Johnny Harris remembers the day, the moment and the very clear message being delivered to him as both a reminder and a challenge. The year was 2011 and Harris and his decades-long friend Arnold Palmer were saying their goodbyes in the parking lot at Quail Hollow Club. Before getting in his car and driving off, Palmer rested his immense hands upon Harris’ shoulders and looked his friend in the eyes.
“The last time he was here, he played with me and his grandson (Sam Saunders) in the (Wells Fargo Championship) pro-am, just the three of us,” Harris recalls. “When we finished and he was getting ready to go the airport, he grabbed me outside the car, and he put his hands on me and he said, ‘I know you know your mother and father would be proud, but what I want you to understand is that greatness is always under construction.
“Don’t you ever back off making this a great place and a great place for the game.”
Longtime President of Quail Hollow Club, Harris not only understood, but he had seen enough examples of excellence in his time to feel comfortable continuing a journey he already had embraced, a journey that his father James J. Harris started when he founded the club – with support from Palmer – in 1959. It’s a journey that continues to this day, one in which Quail Hollow is recognized as an acclaimed anchor site for some of the game’s grandest events.
Quail Hollow Club returns to the spotlight when it welcomes the 107th PGA Championship May 12-18, and true to his philosophy and the lasting instructions from Palmer, Harris has done everything he can think of to make the event a success. Host of a PGA TOUR event since 2003, popular among players and fans alike, and for the last few years an elite signature event, Quail Hollow stages its second PGA Championship in eight years.
Justin Thomas authored a heartwarming story in 2017, capturing his first major title with a final-round rally culminating in an emotional hug with his father Mike, a PGA of America Master Professional and former PGA of America board member.
In between, in 2022, Quail Hollow was the site of the 14th Presidents Cup, and that, too, produced a wonderful storyline. Charlotte native Davis Love III, also the son of a PGA of America Golf Professional and the 1997 PGA Champion, captained the U.S. Team to its ninth straight victory over a squad of international players. The result was especially pleasing to Harris, who had been taught the game by Love’s father, Davis Love Jr.
The desire to bring professional golf events to Quail Hollow has been infused into the club and the culture since its inception.
The scarcity of available tee times at Charlotte Country Club necessitated the creation of another private golf facility, so James Harris gathered nearly two dozen friends to join him in the enterprise. They already had the land, a rolling piece of property in southeast Charlotte that once was the largest dairy farm in the state and had been owned by Harris’ father-in-law, Cameron Morrison, who had served as the 55th governor of North Carolina and also was a U.S. senator and congressman. Harris and some of the men had hunted quail on property, thus inspiring the name of their club.
Through his membership at Augusta National Golf Club, the elder Harris struck up a close friendship with Palmer, who promised to help bring professional golf to Quail Hollow after it opened in 1961. It took a while, but eight years later, Palmer came through with the arrival of the PGA TOUR’s Kemper Open, which ran from 1969-79. Palmer then brought in a senior event, the World Seniors Invitational, which later became an official event on the former Senior PGA Tour called the Paine Webber Invitational.
“We couldn’t ask for a better partner than Johnny Harris and his family and the team at Quail Hollow, all of the experience they have in hosting golf tournaments,” says PGA of America CEO Derek Sprague. “They get it, they understand it, they rally the golf fans in Charlotte and the Carolinas.
“And so, we’re excited to partner with them and bring our Championship back to Quail Hollow and have a successful event. And we know that Johnny Harris and his team can deliver. They delivered in ’17 and we’re expecting much of the same this year.”
Adds Harris, “In our 64-year history, we’ve had more years with a tournament than years without one, so we have a tremendous base of knowledge.”
Harris himself is sufficiently schooled in the elements that make a club and a tournament top notch. He credits his years in the company of Palmer and his membership at Augusta National for much of that. For 15 years, Harris served as chairman of the Cup and Tee Committee for the Masters Tournament, setting the pins and tee markers each day, “so I had an understanding of what it took to put on a great tournament and to learn from the best people in golf,” he says. It’s worth noting that there is a significant Augusta influence at Quail Hollow, from the recently renovated tree-lined entryway to the special sand in the bunkers that is only used in a few select places.
“Well, you always want to emulate greatness, and that’s a good place to start,” explains Harris. “But we have emulated good practices that we’ve seen in other places. We learn from everybody. There’s nothing somebody else has done that’s good that we hadn’t learned from and tried to do here to help us get better.”
Through the years, under course designer Tom Fazio’s direction, Quail Hollow has made constant upgrades to its golf course, some as recently as a year ago.