The spotlight is on Quail Hollow this week as the 2025 PGA Championship gets underway, but things may be getting a little too bright. Although a mainstay on the PGA Tour, the knives are coming out for the PGA Championship venue from all sides, including the players.
Despite the various course critiques currently swirling around Golf Twitter, don’t expect a quote more cutting – and frankly hilarious – than this zinger from Hunter Mahan.
Jesus CHRIST lmao pic.twitter.com/Eg9YTmjl1a
— Christopher Powers (@CPowers14) May 13, 2025
“I guess I would say Quail Hollow is like a Kardashian,” the six-time PGA Tour winner told Gabby Herzig of “The Athletic.” “It’s very modern, beautiful and well-kept. But it lacks a soul or character.”
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No filler, all killer from Mahan there. How does a golf course even bounce back from such a haymaker? We’re about to find out.
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Few golf course projects had more national attention in recent years than Quail Hollow, mainly because its front nine was redesigned just a year before it hosted the 2017 PGA Championship.
To be fair, it’s not like this came out of nowhere. It’s almost routine whenever Quail Hollow hosts a big-time event, such as the 2017 PGA and the 2022 Presidents Cup. Golf Digest panelists consistently rank it as a top North Carolina course and one of the top 200 in the US, yet the Charlotte track frequently draws the ire of the sport’s best (and pickiest).
The main criticism is that it’s too repetitive and boring – something former US Open champ Lucas Glover echoed in the same NYT piece: “At Quail Hollow, we’ll all be hitting it to pretty much the same place.”
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Golf Digest’s own Shane Ryan broke the course down in his “Majors Matrix,” admitting that it was low on prestige and occasionally monotonous. A fourth-to-last ranking isn’t ideal, but it edged out Valhalla, which gave us a hell of a showdown between Xander Schauffele and Bryson DeChambeau just one year ago.
Ultimately, it’ll come down to the players, and thankfully (for Quail Hollow), Hunter Mahan isn’t teeing off this week. He doesn’t need to. He already has the quote of the year. Do they give out a Wanamaker for that?