I'm one of the lucky recipients of Gary's kind offering, and it was my first time playing the course which I've wanted to play and see for many years.
At the very beginning, I was a little underwhelmed by the driving range, 1st hole, and 2nd hole ... not that they were bad. However, starting with the tee shot on 3, I loved the course and pretty much every shot from then on to the finish. The angles, slopes, contours, and the way the wind affected shots were just magnificent. Just enough to make things interesting on pretty much every shot. The course looks fairly open and easy, but the green contours combined with slopes and speed of greens made everything very challenging. No shots are too difficult, but seemingly every approach required a highly precise shot ... shots that were off just a little sometimes found their way into a bunker or a collection area / grass depression.
I'm a very rusty scratch ish golfer around 50 years old, and we played the 6,700 yard tees. We were talked out of the 7,250 tees from the golf pros, but I do think me and another member of our foursome probably should have played from 7,250 as we both hit good drives on holes and were through the fairway or behind trees. The length of the course isn't really the difficulty -- the required precision is. I managed to make 5 birdies with a few lip-outs for birdie, but I also managed to putt off or chip-off 2 greens and shot 78. (Wondering if that is the highest score on record for someone who made 5 birdies!)
I do think the course could use some tees around 7,000 yards, and I think the greens shouldn't be any faster given the slope and the wind. That said, the course was also tremendous fun and one that I could see people love playing every day.
I haven't been to Pinehurst #2 since the remodel, but I'd have to say I like Seminole more than #2. #2 is probably a better test of golf for modern tour professionals, but I found Seminole a lot more fun to play. On a 1 to 10 scale, I'd say Seminole is around a 9 to 9.5.
Once again, thanks to Gary for a wonderful chance to play such a fine course. Also, thanks to my playing partners that day who were fun to play with.
(BTW, I'm not Alex but who Gary meant as Alex I'm pretty sure.)