Pinehurst #2 Like You've Never Seen It!
Now, when you watch these two videos posted by the Pinehurst PR team on the day of their official restoration website launch, there are a couple of things to look at:
A) Look at just how hideously the course had evolved. Even though bunker locations haven't been touched by Coore, Crenshaw and the "boys" on this job (which I know includes the great Dave Axland), note how the simple loosening of the edges already lends a feel of naturalness to the place that had been lost. It'll only get better over time.
B) Remember that the lines are still very clean right now between fairway and sand. This will hopefully break up more over time, but even at this "raw" stage, the transformation is extraordinary.
C) Consider how much more difficult (in a good way) this course will be. We'll see recoveries and things in the U.S. Opens of 2014 that will make it vastly more interesting.
C) And most miraculously, note that they got Ben and Bill to do voiceovers and to do them quickly! Great stuff.
The 12th hole before-after:
The 13th hole before-after:
Monday, February 7, 2011 at 08:21 PM
Reader Comments (21)
Pinehurst looks amazing. What a great thing for golf to have this gem out of Rees Jones's hands.
"Natural sandy rough" or bunker?
How will Dustin Johnson know?
Remember that on a European Tour Middle Eastern desert course two weeks ago the committee said "on this course there are no bunkers."
The New Wave Of Minimalism (and among that the work of C & C) will have a huge impact on the golfing world.
Let's hope you are right. Sadly, the Longys of the world seem to dominate the thinking about what courses should look like. Especially the munis I play. This restoration looks awesome. And I wish I had a course like this to play.
It was "pretty" before.Now its true value will be seen by those who appreciate golf course design as it was designed by one of the masters..
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I gather that there's no debate on that point, but I can see that the greens will be kept as they are in order to "preserve par" for the pros.
I thank God that Crenshaw has taken his deep love of golf history and directed it toward things like this.
Dunlop is correct, at least based on the memories of those who played there. Bill Coore often played #2 in colllege and remembers much lower profile green, and that was in the mid-60s if my math is correct. So it's a fairly recent shift. They have expanded a couple of greens in size (the 15th as I recall is one), but they are not going to do a wholesale restoration of them apparently. But if this is the hit most of us think it'll be, maybe they'll turn Bill loose on the greens that have evolved most poorly in his and Ben's view.
They just posted a new, 5 minute video this morning with both Bill and Ben talking.
Probably could get the wife to authorize it. She might even walk the course with me. She has done that a couple times at ridiculously-expensive courses. My lament is more general that all the courses I have access to tend to look like the ones that Longy seems to prefer: dense rough; trees galore. In other words: no fun.
However, I'd hate to be working there when the 'people who watch the Masters' start demanding refunds. I'd bet that 70-80% of the resort guests will think the course has been damaged by weather. Good luck trying to convince Mr. and Mrs. trophy course collector that they are getting value for their dollar on #2.
If I could afford to play there, I'd tip my cap to them on the way out. Great work.