U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN

May 27, 2025

Mike Whan

Beth Major

Shannon Rouillard

Erin Hills GC

Press Conference

BETH MAJOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the 80th U.S. Women's Open Championship presented by Ally here at Erin Hills. We're thrilled to be here for this championship, thrilled for all of you for covering this championship, what we think is the Signature Event in women's golf, and are very excited to present a wonderful test and a wonderful experience for the golfers, the community, the volunteers, everyone who's involved.

Today I have with me all the way to the far site, CEO of the USGA, Mike Whan, and Shannon Rouillard, senior director of championships, also known, and you'll no doubt here this, as Chip. I'm going to toss it over to Mike for a few comments.

MIKE WHAN: Thank you all for coming. I wanted to say thank you all in the media for being here and getting this message out to the folks who follow you.

I want to say a huge thank you to Andy Ziegler and the entire team at Erin Hills. In my position it's rewarding to get out of the car and hear all your staff talk about how great it is to work with the people here, just really a special place.

I want to say thanks to Rob Jansen and all the folks at the Wisconsin State Golf Association for letting us infiltrate your region once again.

We love Wisconsin. Hard for a Chicagoan to say, but we love Wisconsin and we just love coming here and the way we're treated and the way the crowds respond.

Most of you know this is kind of a personal championship for me. This is when I get to do a little bit of reunion time, and this is special championship, and a really special time in the game.

10 years ago, some would question the robustness of golf because we had lost about five million people in the game from the decade before. If you jump forward to today, the numbers don't lie. There's virtually no doubt about the future of this game.

We're up 38 percent, 47 million people playing the game; on-course has gone up every year over the last six years; 545 million rounds played, which 55 percent bigger than just five years ago.

What's really cool about the game right now is after all that growth, there's 24 million people saying they want to start the game now, and of that 24 million people, over 40 percent of Black and Hispanic.

What an amazing thing for our game. As a guy who spent a lot of his career in the game, I never thought I'd be able to say, and we're saying it right now.

Maybe here importantly, women leading the way in the game today -- again, something I didn't think I could say in 2009 when I took the LPGA job.

A third of this game is now made up of women. One third of the people who play the game in America are women, and really 60 percent of the growth we've all experienced since COVID has been driven by women.

That gets us to a pretty amazing time in the game right now.

We're obviously here to talk about the 80th U.S. Women's Open, and as I said at media day for some of you that were there, please don't miss the 80 in 80th, because 80 is one of the things that makes this championship so special.

The LPGA is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year; the LET is celebrating its 47th year; the NCAA Division I championships are celebrating their 43rd.

When somebody says what makes the U.S. Women's Open so unique, first is legacy. It's just been here. It's the longest running professional women's championship.

Second is the venues. It's places like this. And you think about a place like Erin Hills. Where do we go from here? Riviera where we'll play before the Olympics. We'll go from there to Inverness where you saw a pretty amazing Solheim Cup. From there we will play Oakmont, which you will all be at hopefully in a couple of weeks.

And then after that we'll go back-to-back again in Pinehurst. So bringing this championship to great venues is one of the things that makes it a great championship.

Purse, $12 million; $2.4 winner's check. If you, missed the cut this week, you'll still receive $10,000. As I have said every year, we really believe that getting into this field is making the cut.

There was over 1900, do I have that right? Over 1900 participants tried to make it into one of these 156 tee times.

And then TV coverage. There's just virtually nothing else like it in the women's game, and there's more network hours on this championship than anything else that they'll play in as a championship this year.

If you think about firsts, we like to kind of bring firsts. First to get to a $3 million purse, $5 million purse, $10 million purse, $12 million purse.

First to put network in primetime back in Pebble Beach.

First to bring ShotLink to the women's game, and this week we'll be the first to bring Drone Tracer to the women's game. So we're proud of those firsts.

Lastly I just want to say a huge thanks to Ally. It's really cool to have a partner in business. It's another thing to have a partner that actually lives this business. I have a plaque on my desk and Chip and Murray know if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Because Ally, we're going far and we're going together.

As we kind of wrap up here, one thing I don't want you to miss out if you're out here early, and I know some of are earlians like me, take a look at the grounds crew this week. There will be 32 women from all over the U.S., in fact a few from Canada, one from Uganda as part of the Women in Turf program.

