Update: this version of the story includes new information about Tuesday's announcement that the Wells Fargo Championship will be held at Eagle Point Golf Club in 2017.
The Wilmington area will have an opportunity to showcase itself to a worldwide audience in May 2017 when the PGA Tour’s Wells Fargo Championship comes to Eagle Point Golf Club.
The news came in a Tuesday morning conference call that featured Tim Finchem, PGA Tour commissioner; Jamie Moldafsky, Wells Fargo’s chief marketing officer; and Kym Hougham, executive director of the Wells Fargo Championship.
The announcement that Eagle Point would host the event for one year was made as part of a larger announcement by Wells Fargo officials that the bank would extend its title sponsorship of the tournament for five more years - through 2019.
The Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte has been home to the Wells Fargo event since its inception in 2003 and will continue to be the host site except in 2017, when Quail Hollow hosts that year’s PGA Championship.
Referring to the fact that Quail Hollow would not be expected to host two major tournaments in the same season, Finchem said, "There's been a lot of speculation about what we would do with the [Wells Fargo] tournament. We are delighted to announce that in 2017 the Wells Fargo Championship will be held at Eagle Point Golf Club in Wilmington, N.C.
"While we are looking forward, of course, to coming back [to Charlotte] in 2018, we are fortunate to have such an outstanding facility as Eagle Point serve as our home in 2017," Finchem continued. "It's a terrific Tom Fazio-designed golf course."
Eagle Point, located on the Intracoastal Waterway in north New Hanover County, opened in 2000, and has been ranked among Golf Digest America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses six straight years, according to a news release from the Wells Fargo Championship.
Johnny Harris, president of Quail Hollow Club, said that Eagle Point was chosen for the one-time event hosting after he and others looked at a variety of sites in North Carolina and beyond.
"Eagle Point continues to be in the ratings [as] one of the state's best golf courses, one, two or three -- I haven't seen the most recent [rating], but I'm sure it's still there. It is a great place that I think people will enjoy going to, and when we take a year off and take the tour down there, it will be great and it's great for their players.
"And Bobby Long: you think about Bobby Long and the guys that are behind Eagle Point; they understand the game," Harris added. "And ... he knows what it's like to put on a golf tournament and they will do a great job."
Long is a founding member of Eagle Point and has been the club's representative in negotiations over the 2017 tournament venue.
Asked how the Eagle Point team will communicate with and involve the greater Wilmington community in preparing for the Wells Fargo Championship, Long said, "We've been studying this whole issue for some time as we contemplated having the opportunity to host the 2017 championship, and the logistics around parking, the logistics around having teams to work the event from a local volunteer standpoint, etc., have all been addressed, and we'll be rolling those out.
"We've got three years to do it, and we are already way down the road on doing that. I think you will be quite impressed and we expect nothing short of A++."
