Can The PGA And Wells Fargo Event Co-Exist?

Now that the 2017 PGA Championship is official, there are a few things to consider. Among them:

-- It will look and feel very different from the Wachovia/Quail Hollow/Wells Fargo Championship if for no other reason than it will be played in August. It's going to be hot, humid and crowded.

The PGA isn't afraid of heat. It was over 100 at Southern Hills in Tulsa a few years ago and it's going to be a blast furnace in Atlanta and Kiawah Island the next two years. The larger worry here in 2017 may be afternoon thunderstorms, which if they get cranked up on a consistent basis can be a serious problem.

One of the charms of the PGA Tour event here is the weather. Even if it's warm, it's not dead of summer hot. It's easy to be outside. It will sweatier work to watch golf in 2017.

Plus, there will be thousands more spectators. There's no definitive word yet on how many fans will be on site daily but it's likely to be in the 45,000 range, a bump of 10,000 over the maximum on site during the Wells Fargo Championship.

-- Quail Hollow president Johnny Harris believes the club can keep its PGA Tour event if a sponsor is willing to sign on but it will mean moving it away from Quail Hollow in 2016 and 2017. He's suggested Pinehurst No. 2 as an option and, on the surface, that's a good idea. There are a million details to consider -- would Pinehurst even be interested is one, corporate hospitality sales are another -- but keeping the PGA Tour and its date here long-term is worth pursuing.

Word is PGA Tour officials weren't thrilled by the PGA announcement on Tuesday but they couldn't have been surprised. If there was a surprise, it's that the news of the deal finally being done didn't leak sooner. It wasn't completed until recently but it's been in the works for months.

-- There is some concern that the Wells Fargo Championship will feel devalued now that there's a major championship on the calendar. I don't think so.

It's one of the special events on the PGA Tour schedule and long before it rolls around next May, the focus and the excitement will be redirected at what's here, not what's coming. One of the reasons the PGA is coming to Quail Hollow is because of what's there now. If anything, the PGA announcement should enhance the spring tournament.

-- If you're wondering, ticket sales and volunteer sign-ups are years away. Corporate sales don't typically start more than three years out and tickets usually go on sale after that.

If you're considering calling the Wells Fargo Championship office to get on any early list, don't. They run the PGA Tour event and have nothing to do with the PGA Championship at this point.

'This is a big deal:' Charlotte to host major in 2017

Saying "Charlotte deserves this. Quail Hollow deserves it," PGA of America CEO Joe Steranka officially announced today that Quail Hollow Club will host the 2017 PGA Championship.

The Wells Fargo Championship will continue through 2014, but club president Johnny Harris said there have been no discussions about extending the PGA Tour event
though it remains a possibility.

Gov. Bev Perdue and Mayor Anthony Foxx were among the political leaders who attended the announcement.

"This is a big deal in North Carolina," Perdue said.

Said Tiger Woods, the world's top-ranked golfer: "Quail Hollow is an outstanding golf course that has the qualities to host a major. This is Charlotte's first major, and the people there, and in the surrounding areas, understand and appreciate great golf."

- Ron Green Jr.

If The PGA Comes To Quail What About...?

When it becomes official on Tuesday that Quail Hollow will host a future PGA Championship -- most likely in 2017 -- it will answer one question but raise others. Among the question that remain are:

-- What happens to the Wells Fargo Championship?

If Wells Fargo or another corporation wants to keep the tournament going beyond 2014 when the current contract expires, that could happen. But first a sponsor must agree to extend the tournament and that's not likely to happen until after the next round of television negotiations between the PGA Tour and the networks are complete.

The 2014 expiration date is as long as any tour event is locked in right now so the Charlotte event isn't staring at a deadline that other events don't have. Some aren't locked in that long. Greensboro was thrilled last week to announce an extension with Wyndham to 2012.

If the PGA Tour event were to continue, it would have to move at least one year (2017) because of the grass situation. They'll play a full bermuda grass golf course in August for the PGA. They play on overseeded rye in May for the tour event. They can't get the bermuda grown in early enough to play it in May and they can't kill out the rye and get the bermuda in well enough to be ready in August. The solution: Play elsewhere at least one year.

-- What about the greens?

When Phil Mickelson complained about the greens this year, he got the attention of many people. Course architect Tom Fazio has been on site and there are some changes in the works. There will be gentle changes to a couple of greens for next year but more dramatic changes likely down the line.

-- Will Quail stick with bentgrass greens?

Maybe the question is will any course around here stick with bentgrass greens much longer given the way the heat has tortured them this summer. Quail, like other courses, will look at other grasses including the new strains of bermuda. The club has the luxury of growing different grasses on practice greens to see how it does. Right now, getting the disease-plagued greens back in good shape is the priority at Quail Hollow.

-- How will a PGA Championship be different from the Wells Fargo Championship?

There will be more infrastructure, which means more corporate suites, a significnatly expanded merchandise area and, generally, more of just about everything. The PGA of America logo will be prominently displayed, a difference from the understated style of the tour event at Quail Hollow.

There won't be any questions about whether the top players will be at Quail Hollow. The PGA Championship annually has the strongest field of the four majors.

Here's Hoping The Heritage Is Just Getting Started

The official announcement today that the Heritage Classic will be played in 2011 is excellent news.

It doesn't draw the strongest field on tour but it has become, to use Davis Love III's words, an iconic event on the PGA Tour with its images of the lighthouse, Calibogue Sound and the Harbour Town Golf Links. Losing the Heritage would have been a huge loss for the PGA Tour.

There's still the significant issue of securing a title sponsor for 2012 and beyond, an effort that is ongoing, but locking down the 2011 date buys time to do that. Will a company decide it's worth the investment? Hopefully, but these are different times, in case you hadn't noticed.

