The Pit - Tobacco Road's long lost uncle?

[Greg Gilson]

The discussions on the Tobacco Road thread (I am one of the fans) got me thinking about where I had seen some of that kind of stuff before. We used to play The Pit every year when I lived in Northern Virginia - early 90's. My tastes have moved on since then and The Pit, god love it, has gone altogether. I heard that the Resort had purchased it a few  years ago and was considering re-opening???

When I think about it now I get the same feelings I do about The Road - lots of funky holes and not a great course for medal play...but god it was fun.

My wife till has a sweatshirt with the tagline "I survived The Pit".

[Matt MacIver]

I drove past the site during the last Open and there was no course there, bulldozers had been busy. Not sure what the resort is doing with it, having bought the old Nicklaus course and dubbing it #9.  The Pit was a Dan Maples design and had some good holes and really bad ones, at least hats what my group universally thought during our sole round.

[BCowan]

A very polarizing track.  I loved the pit.  Miss it

[Steve Lang]

   I can remember they used to charge a $15 surcharge for playing The Pit on our weekly package rates..  that was ok for a handful of years.. later they only charged for carts on the replay


Coming from the Maples family,perhaps the crazy uncle...  always hated playing sideways to get out of some of those borrow cuts in them thar sand hills

[Ronald Montesano]

Played it...loved it...miss it.


It was supposed to be the site of Pinehurst #9, and C/C had done a routing, involving much of the property but not all of it. This all went back-burner when Pinehurst purchased the National Golf Club and renamed it "The Nueve."

[Bill_McBride]

I preferred The Pendulum. 

[Pete_Pittock]

Played it in the mid 90s. Sounded different than what we'd see at Pinehurst 2 and 8.
      Hansen's RTJ biography tells a chilling story.  You can read the details starting on page 403. RTJ and a JD Farrell bought some property (1965) in between Pinehurst and Aberdeen on Route 5. They split the property (1971) with Jones' part immediately south of the original course at the CC of NC. 
      Farrell buried 25,000 lbs of DDT on his site, the DDT dumped by a chemical company.  In 1984 sod part of his land to the company building The Pit. Shortly after, the DDT dump was discovered and Dan Maples rerouted the course to avoid the polluted area.
      I do not know if was related, but one player in the group later died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He was a capable golfer, having birdied a hole with the score including an OB. He also started a round birdie, eagle, ace then promptly drowned the ball on the next hole.