KPMG WOMEN'S PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

June 17, 2025

Liz Moore

Paul Knopp

Derek Sprague

Fields Ranch East

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us this week for the 2025 KPMG Women's PGA Championship. On behalf of the PGA of America, welcome to Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco.

Before the world's best tee off Thursday morning at 7:00 a.m., we're very fortunate to spend some time today with KPMG U.S. chair and CEO Paul Knopp, PGA of America CEO Derek Sprague, and LPGA Commissioner Liz Moore.

We're pleased to be joined in the room by PGA of American president Don Rea Jr., vice president Nathan Charnes, as well as KPMG deputy chair and COO Laura Nowinski, KPMG chair and CEO elect Tim Walsh, KPMG national managing partner elect Atif Zaim, and the next chair of KPMG's Americas region Will Williams, and former chair and CEO of KPMG John Veihmeyer.

And we're also pleased to be joined by current PGA of America's COO and incoming LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler. Thank you all for being here.

Paul, let's kick things off with you. I understand we have very exciting breaking news regarding this year's purse. Please share.

PAUL KNOPP: We do. We love to set the standard of excellence for women's championship golf. We couldn't be prouder to do that. In connection with that objective, this year the purse is going to be $12 million for these amazing female athletes that compete on the LPGA Tour, and we could not be prouder to continue that goal to ensure that we drive excellence in women's golf.

THE MODERATOR: That's great. Very exciting, Paul. KPMG continues to set the standard for excellence in women's golf.

Thanks to KPMG's investment, this championship is the most tech-forward event on the LPGA Tour. With that, AI is also a big focus for KPMG. Paul, can you please share how KPMG is bringing AI to this championship?

PAUL KNOPP: Sure. This is what we do for a living. We absolutely help the world's leading organizations with solving their problems through technology and AI, and we're bringing that to the women of the LPGA Tour. What that means is that we have KPMG Performance Insights, which is our data and analytics platform that gives the women of the Tour shot-level data, just like the men have, integrated with the ChampCast system, so that they have realtime information to help evaluate, assess, and know how they're performing on the golf course.

There's also predictive capabilities so they can understand how they're performing relative to their colleagues on the course. Of course we integrate that too into the studio for NBC Peacock and for the Golf Channel to be able to do predictive things around how the course is playing.

Importantly this year, there's something called the Daily Recap Report, which every player has access to. It shows each player how each and every hole is playing so, if they need to adjust their strategy, they can do that through the course of the day.

It's exciting technology. It's all AI-driven, and we're really proud to bring it to the LPGA Tour and to this championship.

THE MODERATOR: That's great. We understand broadcast coverage has expanded for this year's championship.

PAUL KNOPP: There's approximately 100 hours of coverage this year in total, and that includes the live broadcast coverage, includes the streaming coverage, and this year there's some ancillary coverage that includes the pairings that will be on Peacock -- the featured groups, I should say, will be on Peacock. So that's really exciting for this year.

THE MODERATOR: Next we'll go to PGA of America's CEO Derek Sprague. The KPMG Women's PGA Championship is established as one of the marquee events. What's it like to be hosting this event at PGA Frisco, the home of PGA of America for the first time?

DEREK SPRAGUE: We're thrilled to have it in our backyard here at PGA Frisco in the home of PGA of America, and to have the most prestigious event here with partners like KPMG and the LPGA really elevating the women's game.

To see where it's come in the last 10 or 11 years is just really incredible with the support of you and the LPGA as well, Liz. It's just been a remarkable run.

It wouldn't be possible without great local partners as well, like Omni, the City of Frisco, and the Frisco ISD. We built that into our plan here, our long-term plan to bring many championships here. When you think about it, we had our Senior PGA Championship here in '23, and now we've got the women's, and we'll have the men's here in '27.

So three majors in four years in the city of Frisco, we can't do that alone. It takes a village to host all these events.

We're just absolutely thrilled this year to be hosting the best players in the game on the women's tour.

THE MODERATOR: Derek, part of the commitment with this championship is taking it to storied golf courses around the country.

DEREK SPRAGUE: Yeah, so when you look at where we've been and where we're going, okay, next year we're at Hazeltine in 2026. They held the 2002 PGA Championship, 2009 Championship, the 2019 KPMG Women's PGA. I played with Hannah Green today, who won there. That was really cool.

