WEBVTT - The History of Pinehurst No. 2 (Great Courses 6) 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.800 I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When 0:00:02.800 --> 0:00:04.920 I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:06.960 And when I find my ball in a bride egg 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.880 Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida Egg, fridagggg Frida 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:13.160 Egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:37.080 of the hump course. Welcome to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.440 I'm Garrett Morrison, and today we're talking about the history 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:44.440 of the Pinehurst Resort and the Pinehurst Number two golf course. 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.400 As you probably know, the US Open is going to 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:50.320 be held at Pinehurst Number two in a couple of weeks, 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:52.519 so I thought now would be a good time to 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:57.160 start discussing this extremely fascinating golf course. My guest is 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:01.240 Lee Pace. Lee is a prolific author who specializes in 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.880 the history of golf clubs and golf course architecture. He 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.720 has written multiple books about Pinehurst, including The Golden Age 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.520 of Pinehurst, which was first published in twenty twelve. So 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:14.480 if it's the history of Pinehurst that you want to 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:18.280 talk about, Lee Pace is your guy. This episode, by 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.880 the way, is the sixth installment of our Great Courses series. 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:26.760 We've also done episodes on Augusta, National Royal Melbourne, the 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:30.840 Old Course, National Golf Links and Sunningdale, so I encourage 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:34.040 you to check those out as well. Now, if you're 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:36.759 a fan of this kind of deep dive into golf 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:40.640 history and golf course design, I can just about guarantee 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.920 that you would enjoy what we're doing in Club TFE. 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:48.080 Club TFE is Frida Egg Golf's membership. It's one hundred 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:50.880 and twenty dollars a year and with that you get 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.000 a lot of benefits, including early access to Fridagg Golf 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.120 events and an ongoing discount in the pro shop. But 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:00.760 we're especially proud of the exclusive content that we're offering 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:05.280 in CLUBTFE on the member site. This includes course profiles, 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:08.600 which have in depth analyzes of great golf courses, along 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:13.120 with beautiful photo tours and illustrations. We also have regular 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.600 features like Design Notebook and Tour Guide which keep you 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:19.000 up with what's going on in the worlds of golf, 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:23.640 architecture and professional golf, respectively. We think this is a 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:27.600 unique offering, something that you'd have a hard time finding elsewhere, 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:30.040 and the reason we're able to do it is because 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:33.520 of support from our members. As my colleague Brendan poor 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.560 Ath likes to say, we're not out here buying yachts 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:41.120 with CLUBTFE membership fees. We are using this support to 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.839 fund the kind of content that we believe our core 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:48.000 audience really wants. So if you're interested in CLUBTFE and 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:51.120 in supporting Frida Egg Golf, go to the Frida Egg 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.760 dot com slash membership and see what it's all about. 0:02:55.320 --> 0:03:03.320 All right, let's get to Lee Pace. Lee Pace, welcome 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:04.919 to the podcast. Thank you for being here. 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:08.280 Oh great to be here, Garrett, heard you often and 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:10.119 look forward to talking about Pinehurst. 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:13.200 So I'd like to start by talking about the founding 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:16.679 of Pinehurst, just going right to the beginning. I've heard 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:19.800 you say before, and I've seen you right before, that 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.680 the appearance of a resort in this setting in the 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:27.239 sand hills of North Carolina was kind of a fluke. 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:28.520 What do you mean by that? 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:31.440 Well, I do quite a number of after dinner talks 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.800 in and around Pinehurst, and I like to start by saying, 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:39.320 you know, this is the accidental resort or the coincidental resort, 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:44.600 depending on how you parse accident and coincident. But there 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.840 is not one good reason for Pinehurst to be here, 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:52.080 for it to exist, absolutely none. You can parse it 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:55.720 till doomsday and not come up with a good reason 0:03:55.760 --> 0:04:00.200 for it. It was just a series of coincidences of 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:03.640 happenstance that had made it all occur. Golf was not 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.920 part of the original equation dating back to the mid 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:10.600 eighteen nineties when James Tufts, who was from Boston, wanted 