The Heritage won't immediately follow the Masters next year but it will fall on Easter week, which should help the attendance while making getting a restaurant reservation even more difficult. In 2012, assuming the tournament continues, it will move back to the week after the Masters where it's a perfect fit.

It will be played the same week at the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf Champions Tour event in Savannah, Ga., next year, awkward bit of scheduling with two big events within a one-hour drive of each other. It's even closer if you're going by boat.

If you've ever attended the Heritage, you know why it's special. It's small, relaxed and the way a golf tournament should be. It's a pleasure to watch golf there. The crowds are good but it's never hard to see the action. The setting is superb and it falls at the perfect time for the island, the tour and the players.

It's been played 42 straight years at Harbour Town. I hope that's just the beginning.

Welcome To The Future: Cell Phones At Tour Events

A few thousand fans were gathered around the 18th green Sunday afternoon at Sedgefield Country Club as Arjun Atwal prepared to knock in the six-foot putt that won him the Wyndham Championship and something interesting happened.

Not a single cell phone rang.

Last week was the first official test of allowing cell phones -- or mobile devices as the signs on site called them -- into a PGA Tour event and it came off just fine. The silent buttons worked.

Cell phones ring at every PGA Tour event whether they've been allowed in or not. Fans bring them in and use them. By saying it was okay -- and using concession areas as acceptable places to take and make calls -- the Wyndham Championship took a gamble that phones wouldn't interrupt play.

They didn't.

That doesn't mean it won't happen at future events but it didn't happen last week.

My guess is the tour will give it another try somewhere this fall and, perhaps as early as next year, allow cell phones into events.

I'm enough of a traditionalist that the idea initially bothered me but I know we live in a different time. I carry my cell phone with me most places I go just in case I need it. Even on the golf course, though not always.

As Mark Brazil, the Wyndham tournament director and one of the people who promoted the idea, said, just because one person doesn't want cell phones at a golf tournament doesn't mean they should tell others they can't have them if they're not disrupting play.

Talking to several players about it last week, none seem bothered by allowing the phones in. They figure fans are bringing them anyway because they see -- and occasionally -- hear them. Times have changed. The tour has to change with them.

Tell a potential spectator he can't have his phone with him for the five or six hours he's going to watch a golf tournament and you're going to lose some spectators. That's not in anyone's best interest these days.

Will Tour Reshuffle Leave Hilton Head Out In 2011?

One question has been answered about the 2011 version of the PGA Tour's annual stop on Hilton Head Island -- it won't be played in its traditional spot the week after the Masters.

A second question remains: Will it be played at all?

Multiple outlets have confirmed that in 2011 the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio will be played the week after the Masters, taking the spot that has belonged to the event played at Harbour Town for years. If the Hilton Head event isn't the week after Augusta, when will it be played?

There are indications it will be played two weeks after the Masters -- April 18-24 -- if the PGA Tour and local organizers can finalize a deal to assure the tournament can continue. It has been without a title sponsor since Verizon announced it would end its agreement with the tournament after the 2010 event.

Simon Fraser, chairman of the Heritage Classic Foundation, was quoted recently saying the organization has secured enough money to assure the event will be played next year but he wouldn't say when. Tournament director Steve Wilmot was unavailable for comment late Thursday.

Next year, the calendar allows for three events between the Masters and the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow, one more than in recent years. That means that San Antonio and New Orleans will fill two spots but the middle one remains undetermined.

It has led to speculation that the Wyndham Championship, being played in Greensboro this week, could work its way into the mid-April spot if the Hilton Head tournament does not continue. Wyndham Worldwide announced this week it has extended its title sponsorship of the Greensboro event through 2012.

The PGA: Memorable For All The Wrong Reasons

I know Dustin Johnson did it to himself. The rules, strange as golf rules can be, were handed to him before the PGA Championship began and he didn't bother to read them. That doesn't make him different from most of the pros who tee it up week to week but it led to his awful gaffe Sunday at Whistling Straits.

The local rules were reportedly even taped to mirrors in the locker room to remind players to pay attention because Whistling Straits -- one wildly different place -- has more bunkers than can be counted and and everyone was forewarned.

But the way the PGA Championship ended was a mess and there was plenty of blame to pass around. Johnson is the guy who suffers the most though he deserves credit for taking questions and explaining what happened, no matter how embarrassed and angry and frustrated he must have felt. He could have skulked away but he didn't and, in the weird way sports works, he has thousands more fans today than he did two days ago.

But there's something about Whistling Straits that seems just too contrived for my taste. It's beautiful to look at but it strikes me as borderline goofy. It's the only place where I've covered a golf tournament and they handed out medical reports detailing how many spectators were injured trying to watch the action while climbing the manmade dunes.

It has a terrible finishing hole and the bunkering is over the top. Hundreds of them are on the course for effect, not actually considered to be play. That's why most of the bunkers aren't manicured and why Johnson didn't realize he was in a bunker on Sunday afternoon, since it had been filled with spectators moments earlier.

Here's another question: If you're going to have a rules official walking with the final group, shouldn't that person be there to advise a player if he's in a hazard? Especially at Whistling Straits, where no one's quite sure where the bunkers end and the rest of the course begins?

Johnson would have been wise to ask, obviously, but he didn't.

There was nothing wrong with what the PGA of America did in penalizing Johnson two strokes for grounding his club in a hazard. They followed the rules.

But the whole thing felt like a mess. The week started with the ugly Corey Pavin-Jim Grey episode and it ended with Martin Kaymer winning a tournament that will be remembered for what happened to Dustin Johnson.

It gave Whistling Straits a little piece of golf history. But not the kind anyone or any place can feel good about.