The Fall Foursome (And Beyond)
By Lee Pace
They come from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and all points on the compass. The weather is starting to turn and cool off.
The lure of the famous courses they’ve seen on television — Pinehurst No. 2 for the U.S. Open and Pine Needles for the Women’s Open, for example — beckons groups of four golfers up to a couple dozen to flock to the Sandhills of North Carolina. The variety of golf designs from Donald Ross to Tom Fazio to Tom Doak renders too many choices and not enough time.
Milletary and three buddies traveled to Myrtle Beach in the late 1980s, got snowed out one January and on the way back north decided to stop in Pinehurst. They played the Pit Golf Links (the Dan Maples design in Aberdeen that was shut down in 2010) and have been coming to the Sandhills every October ever since. Their group has grown to 16 golfers, and they stay in the lodging facilities at either Mid South or Talamore, the sister resorts on either side of Midland Road between Pinehurst and Southern Pines. They play four rounds of golf Thursday to Sunday in a “mini-Ryder Cup format,” as Milletary calls it, with golf package specialist Nikki Conforti making all the arrangements.
“Everything is so close together at Pinehurst, it’s not spread out like some places,” Milletary says. “Nikki plays golf herself, so she knows what’s in good shape. She gets us on the best courses.”
The Pine Crest has been their Sandhills home every year. They love the rocking chairs, the bar, the food and the service they get from the Barrett family, the longtime owners of the inn that first opened in 1913. Instead of taking a big group to the inn’s dining room or a restaurant in the village, the Pine Crest food and beverage staff arranges private dinner buffets every evening — from fish and chips one night to an Italian theme the next to seafood another.
“It’s kind of like you’re going home, they treat you like a million dollars,” Close says. “This trip is all about friendships. We sit on the porch, smoke cigars, have a drink and tell stories. Some guys have known each other for 50 years or more. We love the Pine Crest. It’s quaint, it’s comfortable and they have a great bar.”
Bill Shaw, Jock Heaton, Bob Branson and Joe Crisham were a regular foursome at their course in Dixon, Ill., and over the 1980s and early ‘90s they played a regular game of “Nine Point” with a lot of trash side bets. Instead of exchanging dollars among winners and losers each week, they put all the money in a pot that had reached enough by 1996 to fund a golf trip for the foursome.
Golfers have been singing that hymn for more than a century. It began with Pinehurst founder James Walker Tufts building nine rudimentary holes in 1898 as an experiment to test the waters on whether this stick-and-ball game imported from Scotland would have any traction in the United States. Then it continued in 1900 when he hired a young Scottish golf professional named Donald Ross to run the golf operation.
Ross embraced the sandy soil and native wiregrass with their similarities to the landscapes he’d known at home in Dornoch and while working apprenticeships at St. Andrews and Carnoustie. He began giving lessons, hiring caddies, organizing competitions and designing golf courses. By 1919, he had built four courses at Pinehurst and by the end of 1920s had seven designs in