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:14.120 to create a wintertime health resort for people like himself 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.719 who were frail of health, and he was actually conceived 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:22.919 as a sanitarium for consumptives, and golf was not a 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:28.560 part of the equation. The truth is that Kiowa has 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:32.520 more stake in being Pinehurst than Pinehurst does because Kia 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:35.640 was was just down the coast from Charleston, where there 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:38.760 is documented proof that golf clubs arrived in the Bay 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:42.360 of Charleston in seventeen thirty nine, and there was a 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.960 golf club in Charleston by seventeen eighty six. Of course 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:50.400 they didn't exist, but so something a golf resort along 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.000 the sea in the eighteen hundreds. You could understand bob 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:55.640 or if it was in an urban area, or if 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:59.200 it was alonger River, or if it had happened in Asheville, 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.000 which was a summertime escape from all the heat in 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:07.080 the South. You could understand that. But James Tuff's happened 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:11.320 to learn about five thousand acres in this arid area 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.599 of North Carolina that was not close to anything. And 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:16.400 in fact, if you look at some of the photos 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.839 in the Carolina Hotel of the early days of Pinehurst, 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:22.800 it was but ugly. I mean, there was nothing attractive, nothing, 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:27.400 no esthetics at all. But this is where he decided 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:33.599 to create a new England style village. Imported the many 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:38.440 of the plants, the grass, built the village and it 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.480 was only two years into it that when some of 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.760 his guests started bringing their own golf clubs and balls 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:47.960 and started hitting balls throughout the dairy fields and the 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:51.919 peach orchards that the idea for golf was originally conceived. 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:54.919 So that's just one of the coincidences and one of 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.520 the pieces of happen stamps. And then of course Donald 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:00.000 Ross's arrival was yet enough. 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:03.000 Who was James Walker Tufts. 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.599 He was a man who made his fortune in the 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:11.600 apothecary business. He created the Soda Fountain Soda Fountain syrups 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.600 that spread throughout the eastern part of the United States 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.440 and across the country back in the day when the 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:21.680 apothecary shop and the drug store were part and parcel 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:26.480 of every town in America. And he was, as I mentioned, 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.080 he was not in the best of health, and by 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:34.440 his sixties he was more into philanthropy and conceived the 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:38.599 idea of a health resort far away from New England. 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:42.320 At the time, Henry Flagler had not yet developed the 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.120 east coast of Florida, so Florida was not a destination 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:49.039 in the late eighteen hundreds. So North Carolina just happened 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.839 to be about a day's train ride from New England. 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.440 So that's one of the reasons that it was within reach. 0:06:56.400 --> 0:07:00.880 So this resort was initially conceived as a health retreat. 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:05.800 It evolved away from that, partly presumably because if you 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:08.680 have a resort for people who are consumptives or who 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:12.600 have tuberculosis, it might quickly become a kind of super spreader. 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:17.480 Event once I sort of learned more about those diseases. 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:19.960 And I don't think he understood that when he originally 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:23.920 conceived the idea, And so they had to make a 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.280 pirouet of one hundred and eighty degrees away from that, 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:31.760 and mister Tuff's lived in Boston, and which happened to 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:35.240 be the city that Donald Ross immigrated to when he 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.360 came to America in eighteen ninety nine. And that was 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:42.160 another coincidence that mister Ross was in Dornock, Scotland, work 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.160 in the golf shop at at Dornot Golf Club, when 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:49.040 a Harvard professor named Robert Wilson got to meet him 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.000 and know him and said something to the effective, young man, 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.320 if you ever should decide to come to America, look 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.920 me up. There is opportunity for a young man who 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:02.240 knows golf in this country. Because golf was in its 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.480 infancy in the late eighteen hundreds, and Donald Ross did 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:09.400 not come to America as a golf course architect. Came 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:12.480 there were not specialists in the golf business at the time. 