Ryan Gerard doesn’t have quite the same amount of experience playing Quail Hollow as some of the PGA Tour veterans competing in this week’s PGA Championship. But the 25-year-old may be as familiar with the Charlotte course’s closing hole as anyone.
Gerard was a surprise early leader on Day 1 at the PGA Championship after shooting a five-under-par 66. And after, the University of North Carolina product and Raleigh native talked about how special it is to be playing a major in his home state.
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“It’s a lot of fun,” Gerard said. “It’s really cool. Obviously, it’s nice being where I came from. You know, I feel very comfortable here. There’s a lot of people here that I know and I’ve been fortunate enough to play this golf course a few times. And all of that is fantastic, and it’s definitely helped in the preparation.”
But moments later, he shared a story about getting to play Quail Hollow in college that almost sounded like a form of torture.
As golf fans are well aware—and if you’re not, you will be by the end of the week—Quail Hollow’s brutal three-hole closing stretch is called “The Green Mile.” And that includes the brutish, dangerous par-4 18th. And once, Gerard’s coach at UNC, Andrew DiBitetto, made him and his teammates play that hole over and over. And over again. Here’s how he tells it.
“I’ll give you a fun anecdote,” said Gerard, who missed the cut in his one previous start at Quail Hollow at the 2023 Wells Fargo Championship. “In 2018, so six months after the PGA, we came out here as preparation for the NCAA nationals, and our coach made all six of us go on 18 tee and everyone had to play the 18th hole until all six made a par and at the same time in the same group. So we were out there for quite a while. I learned a lot about the 18th hole on that day, and I hope that carries forward into this week.”
Gerard actually bogeyed 18 (and 17) on Thursday after getting to seven under. But, still, that kind of prep can’t hurt. Although, in the moment, it must have been rough.
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“I want to say it took like four or five times,” Gerard added. “Like we’d go, all six of us would play the hole as a group, three guys would make bogey, go back to the tee, all six of us would play, two guys would make bogey. And then you just didn’t want to be that one guy that had like the 10-footer for par that missed it for everyone to go back. So I mean, it probably took an hour or so but it was fun and we did make it happen eventually. We weren’t going to leave unless we made that happen.”
An “hour or so” for six guys to all make par or better on that hole actually sounds pretty darn impressive. Anyway, what a great start for Gerard. Although, he might be hearing about that closing bogey from a few former teammates—and his former coach—tonight.
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This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
