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First Class: Golfers have no complaints at the Wachovia
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Published: May 4, 2008
CHARLOTTE -- Prices for regular gas gurgle past $3.50 a gallon nationally. Retailers react to hoarding by limiting the amount of rice customers can buy. Banks, burned by the mortgage crisis, look for money they can loan.
Financial times are weird all over, low end to high end. Ten days ago, the directors of Ruth's Chris Steak House abruptly fired Chairman Craig Miller because thin sales of fat filets had driven stock prices down 70 percent within a year. Wachovia Corp., the nation's fourth-largest bank, lost $350 million in the first quarter.
Nobody seems immune, but the fellows competing in Wachovia's PGA tournament seem fairly close. The players who missed the 36-hole cut presumably turned in their Mercedes courtesy cars and headed down the road, some in more pedestrian rides. Those who survived will cut up the $6.4 million purse around sundown tonight.
Inside the wood-lined locker room at Quail Hollow Club, television monitors sometimes show business analysts, politicians and voters talking about a recession. Under the stylishly soft lights, with golfers walking quietly across the carpet, the voices are virtually muted.
"Recession?" Zach Johnson said, responding to a question. "You don't hear people talking about a recession out here. There might be a few guys who talk a lot about the stock market and keep up with that, but I'm not one of them."
Working stiffs seldom get through the day without someone mentioning gas prices or repeating the perpetual leader among dumb gas statements: "They can't get any higher."
Actually, they can.
"Gas prices aren't something I hear much about out here," Johnson said. "In Iowa, we've got ethanol." But the 2007 Masters champion lives in Florida now, not Iowa, and he hasn't heard much about the growing controversy over burning food for fuel.
Golfers talk about the latest lob wedges and the latest tricks of commercial autograph seekers. Their financial interest remains mostly private, on a scale quite different from most 9-to-5 jobs.
Last year, for instance, Tiger Woods won $10.9 million in official PGA purses and 99 players won at least $1 million, including Paul Goydos, Steve Marino and Michael Allen. Old No. 100, Briny Baird, missed the magic number by $14,547.
Billy Andrade, the 44-year-old veteran from Wake Forest, said that golfers' economic interests tilt toward big numbers and how those numbers hit the industry.
"We're looking for two sponsors on the tour right now," Andrade said. "A few have been replaced in recent years -- more than a few. There's a trickle-down effect. The Atlanta tournament is looking for a sponsor next year, and so is another tournament (in Florida). All you can say is: Thank goodness for the car business, for Buick, Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz. They don't do just one tournament; they do several."
While in Charlotte, and evidently while elsewhere, the players routinely promote the Charlotte tournament. Woods won here last year and would have returned if not for knee surgery, which alone elevates the Wachovia Championship over mundane PGA tournaments.
Only six years into its run, the tournament has nailed down an enviable spot preceding The Players Championship through 2014. Ken Thompson, the Wachovia chief executive and board chairman, is an independent director on the tour's policy board. Johnny Harris, the driving force behind the tournament and Quail Hollow, has useful golf connections.
The course -- designed by George Cobb, remodeled by Arnold Palmer (a member) and Tom Fazio -- probably means more than anything to most pros. Uncommon hospitality ranks no lower than second, however. "From the moment you set foot on the property, they treat you like royalty," Andrade said.
The tournament provides chefs and valets. The tournament sets up night events for pros with families and pros hanging out with the guys. Those courtesy cars don't hurt, whether the player takes what's given or makes a specific request.
David Toms won the first Wachovia in 2003. "All the guys knew when we came here the first time it was a special event, and it has continued to be that way," he said.
"They've only upgraded from there. To pull into the parking lot and get to park my Mercedes in a spot that's got my name on it feels good. It does."
Judging from the advance sellouts of 35,000 tickets and the general ambience, the spectators share that reaction on a different level. They buy Wachovia logo shirts -- really -- for $66 to $86. They drink Heineken ($6.50), Bud Light ($5.75), Coke ($3.50) or Starbucks Latte ($5). They eat Carolina pulled-pork sandwiches ($5.50) or Double-Bogey Burgers ($7) or peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches ($2.50). And, they keep coming back.
So do the pros, as long as they can.
"If anybody out here complains about anything," Andrade said, "he should be shot."
That apparently includes anyone complaining about the price of gas.
■ Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com .
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