A Slice of History
at a Sliver of the Price
Asheboro Municipal Golf Course
Asheboro, N.C.
Greens fee: $10 to walk nine holes
Date played: November 21, 2021
I’m on the record with the position that Donald Ross is a little overrated.
I certainly haven’t played enough of the more than 400 designs credited to Ross to speak to the full breadth of his portfolio. Of the ones I’ve visited, the great ones — Pinehurst No. 2 and George Wright come to mind first — are really great. There are many more to whose greatness I’m willing to stipulate. Past those, though, there are also-rans among Ross’ credits — courses that are fine, but not life-changing. And that shouldn’t undermine Ross’ legacy: anyone who designs more than 400 golf courses isn’t going to hit 400 home runs (not to mention that many designs credited to Ross were handled mostly by associates, rather than by Ross himself). But Ross’ legacy should include the fact that, for all the great golf courses he produced, he also produced a lot of so-so work.
The High Point Enterprise (Jan. 17, 1964).
Under the right circumstances, though, there’s room for that too.
Asheboro Municipal Golf Course is a nine-hole, 1937 Ross design that costs $10 to walk. Ten dollars! To play a Donald Ross golf course! You can hardly eat lunch at Popeyes for $10.
For much of Asheboro’s history, though, some people couldn’t get lunch even with $10. In early 1964, the NAACP chose Asheboro as the focus of a major integration campaign. After the city rejected a handful of demands (including integration of the municipal golf course; the mayor claimed it already was open to Black players), Black residents began a series of sit-ins. Dozens of Black people were brutalized and arrested. Later that year, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which — among other things — forbade racial discrimination in restaurants.
Ross’ work at Asheboro Municipal, then, is probably not Asheboro’s most important contribution to history. The course is indisputably not among Ross’ masterworks. It will never hold a candle to Pinehurst No. 2, which sits 45 minutes down the road. But it’s enjoyable, and it won’t cost you $400. Pinehurst No. 2 will never hold a candle to that, either.
. . .
Asheboro Municipal is never going to be a candidate for a full restoration. The city’s appropriations for the golf course are slightly down over the past 10 years (when accounting for inflation), and realistically, the golf course probably doesn’t get enough play to justify a multi-million dollar infusion. There’s no way to know whether Ross foresaw that. If he didn’t, then it’s a remarkable coincidence that he designed Asheboro Municipal with few features requiring expensive upkeep, and leaned instead on a strong routing.
The cleverly placed bunker 40 yards in front of Asheboro Municipal’s second green is a two-edged sword. Play close enough to the hazard, and the green is open to an easy running shot; but find yourself behind it too far, and the running shot is eliminated, and overhanging tree branches interfere with a higher ball flight.
The course’s site sits on a large, gradual downhill slope, with hummocks large and small scattered about. The routing runs through the elevation changes in different directions — sometimes uphill, sometimes downhill, sometimes across. The only holes running parallel to one another are the first three; not coincidentally, these holes make the most aggressive use of the few hazards that Ross kept in the design.
At the par-4 second hole (370 yards from the blue tees, 276 yards from the white tees), for instance, a sand trap fronts the green along its rightward two-thirds, with another small bunker about 40 yards in front of the green in the fairway’s left half. A player chooses their approach shot’s challenge with their drive: any shot to the right side of the fairway must fly the greenside bunker; but for any shot along the left side, the small fairway bunker cuts off most running shots and forces players to thread a needle between the left side’s tree line and the sand trap guarding the green.
The greenside bunker at Asheboro Municipal’s par-5 fourth bleeds away into the surrounding landscape, reminiscent of Pinehurst No. 2.
The design brings water into play only twice, but both meetings are treacherous, and the small ditch running in front of the green at the short par-4 third hole (342 yards from the blue tees, 312 yards from the white tees). After the uphill second, the third plays back down, so tee shots are destined to land at an awkward distance from the tiny, bunker-pinched green: hit a touchy wedge, but don’t leave it short, left, or right. In front of a threesome letting me play through, I countered Ross’ challenge by shanking my approach 30 yards right of the green, and then dumped my third into the right-side bunker. If Ross’ designs — great and mediocre alike — have one characteristic in common, it’s that life gets more perilous the closer you get to the green. Incidentally, my game shares that quality. The marriage of those meetings engenders respect, but rarely happiness.
For someone who opens with as many double bogeys as I do, you learn patience. Eighteen holes is a long time, I remind myself, and you’re bound to make a few pars accidentally. But at a nine-hole course, the pressure comes quicker. Just six holes remained, and I hadn’t exactly justified the nearly 800 miles from my front door.
On the fourth tee, though, I found something. At the par-5 fourth (524 yards from the blue tees, 517 yards from the white tees), a blistering drive led to par. At the par-3 fifth (180 yards from the blue tees, 155 yards from the white tees), I pured a 6-iron and wondered for a moment whether I’d jarred it (after a two-putt, I’d parred it). Even after bogeying the scenic, downhill par-4 sixth (371 yards from the blue tees, 345 yards from the white tees), I couldn’t complain.
The pond at the bottom of the eighth hole’s blind tee shot will draw a lot of frowns, but Asheboro Municipal’s most detestable hazard is the one across the street from the sixth green.
If I needed a reminder that I was still at a $10 municipal course, though, then the second half of the design obliged a couple of times. The short par-3 seventh hole (165 yards from the blue tees, 134 yards from the white tees) is a delicate wedge or short iron to a slightly elevated green — with untended tree branches stretching out to knock down most tee shots, and Bojangles and Taco Bell parking lots just the other side of the property line. I indulged both modern additions to the hole: crushing a tee shot into the tree, which deflected the ball off the side of the Bojangles (the Callaway Supersoft golf ball was probably the most edible thing on that property all day).
And at the tough par-4 eighth hole (385 yards from the black tees, 369 yards from the white tees), a blind tee shot straight uphill leads to a fairway that swoops sharply downhill to the left — leaving a target that isn’t easily discernible from the tee. The blind tee shot isn’t a problem. But the pond waiting unannounced on the other side of that blind tee shot is. It’s easily reachable with driver or any fairway wood, and it runs right up to the edge of the tiny green. That leaves two bad options: lay up to the top of the hill, or play close to the pond and try a delicate wedge or short iron from a downhill lie. In Ross’ defense, the pond might not have been part of his original design (his sketches show no water hazards, and the pond appears to be absent from a late-1950s aerial photo). No matter the route chosen, chances are high of sinking nearly half your greens fee into the pond.
. . .
The downside of fall golf: leaves on the ground. The upside of fall golf: leaves on the trees.
Asheboro Municipal will never be at the center of anyone’s Pinehurst getaway itinerary. No other region in North America offers so many elite-level golf courses in such a compact area. In such a crowded neck of the woods, Asheboro Municipal will never attract many glances.
Even so, Asheboro Municipal has some things that many better known Pinehurst courses — even better known Ross designs — can’t claim. Its original routing remains intact, and most of its original bunkers remain in place. And for God’s sake, it’s a $10 Donald Ross course! Less enjoyable walks with less remarkable pedigrees have gone for much higher greens fees.
I wouldn’t build a vacation around it. But I wouldn’t hesitate to go back with a few friends, either.
. . .
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