The Course That Makes You
Love to Hate Yourself
Pinehurst No. 2
Pinehurst, N.C.
Date: August 24, 2019
Two days after playing Pinehurst No. 2, a friend and I sat on the porch of the Deuce restaurant, pale ales in hand under the dimming August twilight, predicting the futures of miserable people.
The brick porch stretching between the Deuce and Pinehurst No. 2’s 18th green is one of golf’s greatest social settings. From an armada of rocking chairs, beer-sipping critics watch players searching for their tee balls, muscling up their approach shots, and praying over their putts in the course’s final flurry — its metaphorical door hitting them on the way out. Good shots are cheered; bad shots draw awkward silence — or, depending on how late in the afternoon it is, sometimes worse. Watching players find their tee shots, imagining the options they must be thumbing through in their minds, predicting their outcome — and then, frequently, wincing when they choose poorly — becomes a sport unto itself. It’s armchair quarterbacking on a microlevel at one of golf’s most famous holes.
Over the course of two days’ worth of pale ales, enough players come through that the strategy demanded by No. 18 becomes clear: the tee shot determines everything. Ideally, one’s drive rests on the right half of the left-to-right dogleg; the approach to the green still must carry trouble, but nothing on this course is free of danger. If the drive finds the left half of the fairway, the approach is longer and still must elude the greenside sand traps. In either instance, the ball must fly high enough to drop straight down onto the green; its domed edges roll off in every direction.
If the tee shot misses the fairway — and this is important — a shot at the green is a death sentence. The scrubby, wire grass-filled waste areas that flank No. 2’s fairways provide too precarious a lie to allow a clean iron shot; the approach is destined to come out low and short. Even from the right side of the fairway, where the yardage to the flag is shorter, the inevitable flub is all but guaranteed to find the hole’s hellish greenside bunkers. And even if the approach hits the green, the low trajectory of anything but a perfect shot will carry the shot over the green to a near-impossible up-and-down. Double bogey is likely; triple or worse is not out of the question.
The wiser option, one learns after two days of pale ale and other people’s mistakes, is for a player who misses the fairway to bail out to the wide-open fairway left of the green. There is no trouble, and from that angle, the fairway allows for a pitch to run up between the bunkers and carefully come to rest on the putting surface — with a chance at par still at hand, and a two-putt for bogey as a consolation prize.
From the critic’s rocking chair, the risks of deviating from a cautious strategy are obvious. But out on the course, it’s not that easy. On Pinehurst No. 2, almost nothing is obvious.
. . .
Pinehurst No. 2 is a lot of things. But most of all, it’s a punch in the face. To be clear, it’s a wonderful punch in the face: the routing’s use of natural terrain, and the greens’ borderline-perverse contouring make No. 2 unlike anything else in America. The course is more akin to a Scottish links than an American parkland track. Sloping fairways and false fronts make every iron shot a nail-biter. Tilts and humps in the greens — some intimidating, others so subtle that they’re nearly invisible — make three-putts common. No. 2 is a triumph, a true test for players of every skill level. But it is nevertheless a five-hour series of haymakers to the face.
My general strategy on a golf course is to play for bogey, and to add in a few pars over the course of the round to cancel out some of the inevitable doubles. If something smaller finds its way onto the scorecard, great — but I’m not a good enough wedge player to get myself out of an avoidable mistake. Generally, missing a green doesn’t bother me: I putt on, pragmatically — close enough to give myself two putts for bogey.
It sounds simple. It usually is. But No. 2 defies mediocre shots — and, if we’re being honest, an average putt from off the green generally yields mediocre results. If you’re playing for bogey on your home track, then that’s usually fine. But on No. 2, a mediocre shot from off the green (whether a putt or otherwise) can yield disastrous results. Since the ball is hitting every single contour between its origin and the hole, putts from off the green frequently finish well outside the radius of a comfortable two-putt (which, given No. 2’s insane greens, is maybe seven or eight feet). Long, sharp edges invite overly aggressive shots to risk running off the green altogether. But woe to the player that underestimates the pace that putting up those slopes requires: watching your ball go into a U-turn on the face of a Donald Ross green is one of the loneliest feelings in the game.
To be clear, No. 2 isn’t all sadism. The fairways are relatively wide, and there are pars and birdies to be had. My par on the long par-4 second hole (439 yards from the blue tees, 411 yards from the whites) was a welcome bounce-back from a skittish opening hole, and a two-putt from five feet on the par-3 15th (183 yards from the blue tees, 170 from the whites) brought another par. But when trouble comes, it arrives in bulk. The wiregrass and other native vegetation in the waste areas along the fairways are a brutal penalty to navigate; even if an errant tee shot finds the hard sand, anything but a strong, clean iron shot will skid along the ground and leave the player still out of position. There is no scraping one’s way around on No. 2. Pondering No. 2’s challenges is exhilarating; navigating them can be infuriating.
. . .
Aside from the opener, No. 2 really doesn’t take any holes off — and you’re grateful for the milquetoast start, because this is one of those first tees where your heart is bursting out of your chest. It’s strange: a straightforward tee shot to a wide fairway running through a scrubby landscape, and I’ve been nervous every time I’ve stood there.
The fifth hole is my favorite on the course: a short-ish par-5 (508 yards from the blue tees, 462 yards from the whites) to breathe life back into your self-confidence following the gut shot of the hellacious fourth hole. The right side of the fairway is massive and, conveniently, the best place for a tee shot. A second shot along the right side sets up a wedge to the green. As with so many things at No. 2, it sounds easy enough, but the slightest thing can throw off the plan with disastrous results. And nowhere is this truer than at the fifth: the course’s biggest fall-off inhales anything long and left. There’s no putting up the face of a cliff.
The problems that the fifth hole poses as the player gets closer to the green are emblematic of No. 2’s most vexing quality: I don’t think I’ve ever played another golf course where a great drive turns so frequently into double bogey.
At any other course, this abusive treatment would make return trips the worst-sounding idea in the world. But there is something about No. 2 that invites you and draws you in, even after it has bashed your brains out. It plays no tricks; all its challenges are in plain sight. It’s golf’s equivalent of Level 20 on “Dr. Mario” — it moves quickly, and it brings certain doom, but in the end you limp away convinced that all you need is one more chance.
In the end, it is No. 2’s tendency to return to your thoughts — not its domed greens or its wiregrass — that is its trademark quality. It is a course you think about — relitigating old rounds, rethinking dubious decisions. This is the lure of the scene around No. 2’s 18th green: shaking your head at ill-advised approach shots, explaining to your friends what the play should have been, and promising yourself that you’ll avoid their mistakes next time.
And maybe you won’t. But No. 2 demands a next time.
. . .
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