Quail Hollow proves again why it’s a perfect host for PGA Tour, Presidents Cup events
The United States team wasn’t the only entity with heavy expectations this weekend at the Presidents Cup.
Quail Hollow Club, the event’s host venue, promised a spectacle.
And like the American side so far, this gem on the south side of Charlotte delivered, both logistically for the patrons and guests, and on the course for the players themselves.
And the test of golf began early. As the wind whipped up late in Thursday’s first session, dark clouds formed to the west of Quail Hollow. The weather ultimately spared golfers — and tens of thousands of spectators — save for a few stray spits of water.
But not too long after the noticeable atmospheric shift, International team golfer Adam Scott was all wet, anyway.
Well, his ball was, at least.
With Scott and playing partner Hideki Matsuyama facing a three-hole deficit standing on the 11th tee, the Australian veteran of 10 Presidents Cups knew he needed to try and make something happen. So he pulled out his driver on the shorter-than-average par 4 hole — it measured just 348 yards tee-to-green on Thursday — and tried to make some magic happen.
Splash.
After taking a drop, Matsuyama pulled the next shot out of the rough and nearly put another in the water next to the green.
It didn’t matter. The U.S. team of Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele made a routine par, took a 4-up lead and then won the next two holes on the famed Green Mile to end the match, 6-and-5.
The U.S. won its first point about as early in the tournament as it could, and on its first true test of being a difference-maker, Quail Hollow simultaneously earned a win, as well.
“The golf course is absolutely incredible,” U.S. captain Davis Love III said before things really got going last week. “Everything that they built here is incredible.
And build, they did, adding 650,000-700,000 square feet of hospitality tents and the like surrounding the course on all sides. By comparison, the 2017 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow had 450,000 square feet of “raised floor.” An average Wells Fargo PGA Tour tournament — held at Quail Hollow in the spring — has 340,000.
“I’m a fan,” Love added. “I’m out there taking pictures of the course and sending it to my friends. Jay Haas sent us a video of the first tee two or three weeks ago to get the guys fired up.”
Quail Hollow Club president Johnny Harris called the build-out a quest for the “spectacular.”
By the time the golf world descended on the Charlotte course this week, it’s fair to say, in the structural sense, mission accomplished. Perhaps the biggest — and loudest — example was the stadium at the first tee, which even for Saturday morning’s 7:12 a.m. start was filled to capacity for each match. Familiar shouts of “Baba Booey,” ”Get in the hole,” and the oft-repeated “USA, USA, USA” rained down during each tee time — after the players struck their shots, of course.
As play progressed during the tournament, beginning with that simple, match-turning splashdown from Scott and Matsuyama on Thursday, Quail Hollow proved that the “spectacular” was much more than just an infrastructure upgrade.
The Green Mile effect
That the mayhem truly started on the back nine Thursday — and at the outset of the course’s famed “Green Mile” — was fitting. And it’s exactly what tournament organizers hoped would happen when they made the choice to reroute the course for this event.
So, what is the “Green Mile”?
Normally playing as Holes 16-18 on the traditional Quail Hollow course, the Green Mile is named after the 1999 film of the same name starring Tom Hanks. It was coined as a testament to the holes’ difficulty. The starter is a 506-yard par-4, with the green protected to the left by a lake and a large bunker in line of the most aggressive tee shots. Next is a 229-yard par-3 that features a green guarded in front and to the left by the same lake.
The third hole in the stretch is a 494-yard par-4 that has a creek running down the left side (though visually it bisects your view) of the hole, and nasty bunkers on the right side of the fairway and short of the green.
This week, though, instead of playing at 16-17-18, those holes are 13-14-15. The goal, organizers said, was to bring them into play earlier in the match-play format of the Presidents Cup.
While Scott’s shot into the water technically happened before the start of the “Green Mile,” the match ended on that stretch’s first leg, Hole 13, when the Americans made par to the International team’s bogey.
The rest of the matches Thursday did make it through the entirety of the Green Mile. And ironically enough, it was that stretch that helped the International side keep things close in each match, despite the day’s final score registering a bit lopsided in favor of the U.S.
All five matches in Session 1 favored the U.S. before each group reached the Green Mile. As each emerged from Hole 15, four of the matches were either tied, or the U.S. held a slim lead. The back nine is where the International side made up ground. Hole 15 is where the match swung in favor of Si Woo Kim and Cam Davis, earning the International team’s lone point Thursday. Taylor Pendrith and Mito Pereira squared their match with Tony Finau and Max Homa on that stretch, too, though the Americans came back to win.
The International team’s success on the back nine — and in particular the Green Mile stretch — extended into Friday and Saturday, as well. Despite the overall team score heavily favoring the Americans, Quail Hollow’s signature stretch kept things close in most individual matches.
On wind and a prayer
Quail Hollow’s bite comes from more than just a stretch of three holes, and it’s more than just a question of a tough layout.
The course itself is truly a “hollow,” a geographical depression in the land. Given the layout, the shape of the fairways and the natural surroundings, when the wind picks up, it can create havoc.
That happened Thursday to Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas.
“We got the brunt of some weather, and I hit a ball in the water, where if I keep it in play we win the hole,” Spieth said. “Instead, we tie. We just kind of had to hang in there.”
That was just the beginning.
As the temperature dropped from Thursday’s high in the mid-90s to Friday’s mid-70s, the wind became an equalizer. Flags atop the first tee stadium flipped and flapped straight enough to show that each is adorned with a golden likeness of the tournament trophy.
Among the gallery early on Friday, windbreakers and long pants replaced Thursday’s preferred attire of shorts and sweat-soaked polo shirts. Patrons who had imbibed adult beverages to keep cool on Thursday, did so Friday convincing themselves it would then keep them warm.
On the course, the wind forced golfers to play shots to tight pin positions differently than they otherwise might have.
“We’ve seen a lot of high-level, competitive golf played on this golf course,” International team Captain Trevor Immelman said this week. “So there’s really no surprises. From all the Wells Fargos we’ve seen, the PGA Championship, it’s a course that tests every part of your game.”
On Friday, the wind was a factor again early, though some golfers embraced it.
“It was awesome,” International rookie Christiaan Bezuidenhout said. “Stepped on the first tee this morning, crowd was loud, wind was good.”
Others were mystified early by the swirling breeze. On the second hole of the first match out, Thomas and Spieth both came up way short and right of the green on the par-4 hole. After hitting his shot, which mirrored Spieth’s, Thomas put his hands on his hips with an incredulous expression. He reached down and pulled a tuft of grass from the ground and tossed it into the air, perplexed as he watched the wind carry it backward.
Spieth and Thomas scrambled to halve the hole, won the next two and never looked back.
But wind or no, rain or no, Quail Hollow has proven itself a worthy adversary, just as it does every year for the Wells Fargo, just as it did for the 2017 PGA Championship, and just as it almost assuredly will in 2025 when it again hosts the PGA Championship.
Said Immelman: “I’ve got to tip my cap to the PGA Tour and to the Harris family for everything they’ve done.”
This story was originally published September 25, 2022 at 5:45 AM.
