My trip is coming up this weekend. 8-2-4 in that order. #2 will be my 200th course in my life. I timed it out perfectly this year.

Looks like we're going to catch a cold snap in between 2 warmer periods. Walking 2 & 4, so that will help keep me warm.

My first visit there, so.......

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Just realized I never posted a follow up after our trip in October. It was a busy month with lots of work trips and attending the Bama and Tennessee Football games.

Nevertheless, we drove from Knoxville to Pinehurst on 10/15. We left pretty early and it was a beautiful drive.


We arrived in Pinehurst at about 12:30. We checked in to the Manor Inn before loading up on a shuttle to the course. Miss Kathy ran the desk each morning and was one of the nicest people I've ever met. Apparently Palmer always stayed here over The Carolina and she got to know him well. She had a bobble head of his on the host stand and made sure you gave it a tap each morning. The hotel was great for two guys. Very nice vibe with the bar and the furnishings. Room was nice and had comfortable beds, two chairs, fridge, and nice large bathroom with walk in shower. They serviced the rooms each day and put water in the fridge. Definitely recommend this spot for guys groups. It was a short walk to The Carolina for breakfast each day.

We did the package that included meals and were not disappointed. The breakfast buffet lived up to the hype and we hit it hard each of the three mornings we were there. The 1895 grill was very good and I had a good steak at The Carolina Room one night. Dinner at Pinehurst Brewing was actually decent bbq for a Texas bbq snob. It made it easy to know meals were taken care of and our reservations were made well in advance. You had the option of ordering three courses from the normal menu. There was only one item, the dry aged strip at 1895, that had an upcharge. Recommend the meal package as well.

We played #8 on Sunday afternoon. Didn't get a whole lot of pics at any of the courses and hardly any at #8. I enjoyed the course, but didnt find it memorable. We played with two guys from Minnesota that had won their stay through a The Golf Journal tournament. Both were serious players. I clocked one of them at 69 with 5 birdies and 2 bogies on the round. We took a cart for this round and enjoyed the company.

We walked #2 with a caddie at 9am on Monday morning. We arrived around 7am and checked in with the caddie master and hit the range. The range at #2 is chaotic and a bit claustrophobic. It was mats only. I was pretty nervous hitting the first tee shot and skulled it about 200 yards but in the fairway. Our caddie was fine, but didnt blow me away. The course is pretty dang difficult. You need to hit the fairways and you need to hit high approach shots. They will tell you about how Kaymer won the Open here without ever hitting a chip shot. Putting around the greens is the strategy. Make sure you have the putt/chip shot where you close your putter face a bit and hit it like a short chip shot. I hit just about every shot around the green you can imagine, including putting out of the greenside bunker on #7 for the only sandie I've ever attempted that way. My favorite holes were probably 3, 12, 13, and 16. The greens are just diabolical though. The green on 11 had a wicked pin placement back right that I had to shake my head at. Overall, #2 was great to play and I'd do it again for sure hoping to hit the ball a little better and be smarter around the greens. I also wish we'd had better company as the guys we played with were slow and terrible.

Approach to #3


Approach to #13


We played the Cradle on Monday night and it was probably the most fun 90 minutes of golf in my life. Unfortunately there was a local chamber of commerce event going on and we could not replay. We also putted the Thistle Du course afterwards with a bottle of wine on the line for dinner that night. Beat my buddy by a stroke on the last hole.





We were first off the tee on #4 on Tuesday. This course was hands down the best we played. It was so much fun and the layout is incredibly well done. The second hole might be the best par 5 i've ever played. The green was so freaking cool. Hole 4 is incredibly difficult, but everything else was very playable. Hole 12 was also a great one. We played with a Pinehurst member and he was great to have along even with our caddie as he had a lot of insight on the changes Hanse made to the course. This is a course you could play two or three times on your visit and not get bored. It's that good.

