Don't know if anyone has seen this, but this was in the Globe and Mail (that's the New York Times of Canada for those who don't know)....
Nothing goofy about Quail Hollow layout
By LORNE RUBENSTEIN
Saturday, May 10, 2003 - Page S4
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Here's the primary factor in producing a top-drawer PGA Tour event: Present a strong course with the feel of a major championship venue. The Wachovia Championship in its first year has done this at the Quail Hollow Club here.
"You could have a U.S. Open here tomorrow," Charles Howell III said. "It's definitely the toughest PGA Tour course I've played outside of a major. It's fantastic."
Everybody associated with the tournament, the club and the PGA Tour has to be thrilled with how players have reacted to Quail Hollow. Rarely are players united so positively about anything. The lesson is that as big as the purses are on the PGA Tour, the course does matter.
"It's a straightforward, honest golf course," said Nick Price, who leads the tournament at seven-under par 137. "There's no goofiness to it. There's such a variety out there. There's probably 80-90-100 feet of elevation change on the property. This lends itself to beautiful, rolling holes, downhill shots, uphill shots. There's not a bad hole out there."
Price did feel that a couple of greens looked contrived, but that was his only criticism. Price, a student of course design, worked with Tom Fazio on the new Macarthur Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Fla. He's an authority.
Fazio, as it happens, was hired in 1996 to improve Quail Hollow. Each member at this exclusive private club was assessed $30,000 for the work. They wanted the PGA Tour back at their club. The Kemper Open was held here for a decade, from 1969 to 1979, but the PGA Tour hadn't returned to the Charlotte area since then.
Fazio did quite a job. At 7,300 yards, the course is long enough so that, as Howell said, it will remain impervious to improvements in equipment; narrow fairways and high rough also help. But the updated Quail Hollow has even more going for it.
As Price noted, the topography has made for interesting and challenging holes. The greens have plenty of slope without being crazy with ridges and tiers, as so many hyper-modern courses are, and it's important to be able to work the ball. The golfer who wins tomorrow won't be a one-shot robot; Quail Hollow requires draws and fades, low and high shots.
The closing stretch of holes is tremendous. The 16th is a huge par-four of 478 yards, with a narrow fairway and trees on both sides; it used to be a driver-wedge hole. The entire course, in fact, is tree-lined, although some holes incorporate lakes.
The 17th is a brutal 217-yard par-three with water in front, to the left and behind. David Duval rinsed two balls there in the first round on his way to a score known in statistical categories as an "other," a quadruple-bogey seven.
As for the closing hole, it's about 480 yards. It has bunkers, thick rough, a new creek to the left, and a green with enough knobs and bumps to make anyone queasy. In fact, call this finishing hole 'The Big Queasy.'
The result of such a course is that players will want to return. Word will get out, so it should come as no surprise if Tiger Woods were to show up here, although he didn't enter this year. Ditto, Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson. Rich Beem, who won the 2000 PGA Championship, calls Quail Hollow "awesome."
So are the tournament's perks, which don't hurt its chances of drawing the top players. Each golfer is driving a brand-new Mercedes for the week. Well, each golfer but one. Mercedes policy forbids anybody 21 or younger from getting a loaner from a dealership, so 18-year-old Ty Tryon was Benzless.
But so what? Quail Hollow member Felix Sabates, a National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) team owner, loaned Tryon his black 2002, Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph for the week. The teenage Tryon has been trying it on, shall we say, and he likes it.
It's apparent, then, that everything at this new tournament is first-class. Why, the pros didn't even have to go through the harrowing experience of a six-hour pro-am round on Wednesday as part of a fivesome. They played with only two pro-am partners, in threesomes. Duval called it the "best pro-am experience I've had."
Fantastic, awesome, the best. Any company or city hoping to get a PGA Tour event, or to improve the one it has, should visit this event. It's new, but has already set the standard for every other PGA Tour event. Why, even the media shuttle to the hotel has been operating efficiently.