble, Shinnecock.
So I think it's about changing the dreams for the players that are here now, which has been -- I know from the reaction we've seen. I know, Shannon, you've heard incredible comments about being here for the players, that's exactly why we're here. It's changing those dreams.
Q. The idea of going back to back at Pinehurst or Shinnecock, I'm curious to learn more about that, what it means to you guys. What's good about it? What's hard about it? Could you see a third venue being able to do that as well?
JOHN BODENHAMER: I'm sorry, the third venue?
Q. Yeah, and additional future venues.
JOHN BODENHAMER: Well, since we delved into that journey at 2014 at Pinehurst, which was incredibly successful, and we learned so much, we do get that question a lot from a lot of future venues, can we do that? But it really does take a place that is a certain type of venue, predominantly. I would think in most cases, a venue that's played on sandy soils because we have a rain event on not just (audio disruption), for everything outside the parking, fan flow, all of that.
Then I'd also say you get up in some of the cool season grass areas. You know, you have fans go through the rough and players go through the rough, it's tough to really bring that back after a week, whether it's the men or the women.
So I think we think about it that way in a places like Pinehurst where you have sandy soils and wiregrass, or Shinnecock Hills you have sandy soils and fescue grasses.
It just kind of provides us the arena for us to do that. I think we do it and we did it at Pinehurst, and there's a big part of that still we go down that journey to really -- Pinehurst was to elevate the women's game. There were some that would say, well, you're going to save a lot of money by conducting them together, and that wasn't the case. That wasn't the by-product. I think we learned a lot there.
But it was really about showcasing the same golf course that the women and that the men play. You see a little bit of that here, where we try to set it up to where the same approach shots, the guys are going to hit at Genesis, it's different, it's February, the kikuya is a little different in February than it is in June, but we do think about it.
I think back to back really gives us the opportunity to really showcase the women's game, that they're every bit as good, and the quality of play, and really just the inspiration of that is a big part of why we do it.
Q. To John's point right there, Shannon, how much are you aware -- as you're setting it up, how much are you aware of where the men's approach shots are seeing the greens during a TOUR event, versus -- so that you don't have to kind of trick up the tees to create that but give them similar shots? Or is that even really a thought or concern?
SHANNON ROUILLARD: You know, I have access to the PGA TOUR ShotLink data for this golf course. To be honest, it's about putting together an appropriate tough but fair test for the women, and that's what we have set out to do and believe that we have done that leading into this week.
We want to keep the hard holes hard but yet provide those opportunities that Thomas wanted to provide that are going to give them some birdie opportunities as well.
Q. What do you think are going to be the couple most challenging par-4s, given how the women score and hit?
SHANNON ROUILLARD: Well, hole No. 2 for sure, 18, and 15. Those three holes. Players are going -- if they can walk off with a par, let alone a birdie, they're going to shoot up the leaderboard.
BETH MAJOR: We have one question from the WebEx from a local reporter asking about Amy Alcott. Has she been involved at all? Knowing she participated last night, I'll let you handle that one.
JOHN BODENHAMER: Thank you for letting me have that one. We had Amy Alcott last night as a guest speaker at our amateur dinner. Amy has been a buddy of mine, and Shannon's, for a long, long time. I think everybody here knows she grew up here. She told so many wonderful stories.
Can you imagine as a young little girl going out on the putting green, the innocence of her mom flashing the lights and picking her up in the parking lot as she was putting on the putting green with Rita Hayworth? Think about that. She told that story last night as a little girl putting with Rita Hayworth, and her mom showing up at the putting green and her eyes this big. Well, your daughter's been admiring my leather shoes. The most beautiful actress of her era and out here putting with Amy Alcott.
Amy is a national treasure, five-time major champion, World Golf Hall of Famer. The stories, boy, I would encourage all of to you really listen to Amy. We love her, and she loves the USGA.
But we have involved her very deeply, not just last night, she'll be here all week. Our executive committee will meet with her. By the way, JoAnne Carner will be here. It's her 50th anniversary of winning the U.S. Open here. We'll have her here to commemorate that. Amy's been involved. I'll let you comment, Shannon, even with our golf course setup, right?
SHANNON ROUILLARD: Yes, absolutely. I engaged Amy early. Amy was actually one who has inspired me to play the game back when I was a teenager. I used to go out with my parents to what was then the Nabisco Dinah Shore out at Mission Hills, and Amy was one that I happened to follow each and every year.
As I've been on my own journey as a championship director, it was certainly a pinch-me moment when I started running the Senior Women's Open and having the opportunity to get to know Amy a bit better, and obviously on a number of site visits I've had here, she's walked the golf course with me a couple of times. Just picking her brain on the ins and outs and the intricacies of this golf course has been really helpful.
Also, just talk to go her and giving her behind-the-scenes insights as to what we do and why we do it and how we do it. So it's been a win-win for both of us, but really enjoyed spending that time with Amy to learn why she loves this place so much and to get some nuggets from her about the setup plan.
BETH MAJOR: I'll thank you all very much again for being here. Look forward to a great four days of championship golf ahead. If you have any questions or need anything, you know where to find us in the Media Center. Thanks so much.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports