Rank the Pines courses, please.

[Brett Meyer]

Of the courses that I have played:

(1) Pinehurst no. 2

--big gap--

(2) Pine Needles
(3) Mid Pines
(4) Pinehurst no. 4

--middleish gap--

(5) Southern Pines
(6) Tobacco Road

--another middleish gap--

(Fazio Pinehurst no. 4)
(7) Pinehurst no. 8

[John Foley]

You guys are going overboard on Mid Pines.

THANK YOU!!


I'm surprised there aren't more of these. Maybe it's the comp, maybe it's the hype but I just was a bit bored out there. I do want to go back and revisit but at first pass it just wasn't as good I was I was expecting.


As for the others:


#2
Dormie
Cradle
Tobacco Road
Southern Pines
Pine Needles
Longleaf (very underrated)
#4
Midpines

[Erik J. Barzeski]

THANK YOU!!

…

Longleaf (very underrated)
#4
Midpines

Hmmmmm… Longleaf a few spots above Mid-Pines? Wow, no.

[John Foley]

What can I say, Longleaf (over multiple plays) has stood up while Midpines didn't meet the hype. It's all opinions.

[Andrew Bernstein]

I'm more surprised about the lack of love for the new #4 than going overboard on Mid Pines.

[Jordan Beasley]

After playing both during a trip in the fall of 2019, I liked Dormie Club significantly more than Mid Pines. More natural and wild, more variety in the types of holes and green complexes, and more thrilling heroic shots (e.g. the second shots on #10 and #17, the tee shots on #8 and #15).


I loved Mid Pines but it just felt more ordinary than Dormie.  And the parade of false fronts became a little repetitive.


One side note - #4 at Mid Pines and #14 at Dormie are two of the best and most evil short par-4's you will ever see.  I putted off the green and made "X" on both.

[Dan_Callahan]

I love reading about everyone else's take on these courses, because it shows just how wildly different we all are when it comes to what we like in a golf course. I mean ...  in 10 plays, I would do 9 at Tobacco Road to 1 at Pine Needles. And on that 1 round at Pine Needles, I'd almost certainly be thinking about my next round at TR and what I would need to do differently to score better.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

I think the two courses at Forest Creek are under rated possibly because they are both Fazios, and he is generally not adored on here.
A wonderful club, tremendous locker room, I know that is not what we are rating here, and a good practice facility.


The two courses play rather differently, but both have that sandy soil and the potential to play firm and fast.
Wonderful undulating terrain on both courses, attractive place to play.




Better than Dormie for me and comparing anything to Tobacco Road is rather futile, it is just unique and a must play.
There is my humble opinion, and based upon that, Forest Creek is more than likely to become my home course when I move to the area later this year.

[Brian Finn]

I haven’t been to the Sandhills of Carolina. How do these courses stack up for you?

Tier 1 - World Class (T100 in World)
Pinehurst #2

Tier 2 - Outstanding (T150 US)
Dormie Club
Mid Pines
Pine Needles

Tier 3 - Really Good (T25 in NC)
Forest Creek North
Southern Pines
CCNC Dogwood
Forest Creek South

Tier 4 - Also Very Good (T50 in NC)
Pinehurst #4
Pinehurst #8

Tier X - I love it (only once or twice each year), you might not, but you should see it
Tobacco Road

Everything Else I have played, roughly ranked:
Hyland
Pinehurst #3
Whispering Pines (Pines)
Longleaf
Mid South
Talamore
Midland
Whispering Pines (River)
Pinehurst #7
Knollwood

Short Courses:
The Cradle

[Ira Fishman]

I'm more surprised about the lack of love for the new #4 than going overboard on Mid Pines.

#4 felt like a very good resort course that one could find in a lot of places.


Ira

[Brett Meyer]

I'm more surprised about the lack of love for the new #4 than going overboard on Mid Pines.

#4 felt like a very good resort course that one could find in a lot of places.


Ira

I agree with Andrew; I don't understand the lack of love for #4 either. For me, it's definitely in the same tier as Mid Pines and Pine Needles. It has some of the best detailing work on and around the greens of any new course that I've seen. The work around the 2nd, 6th, and 16th greens is brilliant, as is the subtle contouring on the 3rd, 7th, 10th, and 15th greens.

Like #2, the runoffs around the greens are interesting without being too severe overall. They get severe in a few spots, but there's always somewhere to bailout. This is in contrast to several other new courses that I've seen, where the runoffs around the greens are too often too severe.

The drawback for me with #4 is off the tee. It wasn't until I got to the 17th hole with its fairway bunker in the left-center of the fairway that felt that I was hitting a drive where there was much to think about.

[Edward Glidewell]

I liked #4 a lot, and think it's clearly better than most resort courses.


I don't think it's as good as Mid Pines or Southern Pines, though (or Dormie Club). I haven't played Pine Needles.

[Ira Fishman]

My view may have been colored by unmet expectations given all the things I had heard. But I have a pretty good memory for holes even after one play and find that a decent criterion for assessing a course. We played #4 less than three years ago, and I can only remember a few of the holes (and not necessarily in a positive way). I thought it was quite engaging through the first 12 holes, but lost a lot of interest after that.


Ira

[Scott Warren]

How much of the cold response to #4 is the pricing structure, which positions it adjacent to #2 in people’s thinking rather than to MP/PN where perhaps the expectation should be?