The 2016 Ryder Cup, and they'll be going back there in '29. So really incredible.

Then in '27 we'll be going to Congressional. Just a historic site. Just came from there, from our PGA Senior Championship. Hosted three U.S. Opens there. We got the 2030 PGA Championship there and the '37 Ryder Cup.

So really when we worked in our early days with LPGA and KPMG, it was really about elevating the women's game not only inside the ropes but outside the ropes. This was our commitment to make sure they play the same great venues that the men do on the men's tour. So we're super excited.

THE MODERATOR: Derek, we know that PGA of America is committed to both growing the game and leaving a lasting legacy in the local communities with the championship host sites. Can you tell us about a special announcement the PGA of America and KPMG are making today?

DEREK SPRAGUE: This is just incredible what KPMG is doing to give access to junior golfers, boys and girls, around the country. We have this great junior program called PGA Junior League where over 77,000 kids participated last year in 2024. Then we're also trying to give kids more access.

So we partnered with KPMG, and we're going to do what we call our Opportunity Leagues, and they're going to sponsor 10 Opportunity Leagues in major markets where we've held our championships, and it's going to give kids access to getting on golf courses and playing the game.

It's partners like KPMG that we can count on to help us with our mission at the PGA of America.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Derek. Now we'll go to LPGA interim commissioner Liz Moore. Liz, can you tell us about the impact partners like KPMG and the PGA of America have had on setting the standard of he excellence in women's golf?

LIZ MOORE: First, thank you for having me, and thanks, everybody, for being here. This year we're celebrating the 75th anniversary of the LPGA Tour, the longest running women's professional sports organization in the world. We couldn't do that without celebrating the partners that made that milestone possible.

KPMG and PGA of America didn't just support this championship, they really sparked a movement in women's golf years ago. Before the current movement in women's sports that we're seeing they had the vision.

Not only has the KPMG Women's PGA Championship established a bar, but it has elevated the game. And not just because of the world class competition that we have playing this week, which is amazing, a $12 million prize purse, tied for the highest in all of women's professional golf, expanded broadcast coverage, the most on the LPGA Tour this season, and as Paul said, a commitment to innovating year over year to elevate this game.

This year with the AI-powered performance insights, that's really bringing hopefully all of you, the media, as well as our fans and players closer to the action and elevating the sport literally in real time.

Beyond the championship itself, actually growing the game and the shared values that we have. Women are the highest growing segment in golf today, and this championship allows those young women and girls that are entering the game to see a future for themselves in the sport.

And supporting this championship also shines a lot on the LPGA -- thousands of LPGA professionals and PGA of America professional that's are teaching the game in communities around the world and in our country every day.

We couldn't be prouder to stand alongside them and to continue to deliver excellence in women's golf and grow the game that we all love together with them beside us.

THE MODERATOR: Liz, the KPMG Women's PGA Championship annually features one of the strongest fields in women's golf. What are your thoughts on this week's field?

LIZ MOORE: I thought about the question, and I decided that really the numbers probably tell the story better than my thoughts.

This week we have the entire top 100 players in the current CME Race to the Globe standings in the field.

We have 12 past KPMG Women's PGA champions teeing it up.

We have 24 major champions with us this week.

Let's see, we've got 10 teaching professionals with us, five of them LPGA professionals and three of them dual PGA of America members.

And the players in the field this week represent 26 different countries, which we are really proud of on the LPGA, and shows the diversity and the wide reach of the LPGA and women's golf.

I'm sure that our championships officer Kerry Haigh is going to have the course set up to put this master class of competitors to a real test, and I think we're all in for a very exciting week of golf.

Again, setting the standard on the LPGA and in women's professional golf competition.

Q. Derek, you viewed this course for a long time as a club pro at Sawgrass. Now you've been here for six months. Just wondering, this is going to host 24 or whatever events in its turn, major championship events. What's your thoughts, first, from being a club pro, and now being the CEO for six months?

DEREK SPRAGUE: Yeah, it's an incredible layout here, both courses, the East and the West; championship level on both courses. Played the East this morning in the Pro-Am, and it's going to be just a tremendous test for not only LPGA but the PGA professionals. It was for the seniors two years ago, and it will be in '27 for the best male players in the game.

