Inside the money games at Quail Hollow

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Like the first rule of Fight Club, you don’t talk about the money games at Quail Hollow Club. So, it wasn’t easy to report this story but a few people were bold enough to talk.

This week, the private club, 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 it 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 players.

“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. Before long, he 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…