Met Golfer Travel: Pinehurst and the Sandhills Expanded content from The Met Golfer Magazine

Word came to Tufts that some of his resort guests had brought with them from a recent visit to Scotland a number of sticks and balls they were using in the open fields for a kind of pastime. He heard about it because a local farmer believed the activities were scaring his cows. Tufts was aware of golf, which was just getting a toehold in the American leisure class in the 1890s; he asked a local doctor from Southern Pines who had played the game in Britain to lay out the first rudimentary course, which opened in 1898. Tufts soon met the professional and greenkeeper at Oakley Golf Links in Watertown, Mass., a recently-emigrated Scotsman – Donald Ross – and brought him to Pinehurst in 1900 to rework that first course and create a few others. More than a hundred years later golfers are still embracing the challenges of Ross’s designs there.

Ross’s masterpiece, Pinehurst #2, has become one of the anchor sites for the U.S. Open, with events scheduled there for 2024, 2029, 2035, 2041, and 2047. The USGA recently broke ground in the village for Golf House Pinehurst, a research and visitor center to include the organization’s equipment testing facility, a visitor-friendly USGA Experience with permanent and temporary exhibits, and an educational landscape feature, giving the organization a southern headquarters to go with Golf House in Far Hills, N.J. But there’s more to Pinehurst than #2, and more to the area than Pinehurst.

Pinehurst #4 has undergone a number of transformations through the years, with Ross’s original nine holes being expanded to 18 in the 1950s, reworked by Robert Trent Jones in the 1970s, by Rees Jones in the 1980s, and substantially altered by Tom Fazio in 1999. Always a challenging course, many believed Fazio took things a bit too far in following the trend for hard, hard, and harder. (The course was often referred to as “#2 on steroids.”) Not long after #2 hosted men’s and women’s U.S. Opens in consecutive weeks – it will do so again in 2029 -- Gil Hanse was brought in to give #4 increased playability and a gentler profile. With the course situated on a sloping area of the property, Hanse took advantage of the lay of the land to provide run and roll that Ross would have approved of, with many holes that contain useful contours to feed a shot to the target. The reimagined #4 opened in 2019, and it was used during the 2019 U.S. Amateur not only during stroke-play qualifying rounds but shared the 36-hole final match with its older brother, #2.

There are currently nine full-sized courses under the Pinehurst umbrella, and two of the most popular playing spots at the resort aren’t counted among them. The Cradle was created in 2017 by Gil Hanse, a fetching little nine-hole charmer with distances ranging from 56 to 127 yards in the area where Dr. Leroy Culver placed the original 1898 holes. Put a few wedges and a putter in a pencil bag and enjoy the sporty circuit in the company of family and/or friendly foes. If there’s still a bit of daylight begging to be stretched, bring that putter over to Thistle Dhu, the 18-hole putting course in the style of the legendary Himalayas in St. Andrews. Hold my beer? Don’t have to – there’s a drink holder right by the starting point of each hole. Don’t expect to make a lot of aces, or for the hole locations to always be fair (though they are generally visible).

Despite the ample charms of Pinehurst, it would be possible – even easy – to spend an extremely satisfying visit without playing a single course within the resort. The Sandhills region that includes Southern Pines, Aberdeen, and beyond has a raft of delightful options whose character derives from that same sand-based soil. Ross is still the dominant name here, with frequent U.S. Women’s Open host Pine Needles just up the road a piece from the architect’s home. Directly across Midland Road is its sister course, Mid Pines, recently restored and invigorated by Kyle Franz. Mid Pines is a wonderfully compact design, packing 6,700 yards of player-friendly golf into something close to 125 acres, far fewer than the 200 or so acres of modern layouts. (Franz, one of the shapers when Coore and Crenshaw transformed Pinehurst #2, did similarly well-regarded restoration work at Southern Pines GC.)

While we’re in the Mids of things, Mid South Club in Southern Pines has two courses: the King’s Course, an Arnold Palmer Signature design that makes great use of its hilly topography and meandering lakes; and The New Course at Talamore, a well-regarded Rees Jones course across the street. The par-five 15th at Mid South is a unique and memorable hole, running along a ridge with the green tucked diagonally below fairway level. Palmer’s legendary friend and rival Jack Nicklaus is represented in the area as well, with the former National Golf Club, now operated as Pinehurst #9; Legacy Golf Links in Aberdeen is from Nicklaus Design and attributed to his son Jack II. Something about the region – and perhaps the Ross legacy – has brought out the best in these playing and designing titans, because Legacy is a fun and straightforward challenge utilizing elevation changes and lakes that sit beside the line of play.

Befitting a resort community, the majority of courses in the area are open to the public. Among the more exclusive private options are Forest Creek, a 36-hole facility designed by Tom Fazio just off Airport Road in Pinehurst, and Dormie Club, one of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw’s more big-shouldered layouts tucked away in West End, NC, about fifteen minutes north of the Pinehurst resort. The word that frequently comes to mind at Forest Creek is “immaculate.” The practice facility is impeccable, the course conditions are always superb, the greens are quick, the layouts (both North and South) are testing in equal measure. As for Dormie Club, now the centerpiece of the Dormie Network of clubs, Coore and Crenshaw created a wide and rambling journey through 1000 acres of naturally sandy land that rises and falls – sometimes gently, sometimes abruptly – with fast-running and cunningly-contoured fairways and greens. Suffice it to say that the direct line of approach is often not the best line on these far-from-minimalist holes.

Before leaving the immediate Pinehurst area, I want to recommend one course in particular that may not be on everyone’s radar. Longleaf Golf & Family Club in Southern Pines is owned and operated by U.S. Kids Golf, and houses its academy. There are eight sets of tees, ranging from the “Right Start” tees for new golfers at 2,484 yards all the way to the back tees at 6,682. The seven longer tees are simply numbered 1 through 7, and there are Course and Slope Ratings for each as well as for every hybrid configuration between two sets. It is recommended on the scorecard and in signage before the 1st and 10th tees that golfers select their tees on the basis of their driver carry distance or distance with roll. If you answer this question honestly, you will likely play a shorter course than you’re used to, and as stated on the scorecard you will “play at a good pace, shoot lower scores, and have more fun.” What a concept!

In addition to the full-sized 18, Longleaf features “Bottlebrush,” a short course that starts beside the 15th green, with six well-designed holes of 100 yards or fewer, for beginners and families and those seeking more short-game practice. Longleaf takes the “Family Club” descriptor very seriously, providing an ideal form of golf experience for all generations to share.