16th hole, Par 4, 529 yards
The Green Mile, the collective name for Quail Hollow’s fearsome stretch of closing holes, begins with a punishing par 4. A new tee box was built two years ago, adding 20 yards to the hole and bringing the fairway bunker on the right back into play for the biggest hitters. To take on that bunker now, and find the fattest part of the fairway, requires a 320-yard carry.
Anybody playing away from the bunker will leave themselves a long and visually imposing approach shot, with the green flanked by a lake on the left and a bunker on the right.
Of the 600 par 4s played on the PGA Tour in 2023, the 16th at Quail Hollow was among the 50 most difficult, with a scoring average of 4.27. That also makes it the second hardest hole on the course.
17th hole, Par 3, 223 yards
Even though the green is large it doesn’t look like that from the tee box with trouble all around. A bunker covers the front right of the green and water wraps around the other three sides. It plays 17 feet downhill from the tee box but it is still a daunting shot, and it is not unusual for players to bail out to the right. The typical pin position on Sunday is in the front left portion of the green, which brings water into play for any player needing a birdie coming down the stretch.
In the ShotLink era, seven putts of over 70 feet have been made on that green, the longest of which was made by Rory McIlroy in the third round of the Wells Fargo Classic nine years ago; that putt was a staggering 79’ 9”.
18th hole, Par 4, 494 yards
The Green Mile has been the toughest three finishing holes on the PGA Tour since 2003, and for any player staggering towards the clubhouse, the 18th has the capacity to land one final haymaker. The tee box is 14 feet above the lowest point of the fairway, and then the hole climbs by the same amount to the green, flanked on the left by a creek that runs the length of the hole, just a few yards off the fairway, and only a few feet off the green.
When the US PGA Championship was staged at Quail Hollow in 2017, 91 balls found the water along the Green Mile, but 49 of them were on the 18th. David Toms famously won the Wells Fargo in 2003 with an eight on the closing hole. Seven years later, McIlroy won his first PGA Tour event with a 40-foot birdie on the last, completing a run of six threes to close out his round.
