A Return to the Sandhills,
and an Attempt at
a Return to Normal
If there’s a silver lining to wearing a face mask through a couple of airports and a two-hour flight, it’s the cool relief of finally getting to take the mask off.
Half a step outside the Charlotte International Airport, with an overstuffed duffle and an underused golf travel bag in tow, I peeled my mask off, and the world came rushing to meet me: a July evening breeze, the smells of car exhaust and cigarette smoke, and God knows what else. Nearly 18 months into the pandemic, and with COVID infection rates creeping up, it’s not clear whether we’re getting back to normal. For the vaccinated among us, though, we can try. So a year after cancelling a summer golf trip, I headed back to Pinehurst to try to take something back from the past year and a half.
Despite not being far enough north to offer refuge from summer’s brutality, Pinehurst brings a lot to a summer traveler’s table. For one, the region’s volume of courses is unmatched. For another, it’s just a two-hour drive from Charlotte — so even for Jackson’s options-starved airport, the trip includes a direct flight. And hokey though it may be, there’s something about Pinehurst that feels like going home — comfort without opulence, and people who are polite without being patronizing. Time seems to slow down. After a year-plus in which the universe has seemed to be emptying a bottomless bag of cruel jokes, a refuge to stop and simply be for a few days was hard to pass up.
Not that Pinehurst No. 2 is a place for taking it easy. But after a sun-soaked Saturday morning spin around the Cradle, No. 2 was our first stop.
I’ve always found the ninth to be Pinehurst No. 2’s most treacherous par-3. Any pins in front require players to grapple with a menacing front-left bunker; pins in back bring a false edge into play; and pins on the right are guarded by two bunkers and a fall-off.
Pinehurst No. 2 might — might — not be the world’s toughest layout, but I’ve never played another golf course that so frequently lulls a player to sleep and then backhands that player with an iron first to the face. With its wide fairways and relatively flat terrain, each tee shot at No. 2 looks gettable — and is. But the closer a player gets to the green, the deeper No. 2’s teeth sink. Walking off a green to the next tee repeatedly carries a sense of relief. With a collection of brutal putts behind you and a huge fairway just ahead, chances at redemption constantly feel at hand. And then the cycle repeats. No. 2 is the roadrunner to a player’s coyote: it gets you every time, no matter how many times you’ve seen its tricks.
But if time seems to slow down in Pinehurst, then No. 2 might be the reason why. With roughly 40,000 rounds per year from resort guests, private events, and elite-level tournaments, No. 2 is not for players pressed for time. Our Saturday round lasted nearly six hours, thanks to one of the jam-packed private tournaments that seem impossible to avoid when scheduling a Pinehurst trip. On the other hand, No. 2 is one of the greatest golf courses in the world. There are worse places to have to spend six hours, and to have all the time you want to read putts.
No. 2 moves like a three-part symphony. In the first part, it revs like an engine, beginning relatively staid before reaching brutal levels of difficulty; around the par-3 sixth hole, it transitions into a series of fairly straightforward appearances, but always with a sinister green awaiting; and then, beginning with the 13th hole, finishes with a series of holes of mostly manageable length, but some of the cruelest greens on the course. Bogey never disappoints me on No. 2, and I snuck in enough of them to shoot — for me — a respectable number.
With plenty of wounds to lick, and settled on Pinehurst Brewing Company to medicate them. Two years earlier, my first visit to the brewery hadn’t made a great impression. It was absurdly loud, and jam-packed. This time, I was the one bringing the anxiety. “I’m still not used to being in a restaurant without a mask,” I confided to my foursome, as I glanced around at a dining room full of Augusta National logos and matted-down hair. The pulled pork helped. So did the third beer. Getting back to normal is not a state of mind; the virus does not avoid positive attitudes. And for some people, maybe there’s no going back to the old normal. For everyone else, though, even a good-faith effort at returning to business as usual is going to be marked by nervous first steps. Perhaps taking those steps in a comfortable, familiar setting is helpful.
With too much barbecue, too much beer, and too few hours left to sleep, we called it a night, and awoke haggard to a Sunday morning sunrise round on Pinehurst No. 4.
