CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Like the first rule of Fight Club, you don’t talk about the money games at Quail Hollow Club.
That made it difficult to detail a story that was based more on rumor and innuendo until a few brave souls agreed to give us a window into one of America’s great clubs within a club.
This week, Quail Hollow, which has been in the national spotlight as host to the 2017 PGA Championship, the 2022 Presidents Cup and will reprise its role for the PGA in 2025, welcomes a field of 156 of the best PGA Tour pros at the Wells Fargo Championship; the other 51 weeks a year the private club is home to a vibrant membership that includes the likes of pros Webb Simpson, Harold Varner III and Johnson Wagner. But unlike Whisper Rock in Scottsdale, Arizona, where a field of pros the size of a LIV event typically plays in the club championship, this is a members club filled with a fraternity of 15-20 handicappers who enjoy a friendly wager to be on the line. It’s a safe bet that money is riding every time a ball is in the air when several of the more notable groups are playing.
“It’s a group of guys that like to play golf, gamble and have a beer after the round,” said Wagner, who likes to keep everyone’s score when he participates.
Quail Hollow founder Johnny Harris and his silver-haired friends make up the Mo’s – the Morons – the original game in town, which gave birth to an offshoot known as the Mits – the Morons in Training. Another popular game formed during the global pandemic, the Mice, which stands for the Morons in Constant Evolution. They are also known as the Calder 32, a reference to its founder and commissioner Will Calder, who with nothing else to do during the height of COVID-19 decided to start a new game. He quickly discovered that his Apple iPhone would only allow 32 numbers on the group text chain.
Before long, the Mice, who range in age from 26-50, were playing four to five times a week, everyone racing after their ball in separate carts. Even though many of them have returned to work, there are always at least four or five groups on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.
Simpson has joined the Mice on occasion, but he doesn’t partake in their tomfoolery regularly. “He’s still focused on winning golf tournaments,” Wagner said.
Varner, who joined LIV Golf last year, says he plays with all the various groups and is more likely to give his partner one of his patented bear hugs when a four-for-three drops. The usual game for the Mice is net double-best ball and then each group picks its own side action.
“I’m pretty much exclusively a hammer player now,” Wagner said on the Subpar Podcast. “If you don’t want to play it, I don’t want to play with you.”
Calder is an 18 handicap and was getting 22 strokes from Wagner, a three-time Tour winner and member at Quail for the past 12 years, who he describes as always taking everybody’s money, though he did suffer a case of the shanks this summer. Wagner does his best to keep the handicaps honest. In fact, his face adorns a popular T-shirt sold at the club, a Smokey the Bear knockoff that says, “Only you can prevent sandbagging.”
At one time, Wagner lost enough money to member Clay Adams, a local beer distributor, that he began wearing a Budweiser hat on Tour in lieu of payment. The 42-year-old Wagner is doing more TV than competing these days and his handicap has gone from a +5.5 to +2.7.
“I’m finding my sweet spot,” he cracked.
Hottest item in Quail Hollow shop is @johnson_wagner as the club’s Smokey the Bear. Tremendous @5ClubsGolf pic.twitter.com/wg0cLDNRnr
— Gary Williams (@Garywilliams1Up) April 28, 2023
The easiest money at the club? Wagner doesn’t have to think long to name one of his favorite foils, Taylor Zarzour, the jack-of-all-trades host on Sirius XM PGA Tour Network.
“He has the most vanity handicap I’ve ever seen,” Wagner said on Subpar. “He’s easy money.”
Given a chance to defend himself Zarzour, who is a 5 handicap, said, “He might be changing his tune after the last few times we’ve played but that’s OK, I could use some more shots.”
Zarzour noted that besides the obvious rule of not talking to reporters, there’s only one rule at their game: play fast! Typically, they’re done in three hours and back in the grill inside the white, stately, Southern-style clubhouse — hats removed, an unwritten club rule — to settle up and enjoy one of the club’s trademark transfusions.
After the Wells Fargo Championship, Quail Hollow is shutting down for the summer to change the grass on the greens, fix some bunkers and tweak some tees ahead of the 2025 PGA Championship, so 24 of the Mice are headed to Bandon Dunes in Oregon for a golf boondoggle. Expect enough cash to change hands that someone may end up going home C.O.D.
“Through this group, I’ve made 10-12 of my closest friends,” Zarzour said.