We started that in 2021 at the Olympic Club. I think, Chip, you were part of starting that, and now about half of women who come each year have been in it before, and about half are brand new. They have a sponsor that helps their travel expenses now, so Women in Turf is a really cool U.S. Women's Open special.

Now we need walk-up music for you, but I want to make sure you understand who you are talking to when you're talking to Shannon "Chip" Rouillard.

She played in a U.S. Women's Open, so she's stood on that first tee that felt that pain. She is, and this is where the music should come in, back-to-back New Jersey Senior Amateur champion. Back-to-back New Jersey Senior Amateur champion, which means we really don't work you that hard.

Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy some time with Chip.

SHANNON ROUILLARD: Thank you, Mike. Oh, boy, okay. The USGA was founded to govern the game and conduct USGA championships. We take great pride in where we conduct our championships. We go to the cathedrals of the game. America's greatest venues because players have told us that it's important where they win their U.S. Open.

Openness, you can earn your way into a USGA championship. I happen to have played in eight USGA championships now, including a Women's Open, as Mike referenced, and I qualified for every single one of them.

Presenting a tough but fair test of golf. We strive to get every club dirty for the players here this week. Birdies will be made but par is a good score, but we will look to stick with the true intent of the architecture.

Player focus. We take great pride and continue to work very hard in cultivating relationships with players. We ask for their feedbacks on a regular basis. We explain our decisions and hope to earn their respect.

Past champions are a priority to us and the player experience is paramount.

As Mike also mentioned, we have a long standing relationship with Erin Hills that goes back to before Erin Hills even opened for business. They've hosted four USGA championships thus far and are hosting five more events for the next 20 years.

Erin Hills' leadership Andy Ziegler and the entire leadership team has made an incredible commitment to the Women's Open this week. The last time this golf course was open was last October, which is exactly the same commitment they made leading into the U.S. Open.

Zach Reineking and his team have worked extremely hard, tirelessly, to get this golf course into just fantastic condition. It's been very cold. There was a lot of snow here in Wisconsin, and it was a very challenging winter.

Given Zach's tenure here, having been here since the beginning of the golf course, if he was sitting here, he would say that it was probably one of the most challenging winters of his career.

We're extremely pleased with where conditions are leading into play starting on Thursday.

On to some highlights of the golf course. When you think about Erin Hills, number one, if you've been out there, there's very little water and there's no out of bounds. This course is defined by its natural topography. The slopes and obviously Mother Nature. Will Mother Nature show up, the wind.

Erin Hills is about strategic decision making. It's also about the generous fairways that are out there. Players will have the opportunity to -- it'll be important for them to utilize the playing angles that are out there, given a particular day's hole location. Tees and greens are perched up on dunes so the players are going to experience a lot of uneven lies and blind and semi-blind shots into greens and even off the tee.

Over a third of the holes have essential bunker in front of the putting green, and sometimes it's a really long bunker that's going to force the players to play the aerial game. In addition it's going to play with their depth perception, given there's no trees out there to provide that depth perception for them.

The greens surround architecture will allow the players the opportunity to funnel the ball towards the hole, but also repel the ball further away from the hole, which is going to force them to think about their club selection; am I going to putt this? Am I going to chip this? Am I going to use a hybrid? How am I going to get the ball close from this really tight lie?

Obviously it's a very tough walk. This is a big golf course, and it's going to test the players' mentally and physically.

Then what has been mentioned previously, the wind. Will Mother Nature show up? Right now she's telling us she's going to show up. That will play a major component into our overall setup plan.

We're just really looking forward to seeing who's going to rise to the occasion this year and be our newest Women's Open champion.

BETH MAJOR: Thank you, Shannon. Thank you, Mike. This table, eight USGA appearances, so thanks for carrying us.

Q. Shannon, how much different will the golf course play if it's soft and there's no wind?

SHANNON ROUILLARD: Yeah, it's a really good question. Obviously Nelly spoke to some alternate tees that we have out there that we're showing to them. There's also a few other alternate tees that we have in our back pocket. Not looking to fool the players but to be honest, it's really just math. If we were to move to those specific alternate tees.

We also keep a very close eye on firmness, and obviously speed, wet conditions very windy conditions. It's really important that the test remains relative and appropriate to the conditions that we're going to face, whether they're wet or whether we're going to experience some greater wind conditions.

