All or nothing: a first at Pinehurst: how I played 1 through 8 in only two days - U.S. Open 2005

Golf Digest, June, 2005 by Tom Chiarella

IN PINEHURST, PEOPLE USE numbers like neighborhoods. 2 the main line, a venerable and storied historic district, rife with monuments and landmarks. 7 a place everyone wants a piece of, an expansive, upscale suburb. 6, recently gentrified, is the new hot spot. And 8 is just plain high-rent-swank, tony, more desirable than outsiders know. In this way a bucolic village like Pinehurst, N.C., exists as a city of the mind. In bars and hotel lobbies, on shuttle buses, in every clubhouse, on every elevator, the populace asks after your golf experience in a weirdly private conglomeration of numerology and geography: How'd you like 17 on 2? What about the third shot on 15 at 6? First time there, your head spins.

Still, there is no other way to take Pinehurst than by the numbers. The eight courses at the resort are designated that way. It's clean and efficient. No suffixes. No -havens, or -lakes, or -woods here. Eight courses. When visiting Pinehurst, that might be the real number to start with. How do you deal with eight courses in one visit?

Most people will tell you that you can't get to know them all at once, that you must come back again and again. The average visitor on the average golf vacation might take in two of these gems on a weekend, perhaps even three or four courses over three days. But look at the numbers in the previous sentence. Two? Three? Four? Hopscotch numbers. Sesame Street. Kid's stuff. Add them all together. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 = 36. I wanted that. All eight. In one trip. I had my own number: Pinehurst 36.

And, like most guys sneaking away for a golf trip, I had only two days.

So it was, with the help of the Pinehurst staff, I set up an absurdly compressed, historically representative, whirlwind golf dream trip, sampling all eight courses at Pinehurst, nine holes each, over two days. started at 10 o'clock the first morning. And six balls, four apples, 29 tees, 162 putts, 11 shuttle rides, two coffees, four sodas, six Motrin, two frost delays, three shirts, two sweaters, one disposable camera, 33 hours and a lousy turkey sandwich later, as darkness set in, I finished my Pinehurst 36.

I'm like most people. I had read about Pinehurst for years, had witnessed Payne Stewart's remarkable victory at the '99 Open. I had-like everyone else-seen Donald Ross' crowned greens indifferently rolling back chips like the well-greased ball return at my local bowling alley. I had a dim sense of No. 2 as the historic Lazy Susan around which a family of seven other courses existed in relative anonymity. When friends returned from Pinehurst, they'd played a typical sampling, which they ticked off like items from the menu a Chinese restaurant. 2 & 7. 8, 6 & 4. I'd always wondered why they didn't play them all.

When I mentioned the completeness of my mission the night clerk at The Holly, the original inn at the center of Pinehurst Village, she was thrilled. I explained how I came to call it Pinehurst 36, admitting that I figured people might find it sort of silly. She laughed.

"I think it's grand and ambitious," she said. "That's a real big number."

I wasn't sure where I would begin. She handed me my schedule in a sealed envelope. "Where do you want to start?" she asked.

"I'm coming in with an open mind," I said. "I just want to touch 'em all."

"Like a home run," she said.

"Just like that," I concurred.

In the morning, after a frost delay, they put me off on No. 2, giving me the 10th hole with no one in front of me and their No. 1 caddie, Willie McRae, at my side. There had been warnings that the frost might make it impossible to get four sides in, and I was urged to make good time.

Now think about that. Here I am, alone, save the companionship of a great storyteller like Mr. McRae (who at age 72, has caddied for just about every VIP and tour legend who has ever come through Pinehurst), on a cool morning on one of the greatest courses in the land, a course handcrafted by Donald Ross in 1907, home of this year's U.S. Open. I had it all to myself; first off the back, with no one behind me.

And I was being told to play fast.

Such is the burden of Pinehurst 36. I could only shrug and look at Mr. McRae, who seemed to understand my disappointment. "We'll play directly," he said, handing me my first club of the day. "There's no other way to do what you got to do." I nodded. Direct or not, there was no way I was rushing through this moment. I launched into my shot in the way golfers do, sure that I was after something as grand as all that surrounded me.

I like to think that No. 2 played me. Amazingly, I parred three of the first five holes, which had me feeling giddy, but soon found that when I wasn't lucky enough to shoulder-bang a 4-iron into some sort of lucky, semi-grotesque skip-hop onto the pleasure dome of Ross' greens, that I was taking it in the teeth just like everyone else does, falling into a pattern of chipping, then re-chipping, then lag putting, then cursing. Mr. McRae laughed. "It ain't even tight yet," he said of the greens. "They're a little slow today." I walked off with four pars, a bogey and four Xs-and 1 hour 29 minutes elapsed. When I shook hands with him, Mr. McRae-Willie, he said to call him-wished me luck: "I think you're the first to ever try it. You need to keep moving."