Wachovia Championship has its perks, but course speaks for itself  PGATOUR.com Chief of Correspondents CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Sure, the courtesy cars are some of the finest Mercedes-Benz has to offer. And even the winning caddy gets to drive one the following year. These guys who are good are no strangers to luxury automobiles, though. That's certainly not why 27 of the top 30 players in the world have come to Charlotte this week to play in the Wachovia Championship.  Jim Furyk says any time there's a great course with great players and a lot of money, he's there. (Ehrmann/WireImage)
It's not the laundry service, child care or that barber cutting hair in the locker room, either. Hardly. Other PGA TOUR events go to similar lengths to entice the game's best players to spend a week in their neighborhoods. Not every locale can boast a venue of the caliber of Quail Hollow, though. The George Cobb creation twice renovated by the brilliant Tom Fazio is hand's down the reason most frequently cited when players are asked why they are here. "It's a simple equation," defending champion Jim Furyk said. "It's played on a very, very good golf course. It gets a very, very strong field and always has a very big purse. Those three ingredients make a pretty darn good golf tournament. "It's a tough, penalizing but fair, fun golf course. Everyone likes playing the golf course. You never hear guys complain about it." Maybe it's a case of which came first -- the chicken or the egg? "But if you tell me you get to play on a great golf course against the best players and you get to play for a lot of money, I think I'm going to show up," Furyk said. Quail Hollow is what brought Tiger Woods, the No. 1 player in the world, to Charlotte for the third time in the tournament's five-year history, although the chance to play in Wednesday's pro-am with his buddy Michael Jordan was a nice perk. "When you have a great golf course the guys will come, and this is one of the neat golf courses we get to play all year,' Woods explained. "It's straightforward, right in front of you. You have to shape the ball both ways, and on top of that, you've really got to putt here. "I think a lot of the guys thoroughly enjoy playing a golf course where you have to maneuver a golf ball. You don't step up and just hit it with no game plan, you've got to actually think about what you're doing and how you're going to execute because if you don't, more likely you're going to be making bogey or worse." The final three holes at Quail Hollow -- two demanding par 4s sandwiched around a delicate par 3 guarded by water -- consistently rank among the toughest on the PGA TOUR. The aggregate total of the last three years ranks the trio as the most difficult at .974-over par. "Yeah, 16, 17, 18 is probably the toughest finishing stretch that I can think of," Phil Mickelson said. "(No.) 16 is not as penalizing because there's no water like 17 and 18. (At) 17, I've had many times where I've landed a ball on the front third of the green and watched it roll over the back into the water, and so that is just a very difficult hole to hold the green." Mickelson went on to call the treacherous 17th a "kind of (par) 3 1/2 hole, where if you make par it's close to a birdie." Just ask Jerry Kelly, David Duval, Joel Kribel, Brad Faxon and James Driscoll -- who hold the dubious record for high scores there of 7s. Retief Goosen lost his chance at victory when he made a 9 at the 18th hole last year while David Toms, the 2003 Wachovia Championship winner, survived an 8 there in the fourth round of his title tilt. As treacherous as those finishing holes can be, though, Lucas Glover thinks it's just as important to play the third through the seventh holes well. The first two are well-served by pars, as is No. 6, but taking advantage of the par-5 fifth and seventh is key. "Starting on the front is an advantage because you can get under," Glover said. "If you start on the back, you've got (16, 17, 18) right in the middle and they can either make or break a round in my opinion. But I think the 3-through-7 stretch is very important because you can attack a little bit." As much as the players like Quail Hollow, though, it inexplicably doesn't make the annual must-play lists of the various golf magazines. Maybe the "experts" doing the judging need to re-evaluate their criteria. "You know, all you've got to do is look at the list of guys that are here, and you ask every one of them why they're here (and it's) the golf course is awesome and they treat us great," Glover said. "Seldom do we hear the other way around in my opinion. "But I don't know how it's not in the Top 100, but it's not. Maybe we'll invite them down for this week and let them see how it looks. |
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