Just returned from a trip to North Carolina with two friends. We stayed in Pinehurst, which was nothing like what I expected. The average person passing through town would have no idea this area is a golf mecca. Very subtle.
We arrived in the late afternoon and drove over to see No. 2. I was immediately impressed by the sheer size of the grounds. Fairways are absolutely enormous.
We started our golf on Tuesday with 36 holes at the Pit. This was probably the most difficult driving course we saw all week. Lots of doglegs and very difficult to figure out where to aim on the first 18. Things got easier the second time around, but it is still a tough course. Put it in New England and it might be a top 10 public.
On Wednesday, we played 36 at Tobacco Road. This is now my favorite public course I have played. The opening tee shot is great, but is less blind than I expected (far less intimidating than #1 at Royal New Kent). There really were no letdowns after that. I didn't love the 9th, a par 4 with a very awkward shot to the green, but it was still interesting. The 18th has one of the most ridiculous tee shots I've ever seen, and I loved it.
Thursday had us at the Legacy, a Nicklaus II design. This would have been a good course to start the week with. Relatively flat, open fairways, no visual tricks . . . all in all a very enjoyable but forgettable course. After 18, we decided it wasn't worth a replay and instead went to the range for the afternoon (where we tried the square Nike driver—what a piece of junk).
On Friday, we played Tot Hill Farm. I loved this course. The range kind of sucked—way downhill with no yardage—but that is a minor quibble. Tot is very much toned down from Tobacco. Very few massive, scorched-earth bunkers and much less visual intimidation. It also plays pretty short. We were one up from the tips (6,300 yards, maybe?), and I was hitting lots of 3-irons off the tee. There were a number of instances of feeling like the holes were shoehorned into the property, creating somewhat of a shooting gallery. On the first 18, I really didn't like the 9th, and from 16 to the end things really dropped off. Interestingly, on our second 18 (when we had the course to ourselves), I started to really enjoy those finishing holes. And the 9th didn't seem so bad. This would be a great private course.
We left on Saturday, but not before getting in 14 holes at Tobacco Road. Pace of play was pretty slow and we got nervous about missing our flights, so we bolted early. This was the only day when pace of play was a problem, and even so we would have finished in about 5 hours. The rangers did a great job pushing foursomes to keep up. On the first tee they warned us that if we fell a hole behind they would make us skip a hole to get back into position. Great stuff.
In all, this was my favorite spring destination out of four I have tried (Williamsburg, Port St. Lucie, Myrtle). Tobacco Road was the clear #1, although Tot Hill really grew on me. The Pit was very good, but was kind of Strantz light. The Legacy was a nice change, but nothing I would go out of my way to play (the Legacy did have the best range of the four).
Of the Strantz courses I have played, I would rank them:
1) Tobacco Road
2) Royal New Kent
3) Tot Hill Farm (possibly a tie for second)
4) Stonehouse (a distant fourth)
Next year my goal is to hit SC to try True Blue and Caledonia. It is worth noting that the people we met along the way were unbelievably nice. When I am on a golf trip, I don't really like to be bothered. However, in North Carolina, we would find ourselves on a porch eating lunch shooting the shit with random people who just stopped by to say hi. I would go back there in a second even if the courses weren't incredible. What a great place.