With a month to go, 4 things to know about the PGA Championship in Charlotte
While the golf world focuses on the Masters this weekend, the course at Quail Hollow is getting ready for its own closeup.
The PGA Championship, the second major of 2025, is now roughly a month away and will be contested at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. Tournament week starts May 12, with the four competitive rounds being played May 15-18. The field will include almost all of the world’s top golfers and is expected to attract more than 200,000 spectators over the course of the week.
This is the second time that Quail Hollow Club has hosted the PGA Championship, which is one of golf’s four majors. The first was in 2017, when Justin Thomas won it.
I spoke to Kerry Haigh, the chief championship officer for the PGA of America, recently about the tournament. Based on that conversation and some Observer research, here are four things to know about this PGA Championship with one month to go.
How to get PGA Championship tickets
PGA Championship tickets are starting to get scarce, particularly for the competition days. Saturday May 17 — which will be the third of the four competitive rounds — was the first to sell out. Friday came next. Now, Sunday May 18 — championship day — is all but gone, too.
Tickets still remain for Thursday ($237 each) and can also be bought at generally higher prices Friday through Sunday on the resale market. If you want a cheaper alternative, check out a PGA Championship practice round Monday through Wednesday (May 12-14). Those tickets are as low as $76 (for Monday). An off-site parking pass also is available, for $19. It includes a shuttle bus ride to and from Quail Hollow that takes around 20 minutes, depending on traffic.
What else do you get for a ticket?
Almost every ticket sold to this PGA Championship is designated as “Championship Plus.” The idea with this is to cut down on the long concession lines that sometimes snake through any crowded golf course at peak hours of a tournament. With Championship Plus, a traditional “grounds ticket” now includes all-inclusive food and non-alcoholic beverages. You still have to pay for a beer separately, but most other concession items are included in the price of each ticket.
This should allow fans to see more golf per hour on the course.
“We’ve found that this gets people to spread out their eating throughout the day,” Haigh said, “so it’s not necessarily a lunchtime thing for everybody anymore — because you can always go back if you want to.”
An important note: Cellphones are allowed every day on the course for the PGA Championship, with a few common-sense restrictions in place.
What’s the biggest difference this time around?
The last time the PGA Championship was held in Charlotte was 2017. Eight years is a long time and so there are a few differences, certainly: Organizers didn’t worry nearly as much about ride-share last time around, because Uber and Lyft weren’t so baked into the American fan experience at the time. Now the drop-off location for those should be more convenient.
But the biggest difference is probably the time of year. Last time the tournament was held in August, which as any Charlottean knows feels like the hottest month of the year. Now it will be held in May, when the average high temperature is 80 degrees. “We find that the May date has more comfortable temperatures, generally speaking,” Haigh said.
Free bottled water stations will dot the course to keep fans hydrated.
What golfers are coming?
Almost every golfer in the top 100 generally shows up for the PGA Championship, which begins with a field of 156 golfers. That means that Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele (2024 winner) and Thomas — all in the current top 10 — should be in Charlotte, as well as many more. The tournament will have a better field than Charlotte’s usual PGA event, the Truist Championship, because that event is not a major.
The Truist Championship this year is being played in Pennsylvania because Quail Hollow is hosting the PGA. It will return to Charlotte in 2026.
This story was originally published April 10, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