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.720 One person could be the clubmaker and the caddymaster, and 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:20.400 the event organizer, and the instructor and the greenkeeper and 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:24.040 the agronomous. He did it all, and he learned those 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:28.800 skills under old Tom Morris at Saint Andrew's doing an internship, 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:32.160 and brought his skills back to Dornock where he was 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:36.600 running the golf shop, and so Robert Wilson suggested, there's 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:39.200 opportunity in America. And then Donald Ross, which is one 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:45.480 of many young Scottish golf golf professionals, golf agronomous greenkeepers 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:50.199 who came to America seeking a niche and an opportunity 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:53.199 in a sport that was just starting to get some roots. 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.240 Could you say a little more about how golf came 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:01.640 to Pinehurst? You mentioned this briefly earlier, but how golf 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:06.320 arrived at the resort. It wasn't initially part of Pinehurst. 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:12.000 And then what the earliest iterations of golf courses at 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:14.480 Pinehurst looked like before Donald Ross arrived. 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:20.520 They were very crude. As I mentioned, some of the 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:22.640 guests brought their own golf clubs and balls and sort 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.560 of hit them across the dairy fields. And James Tuff 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:28.600 so well, I want if there's some opportunity for golf, 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.840 and he happened to pose that question to others in 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:36.280 his circle, and one man in particular, the manager of 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.480 the Holly Inn, who his name was Alan Treadway. And 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:43.680 the Holly Inn was the first hotel property in Pinehurst 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:48.080 that opened in eighteen ninety five, mister Treadway said, no, 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:50.679 golf's just a fad. Save your money, don't waste it 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:55.360 on golf. But fortunately mister Tuff's thought, well, maybe this 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.280 is an opportunity, and he happened to know a physician 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.360 in Southern Pines who played golf, who had been to 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.760 Saint Andrews. Was not a golf course architect, but he 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:07.520 knew more golf than anybody in the town did. So 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:10.920 he asked this physician to help him lay out a 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.000 golf course and that's what became the first nine hole 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:16.280 and then eighteen hole course that was laid out in 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:20.320 eighteen ninety eight, and that was on ground that was 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:23.880 to the south of the clubhouse as it exists today, 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.440 and that is area where the Cradle golf course, the 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:31.160 nine hole appendage golf course that was built in twenty 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:34.320 seventeen is located now. And why it was called the 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.840 Cradle because it was routed on land on which the 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.800 original nine and then eighteen hole course at Pinehurst was located. 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.280 And I'm sure it was very crude. There was no 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:49.000 grass on the greens. They were used a people call 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.559 them sand greens, but that's really a bit of a misnomer. 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.280 They were more clay than they were sand. They were 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.560 a clay base with sand mixed in. They were flat, 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:00.760 the hole was generally just in the middle of it. 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:05.160 The keeyen areas were built up that the caddy would 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:07.839 actually take a little bit of sand, put some water 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.960 on it, and build up a little artificial ty for 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:14.040 a golfer to purcha his ball on. And so they 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:18.040 were very crude and very rudimentary, but no more than 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:20.720 two thousand yards for nine holes. But that's where they 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:22.360 first started to play golf. 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.560 So then Donald Ross arrives and he's not yet the 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.199 Donald Ross that we know. Now, this is early in 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:33.680 his American career. What did Donald Ross do with the 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:37.800 golf courses at Pinehurst, say, just during the first couple 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:40.920 of decades of the twentieth century, just a high level 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:45.000 summary his overall kind of development of those first few 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:46.520 courses at Pinehurst. 