How the Sandhills Helped Shape the World of Golf

“The Sandhills area is so incredibly unique,” says Golf Pride President Jamie Ledford. “I am not aware of any other place like it in the world. There is a huge concentration of equipment brands in Carlsbad, California. But there is something really unique about the Pinehurst-Southern Pines-Aberdeen area and it having such a massive commitment to golf and the game. The number of courses within a five-mile radius and the number of people traveling here every year is incredible. It’s a huge opportunity for us to tap into the entire world of golf right here.”

Since Pinehurst’s founding in 1895, there are any number of examples of how the community has been an incubator for the world of golf:

It began one day in 1959 as Pine Needles’ owners, Warren “Bullet” and LPGA golfer Peggy Kirk Bell, were lamenting the fact that a business group had pulled out of a major commitment to rent out the resort a month away. A friend suggested they organize a weekend golf school for women. And presto — the women’s golf school was born. They called it “Golfari” as a take-off on the idea of a week-long “safari into golf.”

Soon after in the 1970s, Golf Digest magazine was on a major initiative to take the pages of instruction in its magazine and turn them into real-life lessons at top golf resorts around the United States. In 1975, golf instructors Bob Toski, Jim Flick, Davis Love Jr., Peter Kostis, Lou Miller and Gary Wiren visited Pinehurst for spring and fall golf schools at the resort, beginning a decade-long commitment to Pinehurst.

Pinehurst launched its own golf schools in the 1980s, and today the Golf Advantage School at the resort and the Pine Needles Golfaris are alive and well, drawing golfers to the Sandhills and sending them home with lower handicaps.

As a means to draw top golfers to Pinehurst and generate national publicity for its long and difficult No. 2 course, Pinehurst launched the North & South Championships in 1901 — one for amateurs only and an open category for professionals starting a year later. The latter was considered a “major championship” in the early days of the pro golf tour, with Walter Hagen, Tommy Armour, Ben Hogan and Sam Snead among its winners.

Since then, No. 2 has been the venue for three U.S. Amateurs, four U.S. Opens, one U.S. Women’s Open, one Ryder Cup and one U.S. Senior Open. Pine Needles has hosted four U.S. Women’s Opens. And there are plenty more major events in the offing with the USGA opening Golf House Pinehurst in 2024 and anointing Pinehurst as an “Anchor Site” for future championships.

“We wanted to have a presence in the Pinehurst community,” Van Horn says. “We felt very welcome here, very supported by the community. The synergies around the Pinehurst/Southern Pines area as a golf capital, a golf mecca have been important to us. It seemed like a great place to layer in more of the idea of kids golf, family golf.”

One driving force in the evolution of the Carolinas Golf Association was Richard Tufts, a member of Pinehurst’s founding and ownership family. From 1926-65, he served many roles from director to secretary-treasurer. The CGA was headquartered in Pinehurst in the mid-1900s and established a permanent home in the Sandhills in the 1980s. It opened its Carolinas Golf House on land across from Pine Needles Lodge in 2014.

The USGA announced in September 2020 that it would establish a second headquarters called Golf House Pinehurst as an adjunct to its Far Hills, N.J., headquarters. The $36 million project included a Research and Test Center, an innovation hub, offices for staff members and the relocation of the World Golf Hall of Fame from its previous home in St. Augustine, Fla. The new facility opened in time for the 2024 U.S. Open.

“There is no better place for the USGA to plant new roots than the Home of American Golf,” said Mike Davis, at the time the CEO of the USGA.