Wells Fargo Championship, with new date, still draws strong field

 

When the PGA Tour temporarily moved the date of the Wells Fargo Championship back two weeks, there were concerns that the switch might affect the quality of the tournament's field.

 

Some of those worries came from within the tournament offices at Charlotte's Quail Hollow Club.

 

Reasons were as easy as looking at a calendar. After years of falling during the first week of May, the tournament had been switched to the middle of the month, directly following two of the tour's more prestigious events, the WGC-Cadillac Match Play and The Players Championship.

 

Players would likely be exhausted and looking for a break after those high-pressure tournaments – both of which also closely followed the Masters.

 

Hence the worry for the Wells Fargo tournament, which over its 13-year history has developed a reputation for attracting high-quality fields.

 

"I'm not sure there wasn't reason for that," Executive Director Kym Hougham said of the doubts. "Now it's turning out they weren't as significant as we thought they'd be."

 

When world No. 1 Rory McIlroy committed to play at Quail Hollow late last week, it brought to eight the number of top 20 players committed to the tournament, including No. 3 Henrik Stenson and No. 5 Jim Furyk. Crowd favorites Adam Scott (No. 9) and 18th-ranked Phil Mickelson will also play.

 

Hougham credits the Quail Hollow course and the tournament's sterling reputation with players for maintaining the field's high quality. But Hougham also spends time traveling to tournaments talking to players and their agents.

 

"Everybody calls it recruiting, but it's not," Hougham said. "The way golf is changing globally, we either fit in their schedule or we don't. And the purse doesn't have anything to do with it any more. When the money increased, golfers actually started playing less, not more."

 

Some notable players won't be at Quail Hollow, including Tiger Woods, Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler and Masters champion Jordan Spieth.

 

Woods' "Tiger Jam" fundraiser is scheduled for this week in Las Vegas, an event he wouldn't miss. Spieth, who lives in Texas and has been playing every week, will be home preparing for the next two tournaments on the schedule, both of which are in the Dallas area.

 

"When I talk to players, it's more about relationship building," Hougham said. "They don't like to say no. So they usually say they like our tournament, and if it works out, they'd love to be here.

 

"I talk to them as much as I can. But I don't want to badger them so much that the next time they see me they turn and run."

 

The Wells Fargo's date was moved to accommodate a scheduling change for the Match Play, which was held two weeks ago in San Francisco.

 

"We took one for the team," Hougham said.

 

The Wells Fargo returns to its early May spot in 2016 (and back to the week before The Players). The tournament moves to Wilmington's Eagle Point Golf Club in 2017 as Quail Hollow prepares to host that year's PGA Championship.

 

This article was written by David Scott from The Charlotte Observer and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.