Raise a Glass to Sandhills Golf

Raise a Glass to Sandhills Golf

At St. Andrews you can belly up to the bar at the historic Jigger Inn, which sits alongside the 17th fairway of the Old Course and is home to golfing memorabilia, crackling open-hearth fires and a superb selection of Scottish beers. The specialty of the house is battered haddock with mushy peas and chunky chips.

On the Pacific Coast is the Tap Room, just a short iron shot away from the 18th green at Pebble Beach Golf Links. The locals swear by the prime rib chili with a side of bacon cornbread and to wash it down the resort’s version of a martini—the “Pebbletini” made with Ketel One vodka and garnished with house made bleu cheese olives.

The Sandhills golf community does its part to provide colorful and fun watering holes in close proximity to the area’s three dozen golf courses. And given that the first golf shots were struck in Pinehurst in the late 1800s, many of the best spots have interesting historical connections.

The one that goes furthest back is the venerable Pine Crest Inn. Located in the Village of Pinehurst, the inn opened in 1913 and was owned by golf architect Donald Ross from 1921 through death in 1948.

From its comfortable but understated rooms to its convivial bar with piano music on weekends to its signature pork chop dinner, the Pine Crest has developed a loyal and broad following.

“Mr. B’s Old South Bar” has become an institution in Sandhills night life as traveling golfers and locals converge to imbibe the 45,000 cocktails poured annually and practice their chipping into the wooden frame target conceived years ago by owner Bob Barrett and Lionel Callaway, a pro on the staff at Pinehurst Country Club. In 2003 GOLF Magazine listed the Pine Crest as one of the “50 Coolest Places in Golf.”

“If you sit at the bar, you better be prepared to engage in conversation,” says Kevin Foster, who travels at least once a year from his home in Tampa on Pinehurst golf outings. “We’ve met people that after 10 minutes you feel like you have known them for a decade. The decor of both the dining rooms and bar, if you close your eyes and let your imagination run, will take you back to a place where life was much simpler.”

Also exuding a high degree of old-world charm is the “In the Rough Lounge” at Pine Needles in Southern Pines. The golf course is nearing a century in existence, opening in early 1928 after Ross designed it as part of a new resort and residential community, and the lodge was built in the late 1950s by owners Warren “Bullet” Bell and wife Peggy Kirk Bell.

Guests walk into the lounge and see the sunken bar with floor to ceiling windows behind it—and the putting green and first and 18th tees in the backdrop.

“Bullett always said he built the sunken bar because he wanted people to walk in and be able to see the golf course,” says Kelly Miller, Bell’s son-in-law. “He built a fireplace and we’ve used real wood in it ever since. He said he wanted it to feel like home, to have a casual flavor to it.”

That’s a great view today while having a Bell Burger with applewood bacon or a fried green tomato BLT—accompanied by a Blonde Ale from Wiseman Scoop Dog in Winston-Salem or a Red Ale from Red Oak Brewery in Whitsett.

Another drinking and dining emporium with a fun historical twist is the Drum & Quill, located since its opening in 2014 in the heart of the Village of Pinehurst. The pub is owned by Kevin Drum, the son of the late Bob Drum, the noted Pittsburgh newspaperman and golf writer and the CBS Sports personality who delivered colorful and acerbic essays on the network’s golf telecasts in the 1980s.

The establishment is built on the old Irish tradition of a public house—a cozy place to gather with a choice of more than 150 spirits and menu with pub fare ranging from a Guiness Reuben sandwich to tacos to burgers.

“The ‘Drum’ represents my dad, and the ‘Quill’ represents his pen used by golf writers to tell the stories that are now legendary,” Kevin says. “I wanted to add to Pinehurst’s rich golf texture by creating the country’s first golf-writer-themed tavern in the world where it should be—Pinehurst.”

A relatively new Southern Pines venue digs back half a century for its name. Red’s Corner is located on a two-acre site that for half a century was “Red’s Exxon.” Rachel Jurgens turned the site into food truck park and beer garden in 2022, and today it draws locals and visitors. Rotating trucks dish up pizza, Mexican fare, Greek and Thai food and sweet treats from ice cream to cookies. The 12-tap beer bar serves local and national beers, and there are fire pits and a playground for children—and of course dogs are welcome.

Continuing the theme of the Sandhills hospitality community keeping one foot in the past and one eye on the future, Pinehurst Resort in 2018 took a 7,000 square-foot steam plant and converted it into a restaurant and micro-brewery.

The steam plant was built in 1895 by Pinehurst founder James W. Tufts and generated heat and electricity for patrons of the first hotel in town—the Holly Inn. Today the Pinehurst Brewing Company buzzes every night with locals and resort guests queuing up for its 1895 Lager (named, of course, for the founding year of the resort), and pork, brisket and chicken smoked out back on oak and hickory.

“The Brewing Company was serendipitous,” says Pinehurst Resort owner Robert Dedman Jr. “We were trying to figure out if we should sell it or tear it down. I had never been inside it. But we took a close, hard look and said, ‘This has the bones of something incredibly special.’ It’s turned into the watering hole for the community. It’s 85 percent local.

“James Tufts used to say he wanted to build a ‘friendship village.’ That’s what the Pinehurst Brewing Company has become—it’s comfortable for families with kids and golf groups.”

Lee Pace is a freelance golf writer who has written about Sandhills area golf for four decades and is the author of club histories about Pinehurst Resort & Country Club, Mid Pines, Pine Needles and Forest Creek.

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