Pinehurst Resort’s first new course in nearly three decades is part of a property that will redefine the Cradle of American Golf
There’s not much out at the Pinehurst Sandmines (yet), the 900-acre, mostly wooded parcel of land in development at Pinehurst Resort about four miles south of the main clubhouse. But there is a gem of a golf course—the resort’s 10th 18-holer—built on 250 of those acres by architect Tom Doak, lead associate Angela Moser, and the team at Renaissance Golf Design.
Doak’s par-70 design opened on April 3—only 16 months after initially breaking ground—and shares the sandy qualities of its nine siblings, but is unlike anything else at Pinehurst, including being the resort’s lone walking-only regulation course. No. 10 features a little bit of everything: short to very long par threes, fours, and fives; blind shots on several occasions; greens full of humps and hollows; and at times long-range views over towering pines, with more than 100 feet of elevation change.
It is in this variety that the course shines with 18 distinct and memorable tests. There are holes that you rarely see anywhere, let alone the Sandhills of North Carolina. The back side hosts a dizzying stretch better suited as half-pars: the up-then-down 544-yard par-five 12th to a bunkerless green; the 508-yard par-four 13th bending left and uphill; and the 264-yard par-three 14th with its multi-tiered putting surface flanked by a sand dune. A family of Bald eagles lives in a tree right of the 634-yard par-five 10th, an ironic coincidence given many will have trouble even reaching its green in regulation.
But the show-stealer, whether it appeals to you or not, is the 385-yard par-four 8th. Players are asked to blindly aim their tee shots over the “Matterhorn”—a 20-foot-tall mound leftover from the site’s former sand mining days—to land on the right side of the fairway, leaving a clear path to the green. Avoiding the mound on the left half of the hole leaves players blind to the target once again. The 8th is a hole you may hate playing at first, but instantly want to play again.
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