. . .
Although Pinehurst No. 4’s bunkering is nothing to sneeze at, its greens defend themselves principally through contouring — which, for high-handicappers, almost always leaves plenty of room to miss and still have a chance at par or bogey.
I never saw Pinehurst No. 4 before Gil Hanse’s wall-to-wall renovation; my first trip to Pinehurst came in 2018, while the course’s grow-in was finishing. The thought of No. 4 as the mishmash Tom Fazio creation — a Royal Dornoch homage, landscaped like Augusta National — is hard to fathom on its own merits, but even more so alongside the restored sandscapes and ruggedness of No. 2. Three years later, No. 4’s acclaim is broad, but not universal: there are smart people who don’t care for it, and that’s fine. But from my perspective, No. 4 arguably better commemorates the links golf ethos that influenced Donald Ross’ design at No. 2. The greens at No. 4 are defended more by surrounding contours than by bunkers, so nearly every hole offers a safe place to miss. It’s a dramatic contrast from No. 2, where jagged bunkers swallow loose iron shots, and where the greens’ own contours kick away all but the most accurate approaches. Both courses allow for different types of shots — but at least at No. 4, among those options is the option to miss the green without throwing away a chance at par.
Of course, for a chance to make par from off the green, you still must reach the green — which was proving difficult. After the long night at the brewery, my head felt fine, but my swing was still hung over. I managed a passable drive on the first hole, but spent the next 20 minutes pulling and topping hybrids. Walking up the sandy waste area along the fairway’s left side, with the morning mist warming into mugginess, I stopped muttering profanities long enough to assure my caddie, “I’m usually a lot more fun than this.”
By the fifth hole, I finally proved it, and started finding the club face well enough to navigate my approaches toward the contoured, unbunkered sides of Hanse’s greens. Around the same time, I decided to start relying on my 5-hybrid — the most hittable club known to man — whenever possible. At the long, par-3 sixth, I used the club to half-draw, half-pull my tee shot to the safety of the green’s left side while my partners — who, unfortunately for them, are too talented to carry 5-hybrids — tumbled down the sandy, cavernous right side. And at the cape-style, par-5 13th hole, I brought it out again while in between clubs; the ball rolled past the hole, but caught the steep bank behind the green’s right side, and it trickled back to within 10 feet.
Even without No. 2’s ferocity, No. 4 is still a golf course where you should make things as easy on yourself as possible.
The Cradle is short and fun, but it’s no pushover. Pins on the left side of the seventh green bring more trouble into play than anywhere else on the property.
In that spirit, after a well earned lunch, my foursome spent our afternoon catching cat naps and keeping an eye on the Euro 2020 finals, until an afternoon beer soothed our morning regrets long enough to persuade us to grab a few clubs and head for the Cradle.
On my first trip to Pinehurst three summers ago, the Cradle — which had opened less than a year earlier — was still a curiosity. Today, it’s without a doubt the most fun you can have at Pinehurst. Over the course of 90 minutes, we wedged and putted our ways around the tiny nine-holer, cooled by pale ale and frivolity. Gone were the Orange Whips that seem to poke their heads out of half the golf bags across the resort. When I hit the wild greens, I struggled to two-putt; when I missed them (5-hybrids are not allowed on the Cradle, you know), I sometimes just picked up and waited for my partners to finish. But unlike No. 2 and No. 4, there’s no feeling of missed opportunity with three-putts at the Cradle — no sense of having lost out on a chance at something special. The air about the place — the laughter, the community — that’s the real opportunity at the Cradle; and it swallows you from the opening tee shot, regardless of whether you’re looking for it.
Even for someone like me, who isn’t prone to conversations with strangers, there’s a laid-back air about the Cradle that brings out jokes with neighboring groups. And with the sun hanging low in the sky, I suggested dinner at another Pinehurst staple known for cold beer and quirkiness: the Pine Crest Inn.
If you can imagine a mashup of the Hotel California and the Mos Eisley cantina from “Star Wars,” then that’s the Pine Crest Inn. There’s no beer on tap. The food is lovably mediocre. A waiter openly described a prominent female customer as “Satan.” Ten thousand years from now, archeologists will examine the dust on the windowsills with the same curiosity that today’s scientists afford to Antarctic ice cores. We all all had fried fish. We all had more beer. We all chipped balls at the fireplace (I made two, for anyone asking). We all felt normal for a while — no masks, no distancing, like we would have two years before. In a world with an ascendant Delta variant, I can’t be sure of that decision’s wisdom. But I hope we’re closer than not to a time when the wisdom of a long night is judged by whether the last beer was one too many, instead of whether the next group over is one table too close.
. . .
First off at No. 4 means first out of bed at the Manor. After sprinting from a 5:30 alarm through the still-opening doors of the Carolina Hotel’s dining room for breakfast, we found ourselves steeping in the early morning humidity on No. 4’s first tee. Unlike out first two days, we were sans caddies for the day, and the breeze of the cart ride from shot to shot was the only air movement to be found. My jaws were sore from two days of gritting my teeth. By the fourth hole, the sun had risen just high enough above the pines to start burning the dew off the grass; it rose like steam through the motionless air, swallowing us like clams in a steamer while last night’s hot beer sloshed in our stomachs. For the first time in three days, the golf felt less like vacation and more like a death march.
We fought, though, slashing toward home with no groups in front of us. And we learned from the lessons learned the hard way a day earlier, playing away from the insides of Hanse’s doglegs.
Pinehurst No. 3 packs all of No. 2’s green contours onto smaller footprints, leaving approach shots even less room to miss than on the resort’s most famous course.
Coming off the 13th green, a breeze stirred just enough to prod the heavy air that had been sitting all morning under the pines. With it came a whiff of the region’s piney bouquet, like something you’d read about on an old postcard — just enough to catch for a moment. I breathed deeper, trying to catch it again, but it was already gone — elusive, like the best moments of life drifting quickly out of reach. How many return trips do I have to this place? How many people’s last chance to walk off this green came and went during the pandemic? Years ago, a law school professor lamented to my class that life is too short to read all the books worth reading. So too is it too short to see all the places worth seeing, to walk all the fairways worth walking — and to walk them all the times they’re worth walking. The pandemic’s greatest losses can be quantified; but even for those of us who haven’t lost loved ones, the pandemic has robbed us of moments that never were — like the smell of fresh pines, everywhere and then suddenly gone.
Between the early finish and the fleeting nature of it all, the day cried out for 36. So after a quick lunch in the Village (Theos Taverna — try the hummus), we headed for Pinehurst No. 3.
My first time around No. 3 two years ago, I hadn’t loved it. The small, undulating greens had seemed too unaccommodating, even by the standards Donald Ross set at Pinehurst, and the course lacked the grandeur of No. 2 or No. 4. But I was wrong to think it unlovable simply because I hadn’t loved it. No. 3 is a completely different creature than the resort’s larger courses — more like a top-notch state park golf course than something that would host USGA events — and I certainly wouldn’t build a vacation around it. But it’s a fun complement to a day on one of the big courses, with more c’est la vie to it than the self-imposed fatalism that comes with an errant approach on No. 2. We critiqued the houses along the fairways. We ran into one of our caddies from our first day. We played a chipping contest at the 17th green while waiting for a fivesome to get off the last tee. And we walked off the day’s 36th hole with the sun hanging low in the sky — which should be everyone’s goal here.
For our last night in town, we reconvened at the brewery. And somewhere between my second half-rack of ribs and my third beer, I realized that my first impression of the brewery had been off, too. It can get really loud — but avoiding that, it’s a terrific hang. The food is solid, and the atmosphere is unfussy. It’s an easy place to lose track of time (another accomplishment that should be everyone’s goal in Pinehurst), which we did: well past the age of shutting places down, we looked up and realized that it was a few minutes after 10, and that the restaurant was closing. We followed its lead and headed back for one last night at the Manor.
. . .