If we have a little of that Texas wind out there like we experienced this morning, that makes it a little bit more challenging. As Liz said, Kerry will have it set up to test the best players in the world, whether they're males or females. I think it's going to be a great venue and a great market.

Dallas and Frisco love their sports here, and the PGA of America is the major league sports team for this region. We're just proud to have that moniker and have it right here at the home of the PGA of America. So we're really excited.

Q. Is that one of the advantages for you guys here, you can set it up for men, you can set it up for women, you set it up 52 weeks of the year for people just happy to break 100? Is that an advantage for you?

DEREK SPRAGUE: Yeah, absolutely. And bringing multiple championships here gives us the advantage of learning the traffic flows and the pedestrian flows and how we're going to set it up. And our partners at NBC and Golf Channel, they'll know where to put the TV towers.

So there's some economies of scale, if you will, of having multiple events here sort of as an anchor site. And that's whether it's our PGA Junior League finals that we'll host here in the fall and bring in all those kids and families here, as well as the best players in the women's game.

So it really is going to bode well for the PGA of America and all the competitors that come here.

Q. Derek, I know this will be an anchor site. Is there a plan to have a rotation of anchor sites, something similar to what the USGA is doing?

DEREK SPRAGUE: No. We look for championship venues -- what a lot of people don't understand is, when you're selecting sites, a lot of times it's more what's outside the ropes than what's inside the ropes.

Do we have space for hospitality? Do we have space for TV compounds? What's the infrastructure for parking? What's the traffic flow?

It all starts, though, inside the ropes, making sure we have championship sites. For this week's championship, we wanted to make sure that the women were competing at the same sites as the men do to test the best women golfers in the world.

Again, as we look forward, we don't have any plan to have any anchor sites per se, but being the home and our home quarters here, as our president, Rea, likes to say, this obviously is a natural anchor for us to be here for multiple championships, and we do more than just our spectator championships. Like I said, our Junior League and our PGA Works championships and our PGA professional championships that we have, we have a number of them here.

It's just nice we've got all of our team here, 50-plus employees and our championship management department. This is great. We've got storage on site. So there's a lot of benefits to having an anchor site for multiple events that we host.

Q. In terms of outside the ropes, though, it's looking like this week you're going to have big numbers or maybe record numbers in terms of hospitality, in terms of local engagement. What does it tell you about the commitment of the PGA with women's golf and kind of your relationship with the LPGA, the future with Congressional, with Hazeltine?

DEREK SPRAGUE: The one thing we're proud of, and, and Liz touched on it and we talked about this earlier today, we're about 10 years ahead of the curve for women's sports, which we're really proud of.

And certainly women's golf. As Liz said, the largest, fastest growing segment for the recreational golfers is women, and juniors is next. So that's a proud testament.

Then here, like I said, the sports fans in this region, they love their golf as well as all the other major league teams here, and I think we've seen that with the hospitality.

KPMG has great presence here in this market, and they're bringing a lot of their clients out this week. You saw the hospitality that they built. I think that's going to just continue to build over time as we bring multiple events here. So we're looking forward to that.

Like you said, it's been very positive, and it's going to be a great week for golf.

Q. Does it resonate with your women members? Do they feel like it's a big commitment?

DEREK SPRAGUE: Oh, absolutely, males and females. We have 30,000-plus PGA professionals, and it's our mission to grow the game and to serve our members. That's what we do at the PGA of America. This is just a further commitment.

KPMG has been groundbreaking in this area, like I said, for 10-plus years, and we were glad to hold their hands and hold the LPGA's hands and grow women's golf at a professional level. We're proud over the last 10 years we've been on this trajectory that's been incredible.

PAUL KNOPP: We certainly have tried to be a catalyst for change in the game of women's golf. It's been an 11-year journey. I mentioned the purse has risen 430 percent in just those 11 years. So we're really proud of that.

We're mostly proud of the partnership we have with the LPGA Tour, the PGA of America, what we're accomplishing together to ensure that at this time in history, when women are really enjoying a moment in sports, that the LPGA Tour is a big part of that. That's absolutely part of what we're trying to accomplish.

Q. Liz, you mentioned the LPGA professionals in the field. Can you just speak to how important that arm of the LPGA organization is for growing the game on a global level?

