The 100th PGA Championship will take place at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. Quail Hollow is a routine Tour stop for the Wells Fargo Championship, but has made some alterations to suit the PGA Championship.
The course was originally designed by George Cobb in 1961. Cobb has a lengthy list of courses he designed, but almost all of them were relegated to the Mid-Atlantic states of Virginia, North and South Carolina. His most prominent design is actually the par-3 course at Augusta National.
Arnold Palmer made modifications to Quail Hollow in 1986 and then Tom Fazio made alterations in the course in 1997 and 2003. The main changes for the PGA Championship is that Quail Hollow is going from rye grass to Bermuda which they feel will likely make the course play firmer. They also altered the 1st hole, turning it from a 418 yard par-4 into a 508 yard par-4. They also changed the par-5 5th hole into a par-4.
Over the years most players I’ve talked to like the layout of Quail Hollow, but aren’t always nutty about the conditions and generally dislike the green contours. While I think Arnold Palmer may be the most underrated golf course designer of my generation, if there’s one attribute to his designs it’s that he was very insistent on keeping the ball below the cup and often times used some extreme contours on the greens to get that point across. But, this is still a George Cobb design and given it was built in 1961, that’s an era when green contours were much more severe so I don’t think Mr. Palmer wanted to change that too much.
Despite the recent renovations, I do not expect the course to change that much. It will still be a ballstriker’s course and the 3-wood will be more important here than it is on most other Tour courses. It still favors the longer hitter, but if the course plays firmer with the Bermuda grass, it will allow for more shorter hitters to have a chance.
While I’m not overly nutty about the course itself, I think we could have the makings for a fantastic tournament with all of the top-10 players in the world starting to play fairly well, Spieth chasing for the career Grand Slam, the possible rise of Matsuyama in making claim to the #1 player in the world and Rory starting to heat up again. And I still project that the final critical hole on the course will be the par-4 18th hole.
PROJECTED WINNING SCORE: -11
3JACK’S FAVORITES
Rory McIlroy +700
Jordan Spieth +850
Dustin Johnson +1,100
Hideki Matsuyama +1,200
Rickie Fowler +1,600
Jon Rahm +2,200
3JACK’S DARK HORSE PICKS
Paul Casey +4,500
Daniel Berger +5,500
Zach Johnson +6,600
Brendan Steele +20,000
EXTREME DARK HORSE PICK
Luke List +35,000
3JACK
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