There are benefits to finishing a trip on Pinehurst No. 2. Principally, it gives you something to look forward to throughout the visit — a chance to condescend quietly toward all the groups coming through the 18th hole during all the hours spent on the patio overlooking the last green. “Oh I wouldn’t make that mistake,” you tell yourself. “Oh I wouldn’t three-putt from there,” you lie, quietly or not. On the other hand, finishing a trip to Pinehurst with a round on No. 2 virtually guarantees leaving town bruised and battered — the golf trip equivalent of WCW Monday Nitro going to black as Sting twists you into the Scorpion Deathlock.
Swales and sand, both impossible to escape at No. 2.
The deceit of No. 2’s difficulty is that it hides itself, and then springs like a trap. The first hole could not be more innocuous: a standard issue par-4 with a greenside bunker to the left, and — save a suggestively tilted green — little more than the region’s familiar sandscape along the fairway to set the hole apart from a thousand others. The second hole is more of the same, but this time, a bit longer; the greenside bunker is on the right this time, but as with the first hole, there’s plenty of room to miss. Finally, though, you arrive at the third hole: a short par-4 that leaves the now-untroubled player feeling aggressive. And now, No. 2 has you where it wants you. All but the most overwhelming drives leave the player with a short, awkward yardage into a brutally contoured green; alternatively, players need not take driver off the tee, but an approach into the green from farther back in the fairway must bite off even more of the sandy death surrounding it. Either way, the hole requires two perfect shots; anything less brings a difficult bogey, at best. It’s the shortest par-4 on the course, and might be the toughest hole on the property. And from that point forward, No. 2 never lets up.
On top of that, our round fell on the first day of the Women’s North and South, so the pins were borderline obscene — some of them tucked in places I didn’t even know the greens reached. If the hallmark of Ross’ designs is that difficulty rises as the green gets closer, then I was Exhibit A: I hit five of the seven fairways on the front nine, and shot 53.
“I love this golf course, and I’m happy to be with y’all,” I told my partners through three-putts and sweat. “But I’m not enjoying this.”
The back nine brought more of the same: finding fairways, only for approach shots to roll off greens, and for putts to slide past holes and never stop rolling. I don’t remember what I made on the 18th — the hole where, for the three days before, I and fellow patio denizens spent hours second-guessing other golfers limping up the fairway. Thankfully, it was a Tuesday, and the patio was virtually deserted. I slid my scorecard into the front pocket of my golf bag without bothering to add it up. For the first time all day, No. 2 and I were in agreement: it was time for me to leave.
. . .
There is a temptation to treat the lost summer of 2020 and the travel boom of mid-2021 as binaries: the former as abnormal, and the latter as a return to normal — as if there is such a thing. If the virus is eradicated from the face of the planet next week, I’ll still never again walk into a restaurant full of unmasked guests without a reflex of shock. Now, of course, the question arises of whether any of us will ever go unmasked anywhere ever again: a week after leaving Pinehurst, COVID infections were up more than 40 percent from the week I visited, back up to a level first seen the previous June. From my vaccinated perch, I find myself staring out among the unvaccinated like I watched those groups coming through the 18th at No. 2: shaking my head, wondering why they allowed themselves such reckless decisions.
The Cradle.
But no less than my own righteous indignation preceded a mistake-filled walk to the final green, am I less to blame? For all the rummaging through my golf bag for balls, tees, and pencils over those four days in Pinehurst, I never once reached for my mask. How many people at the Carolina Hotel’s breakfast buffet glanced at me within six feet and hoped I was healthy? Infection among the fully vaccinated is uncommon, but not nonexistent. To be sure, at some point life must ebb back toward the congregations and moments that make it worth living; but I can no more be certain that I was part of that solution than I can be that, for four days, I wasn’t part of the problem.
A year after our lost summer, then, there is the most primal of human emotions: temptation. Temptation to believe that the worst is behind us, and that the danger ahead can be avoided. Temptation will drive a golfer to play at a tucked pin on a crowned green. Even knowing its risk, he will feel confident in the decision as he pulls his club, even to the moment of striking the ball. But when the ball is in the air, all control over the outcome is gone. Even on the edge of a pandemic, life is a hit and hope.
. . .
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