59 Photo: Pinehurst Resort Pinehurst is an odd mix of golfing theme park and golfing heaven. There is a definite air of St Andrews about the village, given it is almost entirely focused on golf; but at the same time, it is hard not to realise that it is corporate in a way that Scottish golf towns are not. Yet, because the village was developed more than a hundred years ago, it feels ‘proper’ in a way that a newer development of a similar nature might not. The other thing to note about Pinehurst is that the golf is not all of the highest quality. The resort is, obviously, anchored by Donald Ross’s classic No. 2 course, but nothing else in its portfolio comes close to the same level. Course No. 8 is a Tom Fazio production which many people like, and No. 4 has recently been restored by Gil Hanse; but the fact remains that Pinehurst is No. 2 and change. There is no doubt that the resort has altered considerably in the last 10 to 15 years. The truly epic restoration of No. 2 by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw in 2011, covered in GCA issue 24, put Pinehurst on a whole new track: since then, it is unarguably home to one of the world’s greatest courses, and its sustainability has been transformed. And that change inevitably feeds through to the rest of the resort. Pinehurst Resort bought the thousand-acre property occupied by the former Pit Golf Links more than a decade ago. The Pit was, in many ways, a trendsetting course. Located in what had previously been a sand quarry, Pinehurst native, architect and developer Dan Maples built a course that was wildly different to anything else in the area, with blind holes and drama. But by the mid-2000s, the Pit
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