'99 Philadelphia country clubs - design and history of Pinehurst No. 2 golf course, site of the 1999 US Golf Open, Pinehurst, NC

Golf Digest, June, 1999

Whether this will be the first of many or just one week in the clouds, Pinehurst No. 2 will be an interesting U.S. Open. For one thing, it's a reasonably authentic Donald Ross layout, not like other Ross-designed Open courses that have been filtered through the bulldozer blades of a Robert Trent Jones or a Tom Fazio. This is where Ross lived half a year for most of his life. This is the course he considered his true masterpiece, the one he tinkered with constantly.

He first staked it out in 1901. For a short time, it not only had sand greens, it had sand fairways. As a boy, Richard Tufts, grandson of the founder, used a golf ball painted black so he could find his tee shots on the sandy fairways that were packed down by a steamroller.

By the time Ross completed No. 2 as a full 18 in 1907, he had introduced common Bermuda as a fairway turf. But it wasn't until 1935 that he converted its sand greens to Bermuda grass, forming the now-classic crowned putting surfaces surrounded by trenches of dips and swales. At the same time, he spread some 110 bunkers about the holes, cleverly positioning them so that playing safely away from a bunker often led to a spot posing a much more difficult approach.

Pinehurst won't be like other Open courses. There will be no deep rough around any green. None whatsoever, so the chip shot, the pitch-and-run and the flop shot will be on constant display. If Seve Ballesteros were alive today- competitively speaking-he'd be a favorite. If Phil Mickelson is ever going to win a major, this might be his best shot.

There will be Bermuda rough along some fairways (inch and a half intermediate, four inch-deep primary), and several holes, such as the 335-yard par-4 third, are skirted by vast stretches of natural sand. These are throwbacks to Ross' day (he never did grass the rough), re-established in recent years after the sandy waste areas were foolishly grassed over in the 1970s. These areas are accented by small clumps of wire grass, which, as the name implies, can be tough to swing a club through. (Wire grass should not be confused with love grass. The shaggier, basketball-size clumps of love grass that were once planted throughout the courses as a woeful substitute have all been removed.)

The course setup, a par 70 of 7,175 yards, will allow players to hit driver on many holes. For the Open, the two shortest par 5s, the eighth and 16th, will be played as long par 4s (485 and 489 yards respectively), and driver will be a must. Big tee shots are also needed on the 482-yard fifth, probably the toughest hole at Pinehurst, the 610-yard 10th, and the uphill 446-yard 18th. One birdie hole will probably be the 566-yard fourth, a reachable par 5. The four par 3s (two recently lengthened) run in four different directions to insure variable encounters with the wind.

Ironically, the pines at Pinehurst are mere decoration, unless someone hits a truly horrendous tee shot. "It's totally tree-lined," notes four-time Open champion Jack Nicklaus, "but a tree never comes into play. All the trouble is internal, within the greens. You don't have mounds behind the greens, you have swales and chipping areas below them."

The big question mark

So why any trepidation over Pinehurst No. 2, ranked ninth on Golf Digest's latest list of America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses, as a U.S. Open site? History, that's why. In 1936, the year the course reopened in its present configuration, it was the site of a PGA Championship (in November, because the resort was closed during summers in the age before air conditioners). It's never seen that major championship since. It's been the site of just one Ryder Cup, in 1951, and just one U.S. Amateur, in 1962.

Yes, No. 2 was a regular tour stop from the early 1970s to early 1980s, but players feasted on it. In 1973, Gibby Gilbert shot a course-record 62 that Tom Watson matched two rounds later. Hale Irwin shot his own 62 in 1977, en route to a head-shaking, four-round total of 20 under par. The course did regain some respect when it frustrated many of the world's best in consecutive Tour Championships in 1991 and 1992. Paul Azinger was a stroke off the lead after 36 holes in '91, but closed with two 78s. He returned and won the event the next year.

"I've never played Pine Valley," Azinger said following his victory, "but this is as tough as I've seen. Take the ball down low, take it up high. Chip the ball with your sand wedge, with your 7-iron. Pitch off a tight lie. Putt from off the green. It's just really hard. This is the way golf was meant to be played."

But those events were held in the fall. The only recent championship held in the hot, humid summer at Pinehurst was the 1994 U.S. Senior Open. That year, it rained, starting the third week of June, with three inches falling in the week leading up to the event, and there were rain delays in the second and third rounds.

"The greens were terrible," says Nicklaus, who finished tied for seventh that year. "They were real long, spongy and tired." He estimates the greens were running no greater than seven on the Stimpmeter, which made them easy to hit, hold and putt. At one point in the third round, winner Simon Hobday got it to 14 under. He finished 10 under.