Long before the Panthers and Hornets came to town, Charlotte was well known for two other sports, auto racing, and golf.

Throughout the 1970s, the city hosted the PGA tour's annual Kemper Open, and for the last 20 plus years, hosted the annual WACHOVIA Championship, which later became the Wells Fargo Championship.

Coming up in mid-May, all eyes of the golfing world will once again be on our Queen city, but this time it's different "Carolina Impact's" Jason Terzis is here with all the details.

- Well, in the world of professional golf, there are tournaments practically every weekend of the year, but only four annual events are considered major championships and the most prestigious events of the year.

The Masters tournament, the US Open, the Open Championship, also known as the British Open and the PGA championship.

The Masters in Augusta, Georgia is the only one with a set location year in and year out.

The other three rotate where they're played, and this year Charlotte's Quail Hollow Club is hosting the PGA championship.

So we wanted to know what all goes into planning and pulling off a major sporting event such as this.

- [Jim] The PGA of America descends upon the Queen city and a venue with a brief but impressive history.

- [Jason] Charlotte born CBS sports commentator.

Jim Nance has always had a way with words.

- [Jim] Since 1916, the PGA championship has provided a myriad of spectacular images and moments.

- [Jason] Nance will be on the call for this month's PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club just as he was in 2017.

- [Jim] Thomas with the finishing touches, - Quail Hollow Club itself showed itself truly as a major championship venue in 2017, we only had 12 players finish under par.

Justin Thomas won eight under.

- Something that I took away from 2017 was just, wow.

I mean, everything is just every minute of every day.

You're just sitting there going, wow, this is big.

(upbeat music) - [Jason] The Quail Hollow Club was founded in 1959, quickly growing into one of the country's elite golf courses.

It hosts an annual PGA tour event.

- Quail Hollow Club is my favorite stop on tour.

- [Jason] But this year it's hosting one of golf's four major championships.

- Major championship golf is much different than our annual event.

Yeah, while they are both very high level events and both televised all over the world, you know there's only four majors a year, so there's very little margin for error and the stage is quite large.

- To have a major championship called Burg Golf Course within Charlotte City limits this close to the airport, this close to uptown, South Park, Ballantyne all the hotels, restaurants.

It really allows our fans, our sponsors, our partners to have the best of both worlds.

Where you can come out here with the aesthetics of the Green Mile finishing holes, and then take advantage of the rest of the assets that Charlotte has to offer.

That's a really rare opportunity to have.

- With the event fast approaching, Quail Hollow has been a beehive of activity, the main parking lot looking more like a Home Depot.

There's metal pieces for scaffolding, all sorts of lumber, stages being erected, portable tents, a slew of U-Haul moving containers, giant portable generators of all sorts and sizes.

Even the PGA championship offices themselves are in a temporary facility.

- There's, you know, well over 600,000 square feet of structures are gonna be built out here.

Most of those floors tents are already up.

- [Jason] It's the same story on the course where construction crews are hard at work, moving equipment around erecting portable stands all while club members continue to play.

Jason Soucy is in charge of it all, serving as the PGA championship director, a position bestowed upon him more than two years ago.

- This will be the hundred seventh playing of the PGA championship, PGA of America's the Association of 30,000 members.

For me to be the steward of this championship to set up this team from scratch, to have that two year lead runway is definitely something I don't take lightly and it's really a true honor to be part of the team that's gonna deliver this championship for the PGA of America.

- Jason and his staff of 10 full-time employees have been working nonstop to get ready for the tournament using the design put in place by the team that ran the 2017 PGA championship.

- We had such success when we were here in 2017, so there already was a pretty significant blueprint set up for me for success.

- [Jason] An estimated 40,000 people a day are expected at the tournament, but without a parking garage on site, moving all those people in and out of Quail Hollow presents quite the challenge.

- Anyone who has a championship plus ticket for the day for the corresponding day of their ticket light rail service is gonna be free to them and we're gonna have a continuous shuttle operating from the Sharon Road West Station to get here to the property.

We also will have parking with partnerships, with car winds, with Ballantyne, with parks, a park expo center.

And then lastly, rideshare has changed dramatically.

One of the things that's different from 2017 for us is we were offsite with Rideshare in 2017.

This time around, we're gonna have rideshare right here on properties.

- [Jason] The event couldn't be pulled off without volunteers.

Some 3000 of them are committed to helping out.

- We're gonna have volunteers from 48 states and six countries.

So it's to see the outpouring, the support they give, the dedication that they have to travel even.

- [Jason] Inside the ropes and dealing with the actual golf part is Quail Hollow's director of Green and Grounds Keith Wood.

I asked him what's the first thing he thinks about each day when coming to the golf course?

- Oh, better question.

What keeps me up at night right?

- Yeah.

- The weather primarily is the main thing that can throw us a curve ball that we need to react to at almost any moment.

- [Jason] In the weeks leading up to the event, Keith and his greenskeeper have been doing a balancing act of sorts when it comes to course maintenance.

- The professionals really demand a course in certain type of condition and your clientele, your members mostly want the course in a different type of condition and we're trying to have everything balanced so that way two weeks out when the play comes off the golf course, we're able to grow the rough up without putting too much water on the property, we're able to firm the greens up and really speed the greens up so they get to major championship speed and then we do all the detail work to make the place as beautiful as we can make it.

- [Jason] What some people might find surprising as I did is that the tournament isn't sold out yet.

Some tickets still remain.

- We're instituting a brand new program for major sporting events that is only happening at the PGA championship right now where every single ticket we sell is gonna be food inclusive.

- [Jason] But sold out or not, the economic impact on the region will be huge.

- In 2017, we had a study done.

I think the impact was registered around $120 million.

I'm assuming we're gonna, well surpass that number this time around.

You know, 90% of the hotel rooms are gonna be full, you know, here during PGA championship week because I said like this is a national scope that's coming in.

We'll have a thousand temporary jobs that are created around the event at a minimum.

So that economic impact truly is why I think the community of Charlotte should be so thankful that Quail Hollow Club allows itself to kind of have this kind of impact.

- Okay.

Absolutely.

A huge production.

When's it all take place?

- Yeah, it's, it really is.

There's a lot that goes into it.

All right, so this all happens next week.

Golfers, spectators and all those volunteers will begin arriving in town this weekend.

Practice rounds and other events take place Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Tournament action begins next Thursday, May 16th with the four round tournament wrapping up Sunday the 18th.

Actually, I said the 16th.

It's the 15th.

One other note on all this, the 10 person staff, think of it almost like a political campaign all leading up to an election.

This staff is hired, they come in, they're here for two years, getting ready, all leading up to a major event, and then when the event is done, they're technically out of a job.

So then these people are basically like, okay, so they have to hopefully hook onto something else, just like a political campaign.

It all leads up to one big event.

The event's over and then, poof yeah, they're done and it's like- - And out of town.

- And out of town.

Yeah.

So they'll kind of all go their separate ways and hopefully hook on with another event down the road.

- Amazing.

Yeah, appreciate you sharing this with us.