Pinehurst No. 4 - The Impetus
“One golf course is a phenomenon, two is a destination.”
Mike Keiser, founder of Bandon Dunes
The greatest part about any golf trip aside from actually playing is the planning process. It is one of the few times that grown men can be seen giggling uncontrollably as if they were just told they get to go to Disneyland. When planning the trip to Pinehurst there are plenty of different courses to visit on the “off-days”, but there certainly are a couple in my opinion that cannot be missed under any circumstances. Pinehurst No.2, MidPines, Pine Needles, Tobacco Road, and Pinehurst No. 4. Three of those are masterpieces from Donald Ross, one is Mike Strantz’s cult classic Tobacco Road, and No.4 is, well, the new kid on the block. It doesn’t have an elaborate history worth boasting about and it is no longer a Donald Ross routing. But there are a couple good reasons why it is a must-play when in the area and more importantly, how it launched Pinehurst Resort into the modern golf era.
The choice to restore the iconic No.2 was a clear and easy one. After the second world war, many classic golf courses saw the similar devolution that No.2 experienced. Tighter fairways, thicker rough, boring greens surrounded by fuzzy collars, and a general lack of fun or excitement was a design trend that plagued the United States. Sure, green fairways and white sandy bunkers are lovely to look at in early April, but No.2 is an old golf course. Not only is the golf course old, but the land it is sitting on is ancient. The sandy deposits in North Carolina have a beautiful aesthetic to them. This part of the golfing world is not just special, it is singular. The Pinehurst locale is unrepeatable in nature. God’s brush strokes are evident in Moore County. Good golf courses are pretty, but the greatest highlight the beauty of the nature that surrounds it. Cypress Point’s craggy Pacific shoreline, Shinnecock Hill’s endlessly rolling terrain, and Pacific Dune’s unkempt brutality. The same applies to the entire Pinehurst area; tall pines towering over sandy hollows, ribbons of light emphasizing the subtle yet devious rumples blanketed over some of the oldest ground dedicated to golf in the country. It’s romantic, it’s daunting, it’s a contender if not a winner for the title of “Home of American Golf”. Pineurst is classic in every sense of the word, and the renovation that Coore and Crenshaw completed revived that classic feel and style of play we want. No. 2 is like watching the London Symphony Orchestra play one of Mozart’s concertos. A relic revived for our present day enjoyment. Gil Hanse’s No .4 however, is a bit of a different tune.
No. 4 started as a simple nine holer by the genius himself, Donald Ross. In the 1950s however, then owner Richard Tufts decided to create a new 18-hole course on top of Ross’ original. This started a domino effect of renovation after redesign, a tireless limbo state where a golf course is devoid of character or tradition. 20 years after Tufts put nine more holes on the ground, a man by the name of Robert Trent Jones redesigned the entire golf course. Not too long after his kid, Rees Jones, decided to have a crack at putting his stamp on Pinehurst’s legacy too, significantly adding to his father’s work. The course under the Jones family reign was standard and unimpressive. The bunkers could have come from any course on earth, and the strategy was one-dimensional. The bosses over at Pinehurst must have thought similarly in the hiring of Tom Fazio to tear all of it up and start from scratch. Pinehurst No.4 was the poor orphan who couldn’t stay in the same foster home for too long. Even after Fazio’s redo, there was still a key element missing.
No. 4 had no voice. The course in no way reflected the identity of its location. Putting grass on the ground with some bunkers scattered around does not mean the course belongs there. What Pinehurst learned from the success of No. 2 is that golf courses that look carefully curated with precise lines and angles do not work in a place like Pinehurst, North Carolina. Courses that look forged by the chaos of nature and simply discovered rather than built is rather the core identity of it. Traveling to the village of Pinehurst is an almost spiritual retreat, and playing golf that looks designed by God as opposed to man fits the area’s borderline religious quality. Pinehurst knew it was time to shake things up in order to prove the resort wasn’t only offering a one trick pony, and Gil Hanse was their answer.
Hanse’s routing is brilliant. He not only lays out monstrous visuals at your feet, but he also gives you something most courses in the Pinehurst areas don’t have an abundance of: elevation. Clear and distinct changes in land movement grants No. 4 with a scope and breadth that is unmatched by any other course on the property. No. 2 weaves the player through intimate, tree-lined corridors. Part of the beauty of No. 2 is that most times you can only see the hole you’re on. It’s a place of solitude and silence. After the brilliant par-5 2nd at No. 4, the course starts to resemble an arena with a low point in the middle and golf surrounding on all sides. The trees in between holes are not as thick as its big brother, which allows the sounds of poorly-struck shots and profanities to be heard from the next fairway over. No. 4 feels more community centered, a place where conversation and banter is encouraged.