Q. What do you think is the charm of this place, not just the course but the location, and what do you hope viewers watching this on TV get from it?

MIKE WHAN: Yeah, I've said this many times so apologize for the potential eye roll but this is Field of Dreams for golf. You're driving out here and you kind of keep driving and you go, maybe I missed it.

Then you take the left into this property, and it's if you build it. It just feels -- my parents are from Iowa so it reminds me of the Iowa drive and then you pull in. It's just majestic.

I remember the first time I played it. I played with Andy the first time a couple years ago, and I remember saying, it's kind of one of those places I wish I would have designed. I mean, I wouldn't have done this well, but like it's amazing what kind of vision they must have had, and to bring it to this level, it's a special place.

I came here a couple years ago, like I said, had dinner the night before. I walked into the main dining area and it was full of Chicagoans like me, so we got on a Bears pep rally that night. Everybody was talking about their round.

I sat down at dinner and everybody was talking about a different hole. It's funny listening to Nelly before having played it now a few times. A lot of times you watch golf and players will hit a shot and they'll pick up their divot or pick up the tee and start walking.

I think you're going to have a lot of people frozen after they hit, because this place is about where your ball ends up, not where it starts. You just find yourself after a lot of shots hitting it and still talking to it, because it's not about where it lands, it's about where it's going to finish its run.

I think that's going to create some real anxiety, especially if there's wind. I've played it in some tough wind, too. It just changes the vibe out here.

But I don't know how you could pull in here and not feel big, not feel special. It's just -- I don't know, as a golf person, it just feels like coming home to me.

Q. A couple weeks ago at the PGA, the topic of driver testing really came to a head, and the results of which are confidential. I think many people believe the results of which can impact the results of the tournament. I'm curious if you can lay out why those results are kept confidential since the USGA does a lot of the testing, and also if you think there's a scenario where maybe in the future they wouldn't be confidential?

MIKE WHAN: It's funny, you started by saying the testing came to a head. I guess for us in the USGA we find that interesting. We've been testing for quite a while, and having similar kind of results in those tests.

Like last week or PGA Championship week was not an abnormal week, abnormal approach. One of the reasons honestly we keep that confidential is because of what happened. Everyone starts talking about there was this incredible moment.

But the PGA TOUR has asked, us as did the PGA of America, to help them with that. It's difficult for a player to know. It's even difficult for a manufacturer to keep a calibrated machine that will calibrate with us.

So we provide that service to them just so they when it's over. If a player is -- if the creep factor on the CT of the driver creeps over we tell them and they switch it out.

I read something where somebody said that people can doctor the system, but we keep serial numbers of the driver that were given us, and 90 percent of the drivers that were given us in those practice facilities when we test are played on the first tee, and we expect 10 percent of players to be making changes anyway.

I don't think that's a real concern for us.

The biggest thing is we just try to keep the whole testing process kind of low key, because players know it's coming. They see us coming. They give us the driver if we tell them. We give them kind of a green, yellow, or red. If they got a yellow, they start preparing for a backup driver or switch.

So yeah, it seemed like a big week to everybody else, but for us it was a pretty standard week. We've tested at a lot of TOUR events, tours events and other majors, so it wasn't that abnormal for us. It just seemed to get abnormal coverage.

Q. You don't test here, right, the women?

MIKE WHAN: Is that the first question? Yeah, we're not testing this week. You know me, I give you three quick answers. Number one is we really haven't seen CT creep significant on the women's game. At this point we haven't seen a lot of it to be perfectly honest with you.

Since we don't do it as a regular thing on these tours, we don't try to make the major completely different than something. But I would say if the LPGA or the LET said would you come out and more testing, we would certainly be up for that.

I don't know that would find a lot of creep, but we'd implement it.

And the third thing is, and you know this from following the LPGA like you do, when we go out to a men's event and if somebody has a driver that fails the CT, they literally generally walk across the street, down the end of the range, walk into a truck, grab a new head, exact head of what they had before, and move on.

That isn't always the case in the women's game, and this will be a good week where I don't know if I would want to take somebody's driver out on a Tuesday that's one millisecond over and they can't really replace it.

