With the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow this month, a Charlotte native and longtime sportswriter reflects on the city’s growth as a sports town
On a warm Sunday in mid-June 1969, Arnold Palmer stood in the 18th fairway in the final round of the Kemper Open at Quail Hollow Country Club surrounded by what felt like every beating sports heart in Charlotte.
I was a starstruck 12-year-old, caught up in the tingle of the moment, Palmer having charged into contention at the very end, his gallery swelling through the early afternoon until it ringed the 18th hole, seven or eight deep in places.
My father, a sports columnist for the now long-gone Charlotte News at the time, took me to the Kemper Open every day and let me hopscotch around Quail Hollow, following my favorite players while marveling at how good they were at a game I was just learning. A few years later, I wore the official tournament volunteer uniform while doing my duty keeping the press tent neat by sportswriter standards. The tent really was a tent back then, with whirling fans to move the summer heat around.
The professional golfers I watched—Palmer, Tom Weiskopf, Miller Barber, and Gary Player among them— were stars, but the sports universe was just a fraction of what it would become.
The 18th hole at Quail Hollow was in the same place it is today, but it’s since been redesigned to be more dramatic, more of a theater. The creek that runs down the 18th hole now wasn’t there in 1969; that’s what happens when a course designer with a healthy budget is given the freedom to create.
There were no corporate chalets lining the left side of the 18th hole then, just a lumpy, grassy slope where hundreds crowded together, hoping for an umbrella of shade from the oak trees while straining to see Palmer finish.
Denne historien er fra August 2017-utgaven av Charlotte Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra August 2017-utgaven av Charlotte Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
‘This Is How We're Going to Make Your Child Better'
Pediatric neurosurgery is technically and emotionally complex—and traditionally dominated by men. As Novant’s first female pediatric neurosurgeon, Dr. Erin Kiehna Richardson has had to learn the intricacies of a demanding field and battle sexism along the way
The Dumbledore of CMC
A surgery resident wrote a series of children’s books and created a special kind of medical magic
LGBTQ HB2+5
Five years after the furor of House Bill 2, the LGBTQ community—in Charlotte, in North Carolina, and across much of the nation—fights attacks on new fronts
Oh, Snap!
New ‘selfie museum’ in Concord celebrates the 1990s
ALLISON LATOS
The WSOC anchor on her hard trek from one episode of loss and grief to another—and the meaning of resilience
GOOD HEALTH
For years, Charlotte has been one of the largest American cities that lacked a four-year medical school. The health care professionals who finally made it happen overcame a series of setbacks, false starts, and failures, and they plan to use their clean slate to create a new kind of community asset
Summer Partee
From woodwork to retail, the kindergarten teacher-turned-designer has learned how to do it herself
Uptown or Downtown?
Archives illuminate how long we’ve argued over the perennial question
NOW OPEN NOVEL ITALIAN
Paul Verica brings a simpler version of the city’s hottest food trend to NoDa
TOP DOCTORS 2021
The annual list you can't without
