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CHARLOTTE — The golf tournament starts here today under clouds of different colors.

The old Wachovia Championship is no more, with the bank name soon to follow. The new colors flying here are those of the club itself as the new Quail Hollow Championship gets underway at Quail Hollow Club.

The tournament is in no danger of losing its way, and large crowds are expected to pour into the private grounds over the next four days, but there's a different feel to the place. It has nothing to do with the tournament, which is still among the finest on the PGA Tour, but more to do with Charlotte.

The city has changed in the past year, and its taste for golf in a time of economic strife will be studied this week.

Leisure boats floated on expansive Lake Norman early in the morning, but there weren't many out there. Traffic was brisk up and down South Boulevard, the old places of business still busy during lunch. Cars circled Zach's Hamburgers, as they have for almost 30 years, waiting for the "special."

People walked faster than usual uptown, but that's just the way they walk there. The crowds walking from the 17th green to the 18th tee were in no such hurry. Pro-am day at Quail Hollow is still the day when the non-golfers of Charlotte descend on the club they are usually not allowed to enter.

The club sits on an old hunting preserve off Park Road in one of the old-growth areas of the Queen City, a peaceful respite from the new growth that has swallowed Charlotte in recent years. The giant oaks and towering pines shielded the outside world from the inner sanctum of the country club.

The banking crisis changed all that.

It's only been nine weeks since Wachovia Corp. pulled out as the visible title sponsor of the event, leaving the tournament almost no reasonable time to react. Of course, it took all of one week to unveil a new logo and begin the process of remaking the entire look of the tournament's merchandise and marketing materials. The tickets were already printed with the Wachovia logo.

There were no hard feelings.

"The bank has been a wonderful sponsor for us," tournament director Kym Hougham said. "And they're still our title sponsor. Their name's just not on it."

It's a peculiar situation, and one all tournaments are dealing with on some level. The contracts are all being honored. Wachovia (now owned by Wells Fargo) is still fulfilling its obligation, but it can't risk the appearance of impropriety. Northern Trust, another tour sponsor, underwent blistering criticism during its Los Angeles event this year, and many corporations that underwrite the expensive tour have pulled out in name while still paying the contracts.

That wasn't an issue with the folks walking out of Zach's, where hamburgers are still $1.29 and the vanilla shakes are legendary. It's not an issue for those on the water out off the interstate, a perfect snapshot of Charlotte's lifestyle in easier times.

Now the snapshot is that of the uptowners walking from bank to bank, some of whom walked out of an annual shareholders meeting Wednesday with Bank of America chief executive Ken Lewis amid protesters yelling, "Fire them all!"

This is a changed city from a year ago, when it still felt like a banking boomtown and the storm clouds on the horizon looked to be someone else's problems. The backlash that sent everything spiraling slapped Charlotte hard. Wells Fargo's chief executive reported this week that there are "rays of hope" for the economy. He made that comment from San Francisco. Charlotte is in danger of losing its hold on the banking industry.

A year ago, Wachovia quietly announced it would extend its contract with the golf tournament through 2014. Only nine months later, the bank no longer had its name and no longer had its uptown headquarters. It still has its golf tournament, but only because of the contract.

The new colors are navy and copper, with an understated logo that includes the letter "Q" formed by a quail feather. It's already on the shirts and hats seen all over the course Wednesday. Of course, there were the usual NASCAR T-shirts and baseball caps worn backward. This is still Charlotte, and we're weeks away from the all-star race out at the track.

Today, they'll play the seventh golf tournament here since the sport returned to Quail Hollow in 2003 amid great rejoicing from the pros, the tour and the city. The crowds are expected to be down this week, and the rejoicing is expected to be somewhat subdued. But for six years, the city of Charlotte used this tournament as a proud example of what it could do. Now the tournament and the sport itself seems oddly out of step with what's really going on around it.

This week will be about swanky Quail Hollow opening its gates and trying to convince the locals that everything's going to be OK again.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com