So yeah, so on the women's side we haven't really seen creep much. We don't do it in terms of the tours, but we would. And we just want to make sure they have the service available to address it if we test it the week of a championship.

Q. Beyond the obvious, the charm of the place, what is it about this venue that makes it worthy of 10 USGA championships by 2039?

MIKE WHAN: Do you want to take that, Chip? Are you talking agronomy or talking about bigness of...

Q. The test.

SHANNON ROUILLARD: The test speaks for itself. You look, we took the WAPL here, the U.S. Amateur, U.S. Open, and the Mid-Amateur; obviously now the Women's Open.

We've got the U.S. Am, the Women's Am, the four-balls, and I believe the Junior Amateur coming back.

Again, the architecture is phenomenal, coupled with the mental test, the physical test. It's just a great venue, all-around great venue.

MIKE WHAN: If the wind blows here they're going to be getting every club cleaned off at the end and they're going to be mentally tired. This one is going to make you think on every shot, and that's a major.

Q. What do you see for the future of the USGA and Erin Hills?

MIKE WHAN: Oh, we've announced the future of the USGA. We're coming back. Five times in the next --

SHANNON ROUILLARD: -- 20 years.

MIKE WHAN: So yeah, we believe in Erin Hills. We were in Wisconsin, quite frankly. I remember just a couple years ago flying into Sentry World and thinking, this is really remote and walking in, and, one, amazing venue, amazing crowd support. This is a great place to come and play golf and if you live here you already know that.

SHANNON ROUILLARD: If you can layer on top of that, when we come here, we always talk to it's a partnership. This partnership with Erin Hills started 20 plus years ago, and when USGA staff come here, as well, we feel like family, and it's a mutual feeling for them, too.

Again, it's just an all-around wonderful venue where we feel embraced and they feel like they embrace us, as well.

MIKE WHAN: I hope you guys feel it, too. It's not like anything else. When somebody says tell me about Erin Hills I can't give them six analogies of this is really good and got its own unique feel and a bigness about it that really is special.

If you're not a little nervous when you're closing your trunk on Thursday morning, you're looking at your phone on the drive in because it's got a real anxiety to it that's fun.

Q. For Shannon, with the other U.S. Women's Opens that have been brought to venues where the men have competed, the USGA has talked about how they've sometimes taken some of their cues from those U.S. Opens of the past. I'm curious what from the 2017 U.S. Open impacted your setup here this week for the women?

SHANNON ROUILLARD: Yeah, obviously I keep a close eye on the tees that are used for the U.S. Open, right. And looking at the green complexes. A lot of times when I start the setup process, I'm looking at the greens and what sort of shot is it meant to receive and how does that translate for the Women's Open.

But obviously we have green speed data. We have firmness speed data. We know that week the wind didn't blow during championship week, but it did during advance week. And let's face it, the 2017 U.S. Open didn't play how we had hoped it to play because Mother Nature didn't show up.

Q. My second question is for Mike. The LPGA Tour is at a crossroads here. They recently announced a new commissioner some have described as a young Mike Whan --

MIKE WHAN: I thought I was a young Mike Whan. I don't really like that quote, but go ahead.

Q. What's your reaction to Craig Kessler being selected, and any advice that you would potentially share?

MIKE WHAN: Yeah, I'm excited for the LPGA. I'm excited for Craig. It's a great job. It's a great organization, and there's great people. I just walked the range and the putting green and thanked some of the players that were on the selection committee, because it's a lot to be on a selection committee. I've sat on them, I've been interviewed through them, so I understand the time they probably took away from their game to make the LPGA better, but I love the fact that they did.

I had multiple conversations with Craig. I would have to say I knew who Craig was. We probably been on Zoom calls in the COVID time, but I can't really remember spending quality time with Craig. But I knew who he was. I knew he had a good reputation in the business.

My chairman at the USGA, Fred Perpall, is kind of a mentor to Craig, so he's mentioned him a lot to me during the -- way before this process even, just mentioned me getting to know him better.

But what I really liked about Craig is, listen, I had my share of candidates that would call me. I felt like halfway in the call, they probably called me to say, of course I talked to Mike Whan. But Craig did not call me with those things. He talked to me with tough questions, tough concerns.

Like he's a father of really young kids, and he asked me how old were my kids when I took that job. They were a little older than his. They were junior high, and he's got middle school.

