A five-year extension of the PGA Tour Wells Fargo Championship event at Quail Hollow Club "will become official" today, according to Erik Spanberg of the CHARLOTTE BUSINESS JOURNAL. Sources said that the deal "runs through 2019." The current agreement "expires with this year’s Wells Fargo Championship in May." Wells Fargo "inherited the sponsorship when it bought Wachovia Corp. during the financial crash" of '08. Under the terms of that deal, the bank spent an estimated $8M to "put its name on the PGA Tour event as well as related TV advertising and other commitments." A source estimated the "value of the new deal to be in the range" of $10M annually (BIZJOURNALS.com, 3/17). In Charlotte, David Scott reports the Tour today also will announce that the tournament "will be played at Wilmington’s Eagle Point Golf Club" in '17 -- the year Quail Hollow hosts the PGA Championship. Because of "instability in the banking industry, there was doubt a few years ago that the Wells Fargo tournament would remain in Charlotte after last spring’s event." Charlotte Country Club and Atlanta’s East Lake Country Club were "among the other sites considered" for the ’17 event (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 3/18).
