Kerry Haigh, chief championship officer of the P.G.A. of America, is in charge of the setup this week. “We’ll have the fairways rolling fast, and that tends to make the ball go into the rough,” Harris said. “That’s the protection of the golf course. The people who drive the ball straight will do well.”
The course is set up with five sets of tees, each of which changes the length of the course. The first set, called One Birds, are for the pros, and they stretch the course to some 7,600 yards. At times, that’s even too much for some pros. Simpson said that in the winter — when it’s cold and the ball isn’t flying as far — he plays the Two Birds, which are just over 7,000 yards.
“It’s actually really fun,” Simpson said. “I love going up to the Two Birds. I play the Three Birds with a friend who is a plus-2 handicap. I drive it 30 yards past him. But it’s fun to see how different the course plays.” The Three Birds are 6,400 yards. Harris said he enjoys the Four Birds, which are 5,800 yards.
The only tournament where the course was radically different from what the members played was the 2022 Presidents Cup. Quail Hollow’s last three holes, known as the Green Mile, have decided many tournaments. In head-to-head competition, such as at a Presidents Cup, matches tend to be over before holes 16, 17 and 18. So the club switched the routing and put the finishing holes in at 10, 11 and 12.
There are challenges for the members. One of them is the different types of grass planted to suit different weather, a process called overseeding. For professional tournaments in May, the course gets overseeded with rye grass; by the hot summer months, it’s back to Bermuda grass. “The challenges come in the transitions,” said Tom Delozier, general manager of the club.