I think he expected me to say don't worry, buddy, you're going to be a great dad and your wife is going to love you and you'll travel all the time. I said, listen, sometimes it's really going to stink. You are going to FaceTime your kids from Shanghai and think, I'm the worst dad in the world.

But I promise you, your kids will be watching if you love what you do. Like my kids today when we talk about dad's career, they talk about as LPGA commissioner I've never seen my dad so energetic and caffeinated.

But I do think kids watch more than they hear, and what I said to Craig is your kids are watching you and if you attack this job because it means something to you, if you can make a real difference in the lives of these women on Tour and these professional coaches, you're going to get more back than they are.

So I said, I've said -- I remember trying to explain this to my wife. I'm not sure how this went over when I took that job. I could try to take a job where I would be home every day at 5:00, but I am not really sure I'm going to be happy, and I want my kids to have the guts to pursue what they want to love, too.

I feel it in Craig. I feel like he's doing this -- like everything personally says don't do it, and everything professionally gets him excited, and I've been at that crossroads before. I remember what that felt like.

So I just told him, don't ever lose that because every woman on this Tour can relate to that. They're here all the time, always traveling, but when they're home they wish they could be out here.

That rub that you're going to always feel will make you a better commissioner because they respect that. They understand sometimes saying I've got to go because my son is in high school football game.

I'm really excited. I'm excited for the LPGA, and I'm really excited for Craig because I think he's doing this for all the right reasons.

Q. You kind of hinted at it but I'm going to truly test your Chicago loyalties. In addition to this phenomenal facility, what is it about Wisconsin, the fans, the intangibles, the amenities that the USGA just keeps coming back, multiple events, multiple things that you love it here?

MIKE WHAN: I can't believe you're going to make me as a Chicagoan say this. You must be local and you need a soundbyte.

But it is a great sports town. It drives me crazy because we've been -- as the Bears, we've been watching your great sports town and your celebrations for a long time.

It's just a great sports town. When I was at the LPGA, we did an event in Green Bay, and to put on a chisor, which is a cheese visor, and walk down the fairway was a bit of a stretch for a Chicagoan. But man, they just love their sport, love the athletes. They came out in a big way.

I just think the sport IQ is high in Wisconsin. People don't just like the sport, they really learn it, know it, and the airplane conversations flying into here are just better.

I can't believe you made me say that. I'm sorry to all my Chicagoans, but it's a great place to come and enjoy. You've already got it figured out with how many Chicagoans are taking the four-day road trip up here and the places you can play on a road trip in Wisconsin are as good as any in the world. It's really quite a track you guys have built around Wisconsin.

You're welcome. (Laughter.)

Q. For both of you, you mentioned a third of the golfers are women. How and when do you get to 40 percent, 45 percent, more?

MIKE WHAN: That's a great question. Sorry, Chip, but this one gets me excited. I remember when I took my job at the LPGA commissioner, January of 2010, my first question in the press conference was how do you feel about the future of women's golf.

I remember thinking, as soon as I get off this press conference I am going to go look and see where junior golf is, because maybe junior golf is great and I could have just said it, but I didn't know.

About 85 percent of the game was male and about 85 percent of the junior game was male. So there wasn't any reason to believe in the future.

But today I don't know what the number is. I want to say 37 percent of junior golf is female versus 15 percent not too long ago. 39 percent last year are people who played the game for the first time were women.

Haven't said that in 100 years.

I always used to say, you don't have to believe me about the future of the game. The future of the game is happening. You just go look and see what it is. With this many people wanting to play, with the people wanting to play this diverse, Hispanic, female, African-American, just -- there's a wave coming in our game that's already here, so you don't have to wonder if it's going to get here.

I think if women's golf was a stock, you'd buy it because it's what's driving our game forward. I'm not saying that because we're sitting here at the U.S. Women's Open or because I'm a former LPGA commissioner. I'm telling you that's just factual. If the NGF were sitting up here and you asked him why is the game taking off, the first comment they would give you is women in the game.

The first thing they would say about the future is the future of the game looks more female than it's ever looked in 100 years. That's an exciting time.

I've said this many times. People say, why do you think there are more viewers or there's more fans? I would say, just sit tight. That's like the people that two years ago said to me, why are TV ratings down in the men's game?

