Tom Doak was 12 years old the first time he laid eyes on Pinehurst, on a golf trip to the North Carolina resort with his parents taken when the New York City-born youngster was developing an interest in the game, as a player and also in course design.
“By that time, I was already sketching golf holes in my school notebooks,” he said.
Fifty years later, Doak is in the midst of designing his first course in the Sandhills, the yet-to-be-named 10th course at the Pinehurst Resort and Country Club. Routed on ground in the town of Aberdeen off of North Carolina Highway 5 some four miles south of the main clubhouse at that iconic golf getaway, it is slated to open next spring as the fabled Pinehurst No. 2 Course prepares to host its fourth U.S. Open.
When the new track comes on line, it will only enhance the architectural luster of an area that already features the works of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, Gil Hanse, Kyle Franz, Tom Fazio, Rees Jones, Jack Nicklaus and, of course, Donald Ross.
“I never imagined doing a new course here,” Doak said in a phone call in early June as he was checking on his team’s progress. “And I was both surprised and excited when (Pinehurst Resort president) Tom Pashley first called to discuss the idea.”
As for Pashley, he seems pretty pumped by the idea of having the man whose design credits include Pacific Dunes in Bandon, Oregon; Ballyneal in Holyoke, Colorado; Tara Iti and Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand; and St. Patrick’s in the north of Ireland finally working in what is often referred to as the “Home of American Golf.”
“Having a Doak course at Pinehurst allows guests to play a course designed by one of the most creative minds of this generation,” Pashley told Golf.com. “Some equate playing at Pinehurst to visiting a golf architecture museum. You get to experience some of the best work from different design eras when you come here.”
“Different” is a word that has very much been on his mind since Doak began thinking about the golf course that he would build for the resort.
“One of the first things I thought of after that initial call with Tom was, how do I do something that is really good but does not mimic, say, Pinehurst No. 2, which I have always loved?” Doak said. “How do I give what I design its own character without it being out of character in this place?”
That’s a deep and daunting question for any course architect, especially when it concerns a place with so much good golf. But answering it seemed a little less difficult to Doak after he first saw the site, part of which had been home to a course called The Pit Golf Links. Designed by Pinehurst native Dan Maples and built on an old sand quarry, it opened in 1985 and shut down 25 years later. The Dedman family, which owns the Pinehurst resort, purchased the property in early 2011, and it sat idle until work on the 10th course began early this year.
“This is a really different piece of ground,” Doak said. “It’s hillier than anything in Pinehurst, with more elevation changes and some dramatic views from the high points. But there is gentler land, too. And what I found with the site as I got to know it better was that it had a variety of very good golf holes and green sites.
“I have three or four greens that might look like something on No. 2, sitting up with short grass all around them,” Doak said. “Greens that are not hard to get to but hard to stay on. Then, I have two or three that sit down in bowls, and a couple that you would have built in the early 1900s, just laying on the ground but not as easy to get to as they might look.”
Not surprisingly, Doak also is enamored of the property’s sandy soil and the different grasses that in his words provide “fabulous texture for golf.”
Doak’s crew for this job includes lead design associate Angela Moser, who has worked with him on Tara Iti and St. Patrick’s and also assisted Hanse at the Ohoopee Match Club and the site of this year’s U.S. Open, the North Course at Los Angeles Country Club. And it is making good progress.
“We have already completed 11 holes, and they are planted and sodded,” Doak said. “And we hope to have the whole course planted by the end of July.”
Doak does not think the 10th course will open officially until the 2024 U.S. Open, adding, “But there will be a golf course ready to play before then.”
It will no doubt be a very good one.
Top: Pinehurst's 10th course in May, 2023
Courtesy Pinehurst resort