The routing also splits the course into different sections, or as famed designers Coore and Crenshaw have coined, “rooms”. A highlight of the course’s topography emulates the shape of a bowl, with the bottom being the only water hazard on the course. Hanse shows how golf can be played on the top ridges of the bowl such as the par-4 3rd, the par-4 7th, and par-4 12th. The routing is also laid out on the inward sides of the bowl, where the elevation change helps create staggeringly beautiful and equally daunting holes like the par-3 4th, par-4 5th, and the incredible par-3 6th. There are even two holes that are played towards the bottom of the bowl, the incredible dog leg left par-5 13th and the par-3 14th, where playing at the water level is a stark and exciting contrast from the sandy and pine straw riddled rough, creating the backdrop for most of the round.
If you want your ball to roll off the sides of greens in every direction whilst the ghost of Donald Ross is laughing at you, No. 4 is not necessarily the place. Though the greens are certainly not easy, they resemble Gil Hanse’s style rather than emulating Ross’.
Pinehurst No. 4 has been passed through many different hands , but still maintains a classic feel. Like fresh-squeezed lemonade and Adirondack chairs type classic. It doesn’t have No. 2’s devilish greens, but No. 4 certainly is no gimme. It is big, bold, and in your face. Pinehurst No. 4 is Led Zeppelin. Take Mozart, add some hard-drugs and an electric guitar, and a radically new yet familiar style is born. A classic like No.2 can’t risk being as overt, but No.4 has the land movement and nothing to lose. You can trace No.4’s style and subtleties back to its big brother, but it surely stands on its own as a singular experience.
Most importantly it looks, feels, and plays like it belongs there. It isn’t less than No. 2 but different and distinct, which is hard to pull off when the other course is the most famous golf course in America. No. 4 takes the greatest attributes of No. 2 and augments them to create something new yet familiar. It’s reminiscent of the recorder in the beginning of “Stairway to Heaven”, an instrument that evokes a time of yesteryear, as if the sound is coming straight from a Renaissance-era painting. It’s only further into the song where John Bonham’s snare drum cuts through you like a rifle shot and Jimmy Page’s guitar breaks every bone of yours in two.
The rough on both No. 2 and No. 4 are the same to a certain degree, and both courses boast generous wall to wall fairways. At first No. 4 seems like it copied its neighbor, but as the round progresses, Hanse puts his foot on the gas. Greens get more heavily tiered, bunkers start to get deeper and more foreboding. No. 2 feels like one of Mozart’s prized symphonies; an orchestra adhering to subtle details and creating a beautiful harmony. No. 4 feels like “Ramble On”, which is what would happen if Amadeus would have only been born in the last century. No. 4 constantly references the land and feel of Pinehurst without ripping off the work Donald Ross achieved when he designed his magnum opus.
There is one obvious question that arises from the huge success that is Pinehurst No. 4. Why don’t they renovate or simply fully redesign the other courses they already have on property? There are nine (and soon to be ten thanks to Renaissance Golf Design) 18-hole golf courses owned and operated by the resort. Three of these have been significantly changed in the last decade: Pinehurst No. 2, No. 4, and the fun yet devilish No. 3. This leaves No. 1, No. 5, No. 6, No. 7, and No. 9. I am not including No. 8 since, in Subtletee’s opinion, Fazio did a good enough job for it to be exempt from this “renovation needed” list. The commitment shown by Pinehurst in continually representing their own style has only achieved growth for their resort. This growth, seen either on tee sheets or Instagram posts, proves the effectiveness of the recent reimaginings. My question though is why aren’t they applying this logic to more of their courses? Imagine Pinehurst No. 1, Donald Ross’ first vision for golf in the Carolinas, reborn in the same rustic and natural aesthetic that Coore and Crenshaw as well as Hanse utilized.
Though No. 2 still is Pinehurst’s main accomplishment, No. 4 showed that the same amount of effort and vision can work on a course that will never host a US Open. No. 4 should serve as the impetus for the rest of the resort’s courses. Obviously this formula of restoring a course like No.1 to its original glory seems obvious, and there’s allegedly been some conversation about doing so in order to follow the now classic Pinehurst look and feel. However, courses No. 5, No. 6, No. 7, and No. 9 were not made in the same design era as Ross’ heyday. In order to transform these three frankly average looking and minimally interesting courses to meet the others on property, they would need a full renovation. Pinehurst has a new standard. The resort’s most successful courses embrace Pinehurst’s natural setting, taking full advantage of the history with the help of Donald Ross’ shaping paired beautifully with modern-day maintenance and strategy. Naturally, ripping up these golf courses and reimagining them through this classic stylistic lens would stray from their original architectural intent. Would it be better? Yes. Would it make some people mad? Absolutely. Would Pinehurst possess a more consistent and architecturally intriguing rota? You bet. No. 4 proved that this is not only a smart option, but will sooner or later become a necessary one. Thank you Pinehurst, and we’re waiting for you.