I'm like, stop looking at a week or a month or a tournament. People are playing this game at a level never before, and that will turn into viewership, and it is.

And the same thing is going to happen in the women's game. You fall in love with this game and you want to watch the best women in the game, and that's what's going to happen., this is going to be a natural pickup.

Q. Mike, don't mean to pile on, but at the risk of making a Super Bowl reference to a Bears fan, this is the last Open Championship that's coming here, but the events that are coming here, the USGA sponsors are the Super Bowl to the people who will be playing them. Could you describe the growing impression of the Junior Am, the Mid-Ams, all the Ams that will be coming this way and what they mean for the people who will be competing?

MIKE WHAN: Yeah, our championship strategy, outside of setup, our championship strategy is to provide the gold standard in the game no matter where you are in the game. If you're a junior, if you're a professional, if you're amateur, if you're a senior, if you're disabled. We really want to provide a gold standard event that you can chase if chase is part of your game.

We want to make sure when you show up at a U.S. Amateur, it doesn't feel like any other amateur you've played at or if you show up at the U.S. adaptive it doesn't feel like any other event you've played at.

So it's funny. A lot of people spend their time focused on the U.S. Open or the U.S. Women's Open or the U.S. Senior Open, but show up at a U.S. Junior Am, at a U.S. Senior Women's Am and tell me it's not the most important thing going on in their lives at that moment.

I've said this many times, as a failed football player, there is no Senior Am for washed-up quarterbacks. But in golf, no matter where you are on your journey, we're going to give you gold standard to pursue to have something competitive. And quite frankly, because they are truly open, you can pursue them if you've got the game to do that.

I think it's one of the things that separates our game. I spend a lot of time with other sports leaders in this job, and what really blows them away, more than the 47 million, which they would all kill for in terms of having the 47 million people that are actually playing the sport that they're putting on, is the fact that the people who play that sport have championships that they can dream of playing in, not just championships they can dream of watching.

I think people who are in this business and follow this business, we kind of forget that it's a secret special sauce of golf that really separates us from a lot of other sports.

Q. Mike, to follow up one of the earlier questions, in your time as LPGA commissioner, was there something you never got to, something you wish you could have done, a regret that you shared with Craig?

MIKE WHAN: My regret list is long as these guys know. Like any type A, I spend my time -- my wife always says, why do you work so hard to succeed and spend no time enjoying the success, because you're thinking about the thing that didn't.

When you asked that question, I think about starting the Founders Cup without a purse. What a great idea that was, until I actually told all the players about it. But it turned out to be fine, so it was great. But I made a lot of stupid mistakes.

But hopefully everybody would agree they were aggressive mistakes on the way, too. I really believed that I could get us a lot more network hours at the LPGA than I was able to get us. I really -- I've said this many times. I don't know if women's golf -- when somebody says to me, why doesn't women's golf play for more money? I would say, well, they generate about a fifth of the viewership of men's golf.

But they also get about a tenth of the network opportunities of men's golf. I am not really sure if chicken and egg. I'd love to have two seasons where women are on network TV for 37 weeks in a row and see what that looks like, but we never really had that opportunity. I have that regret.

But looking back, I loved my time there. I left because I really thought I'd achieved most of what I came to, and I really thought -- which is funny as we're talking about Craig. I remember saying to the board, we need the next young hyper, overcaffeinated person who's going to travel the world and attack this thing.

I started that job when I was 44, but by the time I left I felt it was time for somebody else. But no lack of belief in the women's game. No lack of belief in the talent of those athletes, and to be honest with you, the whole time I was commissioner, this was the pinnacle event.

It wasn't because Mike Whan thought that. It's because players on Tour would tell me that. If I could win one, I want to win this one. When I took this job, as I told Chip, one player said to me, just tell me when my pro-am is on Tuesday at the U.S. Open. I thought, ooh, I got you. That was a pretty loud message to me.

I wanted to. I really did. But no pro-am at the U.S. Women's Open.

But this is a special week, not just for us, but I can promise you those 156 women, this is -- the hardest part about this week will be keeping it in check because you want it so bad, and that's what's really makes it a great week.

BETH MAJOR: Thanks again for being here. Thanks for your coverage and your support of the championship. Mike, Shannon, thanks so much. We'll look forward to having a great week together.