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:50.240 Well, there were two key elements to Donald Ross's arrival 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:54.120 in Pinehurst in December of nineteen hundred. Number one is 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:57.319 he found the sandy soil which reminded him of Dornock 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:01.360 and was reminiscent of his home. James Tuffs had found 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.959 at Pinehurst, near where I live in the Triangle area 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.640 of North Carolina, the Raleig Durham Chapel Hill area where 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:10.520 we have red clay. I don't think the ground would 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.080 have been as appealing to mister Ross. He may not 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.720 have lasted, it may not have interested him, but he 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:20.800 found the sandy soil that was very good for designing 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:24.760 golf courses for drainage. Here in Chapel Hill we can 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.760 have a heavy rain and it's water logged for a 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:31.680 number of hours, But sixty minutes to the south in 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:35.280 the sand Hills area, it's sandy in the water drains. 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:39.760 And also that area of North Carolina has a very 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:45.280 rich Scottish heritage. Many natives of Scotland immigrated through Wilmington 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.400 in the seventeen hundreds. In the early eighteen hundreds. Just 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:53.000 next door to Pinehurst is a town called Aberdeen. There 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.439 is a county just south of Moore County called Scotland County. 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.360 There are many roads in Pinehurst called mcass goal in 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.559 McKenzie and MacDonald and Dundee. So I think the sandy 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.120 ground and the Scottish heritage probably made mister Ross feel 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.800 very comfortable in the area. So he just he started 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:15.600 designing golf holes in what he knew from Scotland and 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:20.480 starting with a place to put a green and then 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:25.800 building back from there. And so he rebuilt the number 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:30.160 one course by nineteen oh one, he built eighteen holes 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:33.960 of Number two by nineteen oh seven. He built a 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:38.240 third course in nineteen eleven, and then a fourth course 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:42.080 in nineteen nineteen. So those were the four core courses 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:46.280 at Pinehurst Country Club that emanated from the main clubhouse. 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.840 They all were built on sandy ground, They all had 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:56.120 san clay greens. The wiregrass, which is indigenous to Moore 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.280 County and the sand Hills area of North Carolina, reminded 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:03.520 him of the and the love grass of Pinehurst. So 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:09.920 the gulf that he built was what he knew from 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:15.080 Scotland and it was his American imitation of the courses 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.760 he knew from Dornoch, from Saint Andrews, from Carnousti and 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:19.000 the other places in Scotland. 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.920 So zeroing in on the number two course, what did 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:28.840 the initial iteration of that layout look like in nineteen 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:29.320 oh seven. 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:35.600 There are eleven holes still remaining on number two that 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:39.440 are the same number and in the same general location 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:44.000 as that original course in nineteen oh seven. The first 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.160 and second holes are still one in two and they're 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:52.200 the exact same spot, and eleven through eighteen or the 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.360 same numbers and are also in the same spots. Some 0:14:55.440 --> 0:15:00.600 of them have been lengthened some but the greens, the pars, 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:05.480 the configuration are pretty much the same as they were now. 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:10.600 Those first greens were flat. He did not build grass 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:14.080 greens until nineteen thirty four, thirty five, thirty six, when 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:18.360 technology had evolved and he and Frank Maples, who was 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:22.120 the construction superintendent and the green superintendent, had developed ways 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:26.360 to build bermuda grass greens that could survive the winters. 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:30.480 And remember Pinehurst was a wintertime resort for the first 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:34.360 seventy five years of its existence, so they had to 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:38.120 build a grass that was hardy enough to survive the 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:40.840 winter and all the traffic that it was getting. And 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.120 it took until the mid thirties before they could do that. 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:47.520 But it is interesting that eleven of those holes are 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.960 the exact same spot as they were. He added two 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.800 more holes in nineteen thirty five, and yet two more 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:57.040 holes in nineteen thirty five, I'm sorry, nineteen twenty three 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:02.000 and nineteen thirty five thirty five when he rebuilt the greens, 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:06.480 built the green complexes that we know today, and added 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:10.000 two more holes. Then it became to the routing and 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:11.160 the configuration that we know. 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:14.960 Today, going back to that nineteen oh seven course, or 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:18.920 even the course that maybe existed through the teens, what 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:24.240 was the esthetic character of the built features on this course. 