Interesting story on the rise of the Wachovia Championship:
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Even in this era of the instant, tradition is not immediate. It still takes some time for a sporting event to achieve status, to establish history, to rise to significance. Take the Wachovia Championship, for example.
In this bustling city, which may well be the best example of the New South, some folks decided they wanted to create a tournament that would be the envy of every other PGA Tour stop. The goal was to become the standard by which all nonmajor championship tournaments would be measured. That meant better than everything but the Masters, the United States Open, the British Open, the P.G.A. Championship and, the PGA Tour would insist, the Players Championship.
“That’s quite a reach when you’re beginning,” Kym Hougham, the executive director of the Wachovia, said last week. “But if you don’t have the goal out there, then you don’t know what you want to attain.”
The goal was set six years ago. It was not attained this year — it was reached in 2004, the tournament’s second year. Since then, the other 36 events on the PGA Tour have essentially been playing catch-up. Wachovia just announced it had extended its sponsorship through 2014. How could that happen so quickly, even by today’s standards?
Simple. Attention to every detail, large and small. First, consider the large details: a golf course so good it could host a major championship; the largest purse on the Tour ($6.4 million); dates in the first week in May — a month after the Masters, a month ahead of the United States Open; the pro-am setup with two amateurs (rather than four) per professional; support from a golf-crazed and knowledgeable community.
And the small details: clubhouse valet parking and a private lounge and eating area for the caddies; monogramming the initials of a top golfer’s children on hotel pillows and towels; chartering a jet for an outing to the historic Biltmore in Asheville, N.C., for players’ wives; a player-services area to rival the concierge desk at five-star hotel.
“We don’t want to say no to any request a player makes,” Hougham said. “We don’t want to say no unless we’re absolutely, physically unable to do it.”