ABERDEEN, NORTH CAROLINA | Less than five miles south of the Village of Pinehurst is a 900-plus-acre property called Pinehurst Sandmines. It’s here that the next big chapter of Pinehurst Resort is being written, starting with the recent opening of its first new 18-hole golf course in nearly three decades.
Pinehurst No. 10 (they weren’t going to call it Aberdeen No. 1) is the first Tom Doak original course in the Pinehurst course portfolio. And it is destined to rank close behind Donald Ross’ iconic No. 2 course as a favorite on the resort guest itinerary.
“From my perspective, Pinehurst No. 2 has always been one of my favorite courses in the world,” Doak said of the challenge of trying to build a course that fits into the oeuvre of established works at Pinehurst. “You’re not trying to imitate that. But you’re trying to build something that feels like it’s a cousin or a sister.”
The new cousin is a welcome addition to the family. The Sandmines property comes by that name honestly, as a century ago it was the site of extensive mining operations that shipped Aberdeen sand along the adjoining railroad all over the country for construction projects. The primary mining operation closed down in the 1970s, leaving behind a landscape of rugged dunes and mounds forged over decades to be reclaimed by nature.
On a piece of the largely pine-wooded and undeveloped land resided a long defunct but once revolutionary Dan Maples course called The Pit Golf Links – a sort of precursor to the cult-favorite Tobacco Road a half hour up the highway in Sanford. The Pit didn’t survive the financial crisis of 2008. Pinehurst bought the property in 2011 and patiently sat on it while it developing a long-range plan.
“Pinehurst has owned a lot of this land for over 20 years,” said Tom Pashley, president of Pinehurst Resort where he has worked for more than 27 years. “When I’m out here, I see a lot of restraint. I see a lot of good decisions not to do something.”
What will become of it in time is what Pashley calls “a destination within a destination,” with various development plans to include two 18-hole courses, a short course, clubhouse and guest cottages. A hint of that plan is hidden within the Sandmines logo: a railcar filled with sand that’s subtly braced on both ends by 1s – as in No. 11.
Basically, the Pinehurst Sandmines in Aberdeen will be its own unique little golfing village to enhance the experience of Pinehurst Resort patrons with something similar but different.
“Ultimately I see our visions and our dreams for the land coming through,” Pashley said. “We’re still dreaming about what we can do on the rest of this property. It’s going to hopefully become a destination within a destination. We have so much opportunity to continue to enhance it.”
The first step of that vision is Doak’s newest original: Pinehurst No. 10. It’s the resort’s first new course since opening its Centennial course, No. 8, in 1996 on the north side of the village. It will not be the last.
Comprising about 250 acres of the Sandmines site, No. 10 is a big, brawny and sprawling course weaving beautifully through the heaving landscape and pine forests.
Doak immediately loved the piece of land he was given to build No. 10 because it is “topographically distinct and drastically different from anywhere in Pinehurst,” with 75 feet of elevation changes and sweeping vistas across the dramatically sloping northwest ridge of the property.
“That is the thing that differentiates it from the rest of the courses at the resort – you do not have the elevation changes and with the views across the property,” Doak said. “So we tried to emphasize that and, yeah, it's a big boy golf course.”
Doak may not have set out with the intention of making a championship-caliber course, but the end result is something that surely will host some kind of USGA event down the line ...
Pinehurst gave Doak no specific directions for what to do with the land. It didn’t need another Pinehurst No. 2 championship-style course, which plays host to its fourth U.S. Open this week. It wanted to present something different for its guests to enjoy. As Pashley said: “It’s variety.”
“We wanted something that was perhaps a little more fun than some of the championship requirements, for instance, of Pinehurst No. 2,” Pashley said. “It is a final examination when you play Pinehurst No. 2, and we certainly didn't want another one of those. We wanted to give people a place where they could come perhaps have a little more fun and really immerse themselves in golf. The long-term vision of what will happen out here: It's going to be very natural, very in touch with nature, and we want to keep it all golf and keep it pure.”
No. 10 is a walking-only course, and it’s a big walk up and down the rolling ridge. But its most defining characteristic is room. The hole corridors are wide, inviting you to turn your shoulders and swing away. It taps out at 7,020 yards from the tips, but that’s plenty with only three par-5s, five par-3s and a short par-4 fourth to coax you into making bold decisions.
The hole everyone will talk about is the eighth. Remnants of the former Pit and the mining operation left large dunes and mounds for Doak to reckon with. He leaned in, keeping the tall “Matterhorn” dune blocking the ideal line off the tee while tucking the green behind another sandy dune obscuring the view of approaches from the faint-hearted who veered left of the big dune off the tee. In between are heaving moguls where they just turfed over dunes.
“That one is just completely different in character than most of the rest of the golf course,” Doak said. “And it was like we can either do it or not do it. I mean, it's a cool piece of land, we’ve got to do it. To me the saving grace of the hole is it is a short par-4; it's not really that hard of a hole unless they put the pin up top. It’s wild, and you can have like a blind shot into the green, but you’ve probably got, like, a 9-iron in your hands to do it. And you can get away with a lot on a hole like that.”
It's what comes after the eighth, however, that really elevates No. 10. Holes nine through 15 loop back to the same halfway house and present enormous challenges with scale and strategy. The uphill ninth and 13th are all the par-4 anyone can handle. The long par-3 14th is fraught with challenges. The 15th lets you bite off as much as you dare in carrying the pond running across it all the way to the green, but the second requires a deft touch to the sloping green.
Doak may not have set out with the intention of making a championship-caliber course, but the end result is something that surely will host some kind of USGA event down the line once it’s fully grown in and all the wildflowers and native grasses lovingly cultivated by Doak’s collaborator, Angela Moser, have taken over. As Doak said, “shooting around par is really hard, but breaking 90 is not much harder than a lot of other golf courses.”
“I know that this golf course is more difficult than Tom [Pashley] and Mr. [Bob] Dedman expected,” Doak said. “We didn’t really set out to do that; it just kind of happened. That’s the way the routing worked out. It’s a long way around.”
Pinehurst took the long way around to developing its Sandmines property. But with No. 10 as the foundation for what comes next, the end result of the destination within the destination will be worth it.
E-MAIL SCOTT
Top: The dramatic par-4 eighth hole at Pinehurst No. 10.
COURTESY pinehurst resort
