In his fifth installment of golf in the Sandhills of Moore County, Chris traces the development of my beloved home course Southern Pines Golf Club from a simplistic nine hole course in 1906 to a 36 hole facility at the onset of the Great Depression. Laced with photos, postcards and articles from the period, Chris’s piece transports the reader back to the Golden Age of architecture.
The course is but a mile from my home and I have played some portion of the course (6 holes, 8 holes, maybe 10, 12 and even 18) probably 300 times since moving here from Australia. Many of those rounds have been with Chris and the quality of the place is such that we have never once tired of it. Standing on the elevated first tee always brings a sense of happiness about what we are about to experience (regardless of the quality of play).
At its core is a great routing over the best piece of property in the Sandhills of North Carolina. In fact, it’s one of the very best, tightest routings I’ve ever seen, up there in my top dozen with Sand Hills in Nebraska. The variety and manner in which the holes lay over the ground is nothing short of outstanding. The swooping drops in the hitting areas at 2 and 5, the one shot 7th over the rim of a thirty foot natural depression, the hog's back fairway at 8, the side slopes at 10 and 11, the list goes on. For that reason alone, I’ve always been 100% certain that the course was a Ross design. Too many things were too good for this to be beginner’s luck. The fact that Ross listed it in one of his advertisements back in the day confirmed as much. However, the complete absence of any other documentation (written or otherwise like hole diagrams) by Ross has puzzled people in recent times and called into doubt the design pedigree. I presume that since he lived here, his needs for communicating what to do were far less important than if the course was being built out in the hinterlands.
To put an end to the mystery, Chris unearthed and then grouped in one place evidence that SPGC is indeed Ross. He traces the “hands on” work to J.N. Peacock and James MacNab who were Ross’s long time assistants in the Pinehurst area. An article from the Charlotte Daily Observer in 1914 chronicles the substantial changes/improvements to the course and Ross’s involvement. Ross’s right-hand man Frank Maples later converted the sand ‘greens’ to grass in 1938.
As Chris got into his research, he came up with the shocking revelation that golf was actually played in Southern Pines more than a year prior to Pinehurst. It makes sense because the train from the north stopped in Southern Pines first and required a 7 mile trolley ride to Pinehurst. Nonetheless, I have never read a hint or whiff of that anywhere else. Also, Chris found out – and it surprised/thrilled both of us - that many greats including Sam Snead, Walter Hagen, Patty Berg and Babe Didrickson had played here. (Hagan's 1924 4-ball match was against the reigning British and French Open champions.) Chris and I may love Southern Pines unconditionally but it is nice affirmation that the powers that arranged such events/matches thought so highly of Southern Pines as well. Even the great Fownes family from Pittsburgh engaged in annual matches at SPGC for ~twenty-five years.
My favorite quotes and photos from Chris’s piece are the following which explain some of the allure of the place:
"The hills are rugged little mountains, giving all the charm desired to a climb or a walk in the pursuit of the game or in a ramble among the pine woods, where walks and roads and springs and forest foliage suggest the primeval." - SPGC Ad
Note the sand green in the distance.Anyway, I am not going to wax on about the joys of golf here as those are risky waters for a homer like myself! Suffice to say, all of us who live in Moore County are lucky to have SPGC and we are all lucky to have Chris’s latest to mull over and savor. Golfers might be blind to the allure of certain places but that shouldn’t prevent us from learning more about them. That is just what has occurred with Chris’s latest stroll through the pines.
Best,