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.800 I've seen early pictures of Pinehurst where the courses look 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.040 quite different than they do now, or than they did 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.040 in the in the thirties and forties, So am i 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.840 right that number two looked quite a bit different in 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.240 nineteen oh seven than what we're familiar with today. 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.160 Oh. Absolutely, there was no drainage or there was no irrigation, 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:48.960 so whatever grass grew was all watered by by Mother Nature. 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:52.960 Was not until the mid thirties when they redid the greens, 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:56.640 or built the greens, i should say, and he built 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.960 the final two holes, that they laid a single line 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.360 irrigation system down the middle of each fairway. So it 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:05.520 was not until the mid thirties that there was actually 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:09.280 irrigation on the golf course. So the only parts of 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:12.600 the course that were maintained were the tees, fairways, and greens. 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:17.960 There was no ornamental flowers, there was no raking of 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:23.320 the bunkers. It was all very haphazard. And part of 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:25.600 this look was some of the look that they wanted 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:28.560 to go back and retrieve when they did the core 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:32.439 Crenshaw restoration in ten twenty eleven. 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:33.240 But it was. 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.199 Very unkempt. It was very natural looking. I've got to 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:42.600 imagine it looked very much like Royal Dornok looked at 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:48.080 the time. We have seen early photographs and postcards from 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:51.800 the early nineteen hundreds, and it just had a very raw, 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.720 natural look. It reflected the sand hills of North Carolina. 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:58.840 There was no lush bermuda grass. There was just a 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.080 lot of a lot of brown, a lot of sage, 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:07.320 a lot of shades of tan, and there wasn't a 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.600 whole lot of green color at the time. 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:13.359 So in the early years of the Number two course, 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:18.000 how did players receive it, especially high profile players? What 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:21.120 did they say about the course? What was their assessment 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:21.399 of it? 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:24.960 I think because of the length of it, I mean 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:27.919 it played close to seven thousand yards going back to 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:32.359 the when it first came to its final configuration in 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.800 the mid thirties, I think the length was very stern, 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:40.000 whereas the other Pinehers courses were shorter and geared more 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.840 toward the resort golfer of the club golfer. The Toughs 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:48.240 family recognized in the early days that a way for 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.680 them to get good publicity was to hold competitions that 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:57.320 would draw golfers from across the United States, and that's 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:00.679 what launched the North and South Championships that started in 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:04.320 nineteen hundred. They had one for amateurs which still exists 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.520 and has been conducted every year since one hundred and 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:11.360 what thirty years now. Of the North and South Amateur 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:16.240 has never been suspended during any of the wars. And 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:18.800 then there was the North and South Open. There was 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:22.280 for professionals as well as amateurs. That was conceived in 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:27.080 nineteen hundred and lasted for fifty years until nineteen fifty one. 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:33.760 And that's where the Sam Snead's the Walter Hagens. Donald 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:36.440 Ross was a professional, so he entered it. He won. 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:41.360 So many of the good players, Tommy Armor, Walter Travers, 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:46.879 Francis we met. All of these players came to Pinehurst. 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:50.000 They love the golf course, they love the strategy, they 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:52.840 love how there was an equal balance of left to 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:55.639 right holes right to left. There were short holes, long 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.840 holes you had to play in your shots around the bunkers. 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.359 You could play run up shots onto the greens. It 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:07.159 was a total test. Ross believed that the long iron 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.119 was the ultimate test of a good player. How well 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:12.440 could you hit a four and three and two iron 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:15.960 into a green, which is why he had many at 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.720 the time, very long par fours, like four hundred and 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:21.520 forty four hundred and fifty yard par fours. So it 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:23.600 was a complete test, and it got a lot of 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:27.359 good publicity, a lot of good reviews, and words spread 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:30.479 across the country, and so it grew, as it does today, 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:34.320 thousands of golfers who wanted to play on this very challenging, 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:35.399 difficult golf course. 