This summer, all cart paths lead to Pinehurst: The esteemed “Home of American Golf,” tucked into a longleaf pine forest in the sandhills southwest of Raleigh, hosts the 124th U.S. Open championship (June 13–16). The competition will take place on Pinehurst No. 2 for the first time since the legendary course designers Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw reshaped the greens and added sand areas that pay homage to its original layout. Golf House Pinehurst, the United States Golf Association’s second headquarters, also recently opened here. The new facilities house research and testing labs (the epicenter of golf ball and other equipment studies—did you know the clubhead hits the ball with an average force of more than two thousand pounds?), and the relocated World Golf Hall of Fame. And this spring, Tom Doak, the dean of natural golf course design, unveiled No. 10, Pinehurst’s first new championship track in nearly three decades. Doak schemed up an undulating, sand-enveloped menu of challenging shots rewarded with vistas of the primeval dune topography.
Southern Agenda