#2 Tee


#3 Tee




We finished the trip with a ride around Tobacco Road. I loved this course. We were originally set to go out alone with a twosome in front of us, but I asked if they'd played there before and they had several times so we joined them. That saved us a lot of strokes. I highly recommend this place at least once. I hated the 13th hole with the green stuck in a canyon but other than that it was awesome. Its like playing a video game.







Overall we gave the trip an 8.5/10. There was a bit of sticker shock for us that brought it down a bit. Its a resort so obviously drinks are expensive. I think it was $45 a round for a pair of double transfusions. And boy did we drink those at the Cradle. You can hit the bar shack three times in your nine holes there. We would also skip caddies when we went back. They have nice push carts available at all the courses that we'd use next time. Merchandise was awesome and they have every brand you can think of. Left with a nice Holderness and Bourne hoodie with the 2024 US Open logo and a flag. You can pick up a lot of little trinkets while youre there for friends at no cost. Every hotel and course, even the bar shack on the cradle, has their own tees and ball markers. I just grabbed handfuls of them all and brough back a big ziploc bag for my golf buddies to raid.



I think we will be back in the future with another 2-6 guys!

Just finished my first trip to Pinehurst a couple of days ago. Fantastic golf venue. Just my wife and I on the trip. Golf was the main reason for going, but, since this wasn't a guy's trip, the other amenities for my wife were a big part of the decision to go there. So, it's a great couples trip too.

Didn't know what to expect, but I found that this place caters to golfers and they do a fantastic job of it. Great shuttle system to get you all around the property. Great system to get your clubs where they need to be for the next round so you're not lugging them around all of the time. Wonderful upscale dining. Neat bars and casual places to eat/drink.

To the golf. My first round was #8. I liked the course, but at the end of my trip it was my 3rd favorite out of the 3 I played. It is the newest course (1996) and looks like it. Some forced carries, which you really didn't see on the other two I played. A more modern feel to it, especially in the bunkering and mounding, as you can see in these pics.

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Not a bad course by any means. Great conditioning. If this course didn't have to be compared to one of the others you were about to play, it would be one of the better courses you've ever played.

#2 was day 2. Just a great experience to get there and walk down the hallway that is lined with photos and memorabilia of all the big tournaments played there. Staff in the shop was great about getting me all set and directing me where to go, what to do, etc. Clubs were waiting for me in the caddie master's area, and caddie master took me out to the range and hooked me up with my caddie. I'm not going to post a lot of pics, because they just don't do the course justice. It was everything I thought it would be. Driving was more important here. Basically you just try to hit it in the green stuff. The fairways weren't real narrow, but you pretty much went from fairway to waste area. No rough to speak of. Turtleback greens were as expected and could be fiendish. Caddie pointed out to me on one hole where I needed to die a putt. I had a 25-footer for birdie. Missed the spot, and my next putt was from 20 feet off the green. Again, great conditioning. Greens were faster than #8.

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#4 for my last round. What a fun and beautiful course. It was re-done by Gil Hanse in 2018, and I think it is a great mixture of the modern and classic. Plenty of scrub in the driving areas, but wider driving corridors than #2. Crazy mounding on some of the greens, but not enough to seem out-of-place. The course seemed like it fit the terrain, wasn't carved out of it. A really enjoyable course to play. I drove the ball great here and was rewarded for it. A couple of the guys I played with kinda slapped it around a little, but even then we were rarely looking for balls. This course is definitely better for a wider range of handicaps.

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Last story. This next pic is the par-3 sixth on #4. You can see the group that just finished off to the left waiting to tee off on 7. I hit a good shot and watched it land and kinda looked away. The guys on the tee shouted. I could still see my ball, so knew it didn't go in. As we walked up to the green the guys told me it lipped out. Finished about 3 feet away. They told me as they watched it roll they were sure I was going to be buying them drinks. (I did make the putt)

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A great golf trip. After reading everybody else's stories here this year, I was wondering if it would live up to my expectations. It did, and more. If you've read this far, thanks for bearing with this novella.