LIZ MOORE: Absolutely. Like I said, this event, supporting this event supports those professionals, supports growing the game. We have thousands of LPGA professionals, many of them dual members with the PGA of America. Those are really the people that are out teaching the game.

All of those people that are entering the game in droves, they're teaching it to them in their communities day in and day out. They're really expanding access of the game. They are inspiring our juniors and our youth to pick up the game and participate in the game. They're really shaping the game that we all love for the future today.

They are the catalysts that are driving it forward in the amateur game and for the youth, which is, as Derek said, the second highest growing segment in the sport. So we need them, and they're incredibly important to what we do, particularly at the LPGA, our professionals group.

Q. We have Craig in the room here with us. Why do you think he's the right guy for the job? Derek, what's losing a guy like that do to you?

DEREK SPRAGUE: Ladies first.

LIZ MOORE: Well, I was not on the search committee, but I do understand that they did quite the diligent work. I can just tell you that my personal interactions with Craig so far have been nothing short of exciting, motivating.

I have never seen someone more excited and more energized and ready to go. He asks a ton of questions, which is fantastic. He knows the golf community. He understands the sport. He is a relationship person through and through, and he's got a lot of ideas, walking in the door with a lot of ideas.

But again wants to understand. As you might imagine, we are speaking frequently and texting all hours, so he's already getting up to speed. Our entire team is really excited for him to get going and for us to take the LPGA into the next 75 years of growth.

DEREK SPRAGUE: For Ben obviously it's bittersweet and Craig, but we've been spending a lot of hours before the decision was made, and as he contemplated this move. I think what comforts me, and I think maybe comforted Craig, is that we continue to get to work together.

When you take this championship this week, I said, Craig, it's not just about this championship working together, it's everything we talked about, about growing the women's game, whether juniors or opportunity leagues with KPMG and then all our PGA and LPGA professionals, what more can we do together to really elevate women in sports, particularly, women in golf and girls' golf and stuff like that.

I look forward to working closely with Craig, and it will probably be, hopefully the LPGA and the folks in the LPGA here, we're going to have a close relationship because of Craig's leadership.

He's an incredible business executive. We're going to be bouncing ideas off one another, how we can help the LPGA and how they can help the PGA of America. That's going to be great for the game at the end of the day.

We're super excited for him. Bittersweet to see him going, but I'm sure I'll see him quite frequently at different events.

LIZ MOORE: And we're happy to welcome him as he goes.

Q. There's been a lot of build-up about this golf course for several years now. To have it starting to come to fruition from a championship or a major perspective, what is the excitement level for all of you? I know you guys are trying to evolve nationally, but this has been a hotbed for creating golf over the last several years. What do you think it will do for golf here in north Texas?

DEREK SPRAGUE: I think it's great you have the No. 1 player in the game at the men's level based in Dallas here. That's helped, quite frankly, for people that are core golfers and golf fans to learn it's just great history here in the state of Texas. Just great golfers, more than Scottie Scheffler, but great history on the men's and women's side.

We saw at the past Champions Dinner last night, there was three or four past champions from Texas in the women's game. So incredible history here in the state of Texas.

Then for this particular property, it came out of the gates, and it came out of the gates fast. Thousands of golfers have flocked here to test it out because of our championships here and the home of the PGA of America and the desire to see what it's all about as we lead up to this championship and the '27 championship.

Talking to the caddies this morning, I asked them the feedback. I said, what's the feedback on the courses here? They said, it's just tremendous and very positive. They said, I'm not paid to tell you that, which was great, because the caddies spend four or five hours with the resort guests. I've had some colleagues of mine come here and play both golf courses down here and enjoy the Omni Hotel here, and I said, give me your direct feedback because this is an important relationship with Omni and the golf course here and the city of Frisco, and they said, I've got to tell you, this is just a great destination for golf.

I think, as that word continues to get out, it's still a baby here. It's two or three years old. We had our open in '23. When you think about it, and I'll tell you, folks here in the Frisco and Dallas region, in '27 you'll have had three majors in four years. When you take some of the best golf courses in the world, it takes three or four decades to have three majors, and the PGA of America is delivering three majors on three different tours right here in a four-year time span. That is a testament of the two championship layouts here and, in particular, Fields Ranch East.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Paul, Derek, and Liz. We appreciate your time. Have a great week, everybody.