PINEHURST, N.C. – I won’t bother writing that you should play golf in Pinehurst. You already know that. The Sandhills region of North Carolina is dubbed the Home of American Golf for a reason.
Advising well-traveled players they should try out Pinehurst is akin to telling gearheads that Ferraris are nice or suggesting a foodie sample something beyond the SpaghettiOs. But until you immerse yourself in Pinehurst, it’s difficult to imagine how much the game defines this little village and its surrounds – and vice versa. It’s one of the few places in the world where just about any conversation can safely begin with the question, “How you been hitting it?”
So many options among great courses. So many chances to bunk up in historic lodging. So many shots to be hit by so many golfers. Pinehurst doesn’t simply scratch an itch to play somewhere new, or even old – it fulfills a deeper need to immerse oneself in the game. Even the USGA is tapping into that need, building a second HQ in Pinehurst and bringing more national championships, feeding on the game’s energy that flourishes among the tall trees and sandy soil.
The only problem is time. How to set aside enough days to sample it all?
Pinehurst No. 8 in North Carolina (Courtesy of Pinehurst Resort)
That’s where the Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for the top public-access layouts in each state comes into play. The list for North Carolina includes 15 courses, with more than half around Pinehurst. So while I won’t bother telling you that you should play golf in Pinehurst, we can look at the rankings list to see where you might want to start among the region’s 40-plus layouts.
The eponymous Pinehurst Resort is an obvious choice, home to four of the top 15 public-access tracks in North Carolina, including the famed No. 2. But the great golf doesn’t end at the resort’s sprawling borders or on its numerical lineup. Four more of the top 15 layouts in the state lie just beyond. It’s an area so packed with strong golf that, given time, it’s entirely possible to play all eight of these layouts without stopping to refuel a rental car.
The Carolina Hotel at Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina (Courtesy of Pinehurst)
The ranked lineup truly does offer golf to suit just about any taste. Old courses that define classic architecture. More recent courses that promise modern flair. Restored courses. Renovated courses. Even a newish par-3 course that shouldn’t be missed. You get the idea – it’s all here.
I set out on an epic adventure of golf earlier this year to see exactly how much Pinehurst golf could be squeezed into four and a half days. Trust me, it’s a lot of steps. I played six of the best-in-state public-access courses in the Pinehurst area plus two private clubs and a quick trip around the hottest par-3 course in town. That was all a follow-up to a previous trip in which I played the other best-in-state courses. There is no doubt, if you want to play as many solid golf holes as possible in the shortest amount of time, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better destination than Pinehurst and the courses below.
Donald Ross, one through five. That’s basically the roundup for the top public-access courses in North Carolina.
Donald Ross, one through five. That’s basically the roundup for the top public-access courses in North Carolina, as the famed designer left fingerprints all across the Golfweek’s Best rankings in the Tar Heel State.
Best of all, there is a great variety among just those five. And scrolling down the list leaves plenty of other great options as well, be they original Ross designs or modern renovations on ground that Ross first shaped into golf courses.
Golfweek ranks courses by compiling the average ratings – on a points basis of 1 to 10 – of its more than 750 raters to create several industry-leading lists of courses. That includes the popular Best Courses You Can Play list for courses that allow non-member tee times. These generally are defined as layouts accessible to resort guests or regular daily-fee players.
No. 1 is, without any irony of nomenclature, No. 2 (pictured atop this story). The famed No. 2 course at Pinehurst Resort was built by Ross and opened in 1903. The native Scotsman loved the Sandhills around the resort so much that he lived there in a house, now known as the Dornoch Cottage and named for his birthplace, off No. 2’s third fairway from 1925 until his death in 1948.
No. 2 might be the best example of what have become known as Ross greens, frequently crowned with runoffs in all directions. Picture a turtle shell or an upside-down saucer – these kinds of greens demands on approach shots and even chips as players try to keep balls on the putting surfaces. The design team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw renovated No. 2 a decade ago, returning the course to its sandy past while preserving the famed greens.
No. 2 has been the host of three U.S. Opens, with the next coming in 2024 and several more on the schedule as the U.S. Golf Association plans to move a second headquarters to Pinehurst, complete with club-testing facilities and more. Besides being the top public-access course in North Carolina, No. 2 ranks third on Golfweek’s Best Resort Courses list for the whole U.S. and is 15th on the Golfweek’s Best Classic Courses list for all layouts opened before 1960 in the U.S.
Pinehurst No. 4 in North Carolina (Courtesy of Pinehurst)
Players don’t have to look far to find the next course on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list in North Carolina. The course named No. 4 at Pinehurst Resort sits in the second spot, as well as sitting right next door to No. 2. Ross originally laid out a course on that rolling land, with six holes opening in 1913 and the full, original 18 available in 1919. The course was renovated over the ensuring decades by Robert Trent Jones and then Tom Fazio, and in 2018 Gil Hanse completed the most recent reimagining of the layout. Since then, No. 4 has jumped up the course ratings and ranks 28th on Golfweek’s Best Resort Courses list.
No. 3 in North Carolina is Mid Pines just across town from the famed resort. Built by Ross in 1921 on ground that features more elevation changes than Nos. 2 or 4, Mid Pines was restored in 2013 by Kyle Franz. Shorter and more intimate, Mid Pines is a can’t-miss course in the Sandhills region.
Mid Pines in North Carolina (Courtesy of Mid Pines)
The fourth-ranked Pine Needles sits just across the street from Mid Pines and is owned by the same operating group founded by LPGA legend Peggy Kirk Bell. Also restored by Franz in 2017, this Ross design has hosted three U.S. Women’s Opens and will be the site for that event again in 2022. It’s a bigger layout than Mid Pines, with more length available as a championship test, and the two courses’ proximity and heritage make them a perfect target for traveling golfers.
No. 5 among North Carolina’s public-access layouts is Linville Golf Club, another Ross design that opened in 1924 about a three-hour drive west of Pinehurst.
But don’t consider those to be a complete roundup of must-see courses in North Carolina, which is ridiculously stacked with great public-access layouts, especially around the Pinehurst area.
Pine Needles in North Carolina (Courtesy of Pine Needles)
The resort, for example, had four courses in all on the 2020 Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for North Carolina, with the course named No. 8 ranking seventh in the state and the course known as No. 7 ranked ninth.
A short drive north of Pinehurst in Sanford is Tobacco Road, ranked sixth among public-access courses in the state. Completed by the highly creative Mike Strantz in 1988, Tobacco Road offers several holes the likes of which won’t be found anywhere else – at times it feels more like a video game, trying to bounce balls off dramatic slopes to avoid hazards that scream to players, “Don’t go here.” Great fun.
And Mid South at Talamore Golf Resort, not far from Pine Needles and Mid Pines, was built by Arnold Palmer as a much more modern-feeling layout, and it ranks No. 13 in North Carolina.
Tobacco Road in North Carolina (Golfweek files)
Also worth noting, Franz in 2021 is working on another restoration of a Ross course at Southern Pines, improving the layout at the behest of the same owners of Mid Pines and Pine Needles. Southern Pines ranked No. 15 in North Carolina before the restoration. Sitting on some of the hilliest ground of any course around Pinehurst, it promises to be another great destination for traveling players when the work is planned to be completed in the fall of 2021.
Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play in North Carolina
The members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged together to produce a final rating for each course. Then each course is ranked against other courses in its state, or nationally, to produce the final rankings.
