It turns out that the first course at Southern Pines had some association with the "Southern Pines Hotel" which opened in 1900.
It was the largest and most successful in the village, and was located downtown at the corner of New York Avenue and SE Broad St. and two blocks from the train station bringing tourists in from the north and midwest.
It was started by transplanted Connecticut Yankee William Emerson Giles, and his wife Angelina.
Then, according to the Moore County Historical Society;
"Good times prevailed for several years. The kids were then teenagers, able to help
manage and participate in Hotel activities. The Giles’ polished the Hotel and practiced
their cheery greeting: “Good Morning, good to see you”. During the summer they
closed the Hotel and departed to Blowing Rock where from June to October, they operated
the Blowing Rock Hotel (Fig.6). The risk of doing business however, was just as
great then as it is today, and a winning combination can, as we all know, be ‘shattered’
by the unexpected and the unexpected happened on January 20th, 1906, when Giles at
age 36, after helping with the layout the Southern Pines Golf Course, contracted and
succumbed to pneumonia."
Despite the death of Mr. Giles, the hotel prospered through most of the 1920s under new ownership (Angelina was kept on as manager and eventually married the new owner, Daniel McAdams. The McAdams sold the hotel in 1924 to J.J. Harrington of New Hampshire.
In 1931 the Hotel burned to the ground. Today, it is the site of the Southern Pines Post Office, roughly about 1000 metres from the Southern Pines Golf Clubhouse.