Quail Hollow Location for PGA Championship Sparks Controversy

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00:00Let's start here. I have seen so much bellyaching over the past couple days about this being at

00:08Quail Hollow. Now, I've heard all the excuses. They shouldn't play there because it's a regular

00:13stop on the PGA Tour. They shouldn't play here because of the course design. They shouldn't

00:18play here. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Keith, what is the deal

00:22here? I mean, we had the 17 PGA Championship. We've had President's Cups here. This is a great

00:28track. Why is everyone so upset that they're playing the PGA Championship here?

00:33Well, honestly, Mike, I think it really started with a little bit of confusion. I think people

00:38were upset that they didn't get an extra major championship venue, something different this

00:42year. And the media started bellyaching about that. They put it on social media. The next thing you

00:47know, that turned into like, this is the worst course in America. I mean, last time I checked,

00:51the guy that originally designed it designed the par three course at Augusta National, which is

00:55pretty good. So it's not the design so much, although that's kind of leaked in to the conversation

01:01and all of this. It's really just the fact that the PGA of America wanted to come here to the Harris

01:06family, to Quail Hollow Club, who loves to host big championships. You mentioned a couple of them

01:12already, a President's Cup, a 2017 PGA. And you know what? It's a good place to do it. You couldn't

01:18host something like this last week at the Wissahick, and you could barely get 20,000 people in there,

01:22let alone 100,000. This place is massive. It's like Augusta National, and it is a really nice

01:28track. It's 7,600 yards, par 71. It's going to test these guys. And if there's one thing, you know,

01:34along with that argument, everyone keeps talking about how the PGA Championship doesn't have an

01:38identity. Well, we don't have an identity crisis. The one thing the PGA Championship does is it

01:44rewards the best golfer on property that week, right? You have luck in the U.S. Open. You have,

01:50you know, course experience that kind of navigates people through the Masters.

01:54The PGA Championship, year in and year out, and think about it since we moved to May,

01:59Brooks, JT, I mean, the winners that we've been getting, you know, Xander last year,

02:03on the final putt, no less, right? This is a good championship on a great golf course.

02:09It certainly is. Now, that being said, we have been here a lot. Is there anything different

02:15this week for the PGA Championship that we should know about? And does any of this rain that we've

02:22had, is that going to continue on over the next four days? Or are we clear now of that?

02:26Michael, two very good questions. I'll start with the first one. Changes. This is only the second

02:32major championship that there's been a complete overseed of the golf course. And what do I mean

02:36by that? Well, we're in North Carolina in May, and it's going to be warm this weekend. But you know

02:40what? They haven't had a great growing season leading in. So we've got ryegrass rough. If you

02:45go back to that arid August 2017 PGA, the place was firm. It was fast. It was a brick. They had

02:51bermudagrass rough. Very difficult to predict how the ball is going to come out. And then the greens

02:56were absolutely unapproachable. The ball was bouncing everywhere. And you look at that leaderboard,

03:00you've got Kuchar, Reed, Kisner was leading after 54 holes. All short game specialists. This is not

03:062017. Let me repeat, not 2017. I haven't even gotten to the conditions yet. It's an overseed,

03:13right? The greens themselves, they are overseeded as well. The poetry, Alice, we see all the time,

03:18different places, Valspar, TPC Scottsdale, where they put it over the bermudagrass because it's

03:23dormant. So the golf course is going to look very, very pretty. It's like when we went back to

03:28Cognizant and all of a sudden they had the overseed. Now, what happened when we did that for that event

03:32down there at the champ course at PGA National? It got easier, right? This rough is way more

03:38predictable. And it's not nearly as long as they're writing, you know, 2.75 inches. It's an

03:43Irish 2.75 inches. We're nowhere near that length, Mike. It is not real. You know, like it is, it is

03:49not going to prohibit these guys from bombing away. And then the conditions themselves, they've gotten

03:54over five inches of rain in the last week. It is super, super soft out there. Now, the greens had been

04:01redone in 2023 and 2024. So they are harder than they normally would be with all of this rain and

04:07they have sub air systems. So the greens are like medium soft, but the grass, the fairways is all

04:13very, very soft underfoot.

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