Presidents Cup: Q&A with Quail Hollow Club’s Johnny Harris
Adam Sperling, executive director for the Presidents Cup, moved his family to Charlotte and spent more than three years promoting and selling the biennial competition being played in the Queen City. He got to know as well as anyone just how important hosting a world-class event that would be shown around the world meant to the good people at Quail Hollow Golf Club. That starts with Johnny Harris, the club’s president, who sets the tone with his big personality. “There is a quote,” Sperling says, “Everything’s impossible until it’s done, and there is nothing that these two men (Johnny and son Johno Harris) and the members of Quail Hollow and this community sees as impossible.”
Harris and son Johno, general chairman of the 2022 Presidents Cup, took time out of a busy day at the Presidents Cup on Saturday to participate in a Rolex roundtable discussion with several writers, including Golfweek. Here are excerpts from the Q&A.
GWK: Johnny, can you share the strategies and the lengths that you went to attract superstars to the Quail Hollow Club when you first had this event without any history or prestige?
Team USA fans in the grandstands on the first tee during the foursomes match play of the 2022 Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports)
Johnny Harris: When we first decided to go back to the PGA Tour in 2004 with the Wachovia Championship we knew we had a unique support mechanism in Wachovia, because they had just merged, Wachovia and First Union and they wanted an opportunity to put their brand in front of a certain type of person and that along with the fact that we sat down with Arnold Palmer, which was never lost on me that Arnold in his own way had a better understanding of what the people wanted out of the game that he loved so much.
We talked to him about how do we do something really special here in Charlotte. There was all kinds of advice and suggestions that we received including taking care of the caddies, valet parking for the caddies, we had valet parking for the wives, and we did all kinds of different things including events for the wives. During the first three or four years we had two years where we had 29 of the top 30 in the world here for the golf tournament and we did a lot of unusual things to attract them.
I personally worked on bringing the Final Four here in 1994 and was involved in bringing the NFL to Charlotte and one of the things we learned was that you have to go ask for the business. We had a golf course which had been designed by George Cobb, who had designed the Par 3 at Augusta and we had Tom Fazio come in and change it and then all of a sudden the people who had heard bad things about our golf course, because it wasn’t a great championship golf course, all of a sudden there was some real enthusiasm amongst the players.
Q: What do players in today’s game in 2022 want compared to what players wanted when you first started this event?
Johnny Harris: I think Johno can answer it one way and I am going to answer it another way. The kids of today are different from the kids when we started the tournament. The leadership of the Tour as you uniquely look at all of the competition and the great players that exist in the world.
Johno Harris: I’m thinking about the difference when we first started the Wachovia Championship and what the players really wanted when they came here compared to today. You go from them having their bag, their caddie and their clubs to now they have their bag, caddie, clubs, coach, their mind coach to everything and the ultimate change and not to say that Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player and all of them weren’t athletes because they were but these guys take it to another extreme level and the amenities that they need day in day out. We have tried to stay ahead of that to give them an opportunity to go do what they do best.
Q: What does professional golf mean to this club?
Team USA golfer Justin Thomas hits his tee shot on the 14th hole during the foursomes match play of the Presidents Cup golf tournament at Quail Hollow Club. (Photo: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports)
JH: There were 25 men that gathered at my father’s and mother’s home and they talked about starting a golf club and only because they were having problems getting tee times at the club where they were a member at. They had to call up at 8am on Thursday morning’s to get a tee time on the Saturday or Sunday and that drove them crazy and there was a level of frustration linked with that. They decided to build a golf course and Dad got Arnold Palmer to come here and all of a sudden Arnold said ‘You guys build a golf course and I’ll get the Tour to come here’ and one of his best quotes linked to one of the guys asking ‘Can we build a golf course good enough that the pro’s will want to come and play?’ Arnold said, ‘Well if you put enough money in they will play down Independence Boulevard.’
Those men built a place for fellowship and friendship, the game and enjoying the game and then to bring the best players in the world here and they continued to do that. Everything we have done since that time including any monies we have made has been put back into the club and our facilities. Not all of it has gone back into the golf club but other facilities as well.
GWK: You've had a PGA Championship and a Presidents Cup now. What's next on your bucket-list?
International Team golfer Si Woo Kim hits his tee shot on the first hole during the singles match play of the Presidents Cup golf tournament at Quail Hollow Club. (Photo: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports)
JH: I’m going to answer it with a question: What is golf going to look like in the next 10 years? I don’t know what the game is going to do. I know that we want to keep doing things other than an every year event. We may do an every year event for a while, but what we’d really love to do is get into a niche where we are doing something of a different magnitude. I don’t want to sound arrogant now – I have an ego as big as all outdoors – but what I do want you to know is I think we’re getting to the point where there are numbers you can look at out there that say nobody has ever done it better, except for maybe the place down the street in Georgia.
All we can do is be the best we can be and if someone gives us a chance we’ll put our best foot forward and we promise you that they’ll benefit from what we do. Yes, would we like to have the Ryder Cup but sure, would we like to have the Presidents Cup come back? Absolutely.
GWK: Would you ever consider hosting a LIV Golf event?
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan (left), Former U.S. President Bill Clinton (center), and Former U.S. President George W. Bush (right) stand on the first tee during the four-ball match play of the Presidents Cup golf tournament at Quail Hollow Club. Mandatory Credit: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports
JH: Not while I’m president of the club.
GWK: Why?
JH: We have created our brand in golf as a club working with the organizations that support the game and the integrity of the game. It’s not a money game; it’s a game played by men and women who compete against each other to be the low scorer at the end of the tournament, which is four days. I would be very disappointed if the board of Quail Hollow voted to host a LIV tournament. Honestly, what we do in golf is not for cash. We make some money and we reinvest it. We put money back into the community. I just don’t see that happening the way the LIV Tour has been described to me. I just don’t.