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:40.159 Were there any particular holes at Pinehurst Number two in 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:44.919 this era of the course that stood out as the 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:47.960 holes that people would talk about as the best holes 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:48.600 on the course. 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:52.200 One of the things, Garrett, that has stood out about 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.000 number two over the years is there doesn't seem to 0:20:55.040 --> 0:21:00.000 have been a consensus of signature holes. 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:01.680 That's why I ask it's kind of funny that way. 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:04.480 It's the way that we talk about Pineers Number two 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:06.959 now is as sort of a hole as opposed to 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:09.000 a couple of representative holes. 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:13.600 The signature feature certainly is the know what are called 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:17.879 the upside the inverted saucer greens or the upside down 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:24.000 walk shaped, which is the convex shape with the center 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:28.719 elevated and the fall offs around the edges. The greens 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:32.800 might be seven thousand yards in square footage, but maybe 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:35.880 only thirty five hundred of them. Is the center part 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:38.720 of the green that will actually hold a golf ball, 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:40.440 You know, so many of them you hit the edges, 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:44.720 So it's the green complexes. And then in nineteen thirty 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:48.640 five when Donald Ross built the green complexes as they 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:53.119 exist today. He also, in addition to long irons, he 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:57.280 also believed that chipping was one of the key tests 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:02.320 of a good golf course and making recovery shots. He 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:06.119 wanted the golfer to have choices to be able to 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:10.359 putt from off the putting surface, to hit a bump 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:14.360 and run, or if they wanted to in a more 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:17.640 elevated shot that would stop quickly. He would have those options. 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:22.560 So he developed all these dips and swales and hollows 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:26.159 around the golf course, around the greens that where the 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:28.479 ball would take off and run and you would never 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:30.959 know how far it might go. And so this has 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:34.480 been one feature that is totally different from most US 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:38.359 Open courses that have heavy bermuda rough upright around the 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:40.720 greens that if you miss the green you pull out 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:43.879 a log wedge and hack it out and you know, 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:45.600 try and get as much club on the ball as 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:48.240 you can. Now you have choices as to and that's 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:50.480 part of the strategy is to figure out what is 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:53.520 the best shot for this particular hole. So, to answer 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:56.879 your question, no real signature holes, but there is certainly 0:22:56.920 --> 0:22:57.919 a signature feature. 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:02.760 Well, the green have become the signature feature. But there 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:08.320 is some doubt, is there not about where this style 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:12.080 of green came from. If you look at vintage photographs 0:23:12.119 --> 0:23:16.840 of Pinehurst number two, the greens don't necessarily have so 0:23:16.920 --> 0:23:22.120 strongly as they do now that inverted saucer or turtleback character. 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:25.600 They're a little bit more at grade. And so how 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:30.000 did the Pinehurst number two greens evolve into the shapes 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:31.359 that they still have today. 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:35.160 Pete Die was stationed at Ford Bragg in World War 0:23:35.200 --> 0:23:38.000 two and he came over and played Pinehurst. You know, 0:23:38.280 --> 0:23:40.440 he liked to joke more than the Good Lord should 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:46.480 have allowed him to be. He didn't actually see combat 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:48.280 in the war, but he was. He was at Ford 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:50.720 Bragg and one of his jobs was to drive his 0:23:50.800 --> 0:23:53.760 sergeant over to Pinehurst and they played quite a bit 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:56.560 of golf, and he remembers the shape and the and 0:23:56.600 --> 0:24:00.320 the levels of the greens, and up until his death 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:04.160 he was adamant that those greens grew in size because 0:24:04.200 --> 0:24:10.040 of top dressing over many many years. Unfortunately, people who 0:24:10.119 --> 0:24:12.400 knew those greens back in the day there aren't many 0:24:12.440 --> 0:24:15.600 of them left, so it's hard to say. But if 0:24:15.640 --> 0:24:19.280 you do look at photographs from the nineteen seventies from 0:24:19.359 --> 0:24:22.960 Golf World, from when the tour was through, there is 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:29.560 that elevation to most of the greens, and the players 0:24:29.600 --> 0:24:32.840 of that era do talk about that. So some of 0:24:32.880 --> 0:24:39.440