CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA | When what had been hinted at and whispered about for months became official Tuesday morning – the new Truist Championship on the PGA Tour schedule – it arrived with a purple blast of enthusiasm.
What was the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club for two decades is now the Truist Championship, and because the PGA Championship will be played at Quail Hollow next year, the event will make a one-year stop in 2025 at the Philadelphia Cricket Club.
The announcement came with a sizzle reel narrated by Jim Nantz, a conversation among the principals moderated by Johnson Wagner and was set in the Charlotte-based bank’s state-of-the-art innovation and technology center with the new logo displayed on a purple (the bank’s official color) ribbon board. The news did more than secure the future of what has been one of the tour’s most successful events until at least 2031.
It reinforced the tour’s contention that, despite the fractured nature of the pro game since LIV Golf’s arrival, business is good and, in the case of the Truist Championship, very good.
While the announcement last week that Procore Technologies will take over as title sponsor of the fall event in Napa, California, this year was reassuring (Cognizant replaced Honda as the title sponsor in south Florida last year), the Truist announcement was more impactful.
Truist, the nation’s eighth-largest bank, signed a seven-year agreement that, according to a source with knowledge of the deal, will approach $200 million by the end of the contract. It also comes with guaranteed signature-event status for the tournament for all seven years.
It is a counterpunch to the narrative that gained momentum earlier this year that the tour might struggle to land high-profile, deep-pocketed title sponsors after Wells Fargo announced it was ending its long-standing sponsorship here while making no secret that the tour’s price tag had grown too high after offering a reported $22 million annually.
In fact, the Charlotte event drew interest from multiple companies, but what began with a conversation between commissioner Jay Monahan and Truist CEO Bill Rogers at a Presidents Cup reception nearly two years ago came together relatively quickly.
The length of the agreement – seven years – is noteworthy because it speaks to the long-term commitment between the bank and the tour.
The agreement was reached earlier this year, but it wasn’t until Tuesday morning in uptown Charlotte that the details were revealed, though word had already leaked since the final Wells Fargo Championship was played in May.
“The Truist Championship. I’ve been waiting to say that for several months. It’s nice to finally get it out,” Rogers said to the group gathered inside the bank’s headquarters.
The length of the agreement – seven years – is noteworthy because it speaks to the long-term commitment between the bank and the tour. The Wells Fargo extensions were generally five years and, while speaking alongside Quail Hollow Club president Johnny Harris on Tuesday morning, Rogers said he hopes to have another seven-year deal when the original contract concludes.
“Yeah, there has been [sponsor] turnover, and that’s something that happens every year. We experience some of that. I’m just really proud of the model that we have, and I’m really proud of our players,” Monahan said.
“The PGA Tour cannot host our events without a title sponsor that makes a multiyear commitment, and [as for] seven years, when you’re building a championship, when you’re building a presence, when you’re constantly looking to improve, to have that certainty with your operating team, to have that certainty with the golf course so that the Harrises can continue to plan and know that they have their respective commitment, that’s exceedingly important.
“We’ve made this multi-year commitment together. At the end of the day, seven years, that’s what we both felt like was the right initial term for this agreement.”
Truist was created in 2019 when BB&T and SunTrust merged, putting the headquarters in Charlotte, literally a few blocks from the headquarters of Bank of America, the nation’s second-largest bank.
“Sometimes you get to do something transformational, and this is one of those times. This is something great that we want to make greater.” – Bill Rogers
The company put its name on the city’s uptown baseball park, home to the Class AAA International League’s Charlotte Knights, and seized the opportunity when the tournament sponsorship became available.
“Sometimes you get to do something transformational, and this is one of those times,” Rogers said. “This is something great that we want to make greater.”
The tournament will be managed by the tour’s Championship Management group, which handled the Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow two years ago and also runs the Tour Championship and the Sentry.