Traffic heavy as Wells Fargo Championship begins

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY)- The Wells Fargo Championship practice rounds began today. That also meant the traffic tie-up began early this morning.

During the morning drive, there was bumper to bumper traffic heading south on Highway 17 through Hampstead. The parking lot in Hampstead for the shuttle service to Eagle Point Golf Club was more than halfway full around 9:30 a.m.

Many driver say there wasn’t any traffic heading north on Highway 17 from Wilmington, but others trying to get to the shuttle parking lot sat in traffic heading south for quite a while.

“It looked like we were way ahead of schedule to pick up our tickets at 9:00 a.m. at the bank down there but we hit traffic from 8:00 until 8:45. It was tied up getting into this parking lot,” said spectator Luke Gruber.

The Pender County Sheriff’s Office said drivers need to know how the cones work near the Hampstead shuttle parking lot. Captain James Rowell with the Sheriff’s Office said there are cones separating the two lanes on Highway 17 near the parking lot. He said drivers can use both lanes even if they are not turning into the parking lot.

Rowell said this morning drivers were all merging into the left lane, because they thought the right lane was only for turning into the parking lot, but that is not the case. He said you can continue straight in the right lane.

If you have to drive south on Highway 17 in Pender County for the rest of the week, you might want to plan accordingly.