Pinehurst No. 10 is a wild, fantastic expertise.
GOLF
Within the quickly increasing world of vacation spot golf, one space qualifies as a bonafide American traditional: Pinehurst.
Whilst Pinehurst No. 2 basked in Bryson and Rory’s historic highlight this summer time on the U.S. Open, a groundswell of epic golf was effervescent to the floor simply outdoors the resort gates. In August, as Pinehurst’s red-hot summer time reached a sweltering level, GOLF editors James Colgan and Josh Sens visited the area to search out “all the things else” — the nice golf that ISN’T No. 2, the cool spots that not sufficient vacationers go to, and sure, even a local-favorite Martini (or three).
That is the second half in that sequence, following up dialog on the realm’s different legendary main championship host: Pine Needles.
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I performed Pinehurst No. 10 for the primary time in April and virtually instantly regretted it.
To be truthful, the fault was mine alone. Pinehurst’s latest golf course was all the things it’d been billed to be: attention-grabbing, inventive, eye-popping and thought-provoking. I assumed its contours had been friendlier than something I’d encountered within the Pinehurst space, and located its selection unusually beguiling. In my thoughts, it simply achieved the tough feat of being completely distinct to something within the (already loaded) North Carolina Sandhills area.
There was only one drawback: It was too rattling lengthy.
To the bare eye, that appeared inconceivable. Pinehurst No. 10 was a par-70 golf course with a pair of drivable par-4s and a pair of near-100-yard par-3s. However as I turned to the back-nine with a nifty rating, I stumbled upon a regarding improvement in my scorecard: This par-70 golf course with a pair of drivable par-4s and a pair of near-100-yard par-3s was additionally by some means greater than 7,000 yards lengthy from the guidelines.
The place was the gap? I used to be about to search out out.
The 5 holes that adopted — holes 10-14 — proceeded to beat me mindless. So as of intrigue: a 265-yard par-3 (virtually everybody performs driver), two 500-yard holes, a 600-yard par-5, and a 180-yard par-3 the place “something left is useless,” stated course designer Tom Doak.
By the point the stretch was over, it occurred to me that I hadn’t performed something shorter than a 6-iron in additional than an hour.
“It’s a par-70,” Doak stated with a maniacal grin. “However we’ll get these two pictures again a technique or one other.”
Sadly, I didn’t give myself a lot time to get pleasure from Doak’s commentary — I used to be silently stewing over the state of my golf recreation, and the sheer variety of high-leverage, long-distance pictures I’d tried and failed during the last 90 minutes.
My day on the blue-white combo tees — almost 6,600 yards — had given me a glimpse of all the nice issues No. 10 needed to supply, but it surely’d additionally taught me one thing else: I used to be glad to be there, however I wasn’t having enjoyable.
It didn’t take lengthy to understand how self-evidently silly that mindset was. I used to be taking part in one of many coolest new golf programs on this planet, for my job, and I may grasp conceptually what was cool and satisfying about it. Why was I letting the delight of taking part in from the blue-white combo tees bludgeon my enjoyment out of me?
I walked up the 18th fairway, appeared again on the wild property round me — its towering pines and imposing dunes, its funky bunkering and subtly dramatic contours — and silently made a pact with myself.
If I ever make it again right here, I stated, I’m going to play this in a different way.
Fortunately, it took all of 4 months earlier than the chance arose once more. This time, I used to be again at Pinehurst No. 10 with Josh Sens, GOLF senior author and maddeningly gifted old-guy golfer, and we had been tasked with a mission: See one of the best that Pinehurst has to supply outdoors of No. 2.
As we drove as much as the course, I defined my plan for the day to Josh. Pinehurst No. 10 is a sprawling piece of property with a half-dozen attainable tee choices on any gap, I stated, so our purpose was easy: maximize enjoyable. Play a match in opposition to each other with the purpose of taking part in probably the most satisfying, thrilling gap conceivable — be that from the ahead tee field on a brief par-4, or the tippy recommendations on the mammoth 600-yarder.
And so, for the higher a part of the three hours that adopted, that’s precisely what the 2 of us did — poking by the assorted contours of the golf course with little thought for something aside from our personal leisure. We performed the 14th, the 265-yard par-3, from the guidelines, blasting drivers down the chute within the hopes of touchdown one on the inexperienced. We performed the 4th, a brief par-4 with two thimble-like bunkers within the fairway, from the ahead tees, turning it into a real risk-reward shot when accounting for a waste space up the left facet.
On the seventeenth gap, a tough par-3 over a number of the solely water on the course, we angled our tee field to incentivize a hero-shot to extend our match. On the sixteenth, a par-4, we picked our spot primarily based on the shortest stroll from the earlier inexperienced.
It was curious to consider golf on this means; as a pursuit in enjoyment and leisure quite than one primarily based purely in aggressive integrity. Nevertheless it was additionally oddly comforting. The stakes of our match had been no much less critical, however our mental connection to our spherical was a lot higher. (The truth is, match play incentivized this construction, since we had been each taking part in from the identical tee bins anyway.)
By the point my second spherical on No. 10 ended, I used to be pretty sure I’d had extra enjoyable there than any golfer alive. It was a hell of a turnaround from the expertise I’d had simply 4 months earlier, however I couldn’t say it was a shock. As we walked off the course on that August morning, Josh summarized it properly.
“When you’re in Pinehurst, you’re most likely right here with mates, and also you’re most likely right here for enjoyable,” he stated. “I hope extra folks do what we did.”
And what did we do?
We did enjoyable.
