Whispering Pines (East Course) - Ellis Maples

[Chris Buie]

Whispering Pines (East) is a solid Ellis Maples course that features a lot of nicely rolling terrain.  The fairways are quite wide and the greens are pretty large with slight rather than severe contouring.  Sound like a nice "member's course"?  It is, but this course has characteristics which elevate it a step or two beyond that.
A lot of people are surprised to find that this early 1960's course measures over 7,000.  It has a 591 hole and uphill par-3's over 200 yards (often into the wind).  Although the greens are large several are angled and almost every one is well bunkered to challenge your approach.  There are some risk/reward shots to tempt you and make you think.  Not the stark r/r's you see built these days.  Mr. Maples is more subtle than that.  You will go through most of the clubs in your bag and you better know how to bend your tee shots as well because several of them require fades or draws to gain the proper approach angle.

The land rolls nicely of the first tee.


An equal number of holes bend left and right off the tee.  A fade is called for on the 9th.


Although the greens are large many are set at an angle.  With the bunkering and the wind club selection and strategy come into play. Here is a fairway view and an aerial one of the 9th green.



Another angled green.


Looking back at the 450 yard 10th.  The approach is even steeper than it appears here.


The 583 yard 11th can only be reached in two if you can tap it over the left center tree.  Personally, I love the large landing areas for the driver. 


The fairway bunker give those laying up something to think about.  There is a lot of bail out room on the right for those trying to get home in two.


The 173 yard 12th has one of the narrower greens.  If the area in front of the green was shaved and had a sharper slope going down to the water it would be a serious challenge.  A really seriously challenge is not what Maples was after on this course.  He calibrated the difficulty level of this course to be somewhere between mild and serious. 


WP-East of course features the requisite sandy soil and wire grass of the area.


I don't recall any greenside bunkers with trees in them.  A rarity.


The 16th has a very uphill 216 yard shot with the prevailing wind right at you.


More nicely rolling terrain on the home hole.

[PCCraig]

Some great stuff Chris, thanks for the pictures. My favorites are the approach to the 9th, and the tee shot on the 11th. The land doesn't seem to be dramatic, but I agree that looks like it's used to the fullest.

[Bruce Wellmon]

Lordy, I'm getting old. I went to golf camp at Whispering Pines in 1975. Had my second best round ever on this course. Guy named Avery Beck was the pro. His son beat Jack in some match way back when. Those were the days.

[Brent Hutto]

It's funny looking at some of those photos. Whispering Pines looks like my home course (Columbia CC, 1960) with the terrain contours plumped up by about 20% and some pine trees replaced with hardwoods. Cool.

[Bart Bradley]

Chris:

Thanks for taking the time and effort to post these pictures.  In my opinion, Ellis Maples's strength may have been his routing choices.  Can you speak to the routing of this course?  Do you have a routing map?

I also love canted fairways and he seems to take good advantage of that on this property as well.

Bart

[John Moore II]

I played Whispering Pines once when I worked down there. I thought it was ok, but nothing spectacular. The par 5, 12 or 13 maybe, I thought was good, big sweeping hole. Other than that, I thought the course was just average. Not bad, but average.

[Chris Buie]

Bart, I had a look on the internet for a routing map of the course and couldn't find one.  I can tell you the holes were pointed in pretty evenly distributed directions for the wind.  There is some wind there - hence the name of the course and the town.  The walk from the green to the tee is short as well.  I think he did a good job giving you a variety of shots to play without being ham handed and unsubtle about it.
The course is not spectacular but it is solid.  I think Ellis Maples had the capability to do more things with the course but am guessing that his commission was just to build a medium challenge for members.  The course could be modified to be a really interesting challenge.  But that is not really the purpose of this course. 
Speaking of commissions, I got a hole by hole tour of a course today where the commission was decidedly different.  The owner of Dormie Club wisely decided to give a free rein to Coore/Crenshaw.  If you get the chance to play it then trust me and just do it.  I assure you that will be glad you did.
What were my perceptions of my encounter with that course today?  Other than the obvious (gorgeous, well routed, naturalistic, etc), I would say there are some interesting visuals from the tee and the fairway.  A lot of the landing areas are much wider than they appear to be.  Some of the greens look strongly tilted but when you get there they are actually not so tilted.  The ground game is very much encouraged with the fast/firm conditioning and the very interesting slopes around the greens.  Although there are some false fronts there is not much of the inverted saucer style of the area.  Most of the greens seem to blend right into the fairways.  The most surprising thing for me was that there is a lot of flat room - round about 25 yards - behind the green. 
It is as great as you suspect.  Some of the holes could be right out of Pine Valley.  I get to play it next week and can hardly wait!!
Back to Whispering Pines, I just thought it might be nice to do a thread on one of the courses in the Pinehurst area that you don't hear too much about.  It's not a course that is going to be on the "A list" for a visitor.  But, if you happen to find yourself playing it for whatever reason, I think you would enjoy it.

[Greg Krueger]

Chris, thanks for the pics and summary. I played it 5 or 6 years ago and enjoyed it. I trust you will be taking your camera with you next week!!!!!!!!

[Chris Buie]

Greg, I actually had my camera with me yesterday.  Although my host could not have been more gracious I kind of got the impression that photographing it then would not be the right thing to do.  So I didn't take any photographs...except one that I just couldn't resist.  It was a shorter par-3 benched into a hillside with these gorgeously ragged front traps tiered one upon another. 
I forgot to mention yesterday that Dormie has a fair amount of hardwoods (non-pines, that is) which will bring a particularly great look with the autumnal coloring.  It's rare to have hardwoods around the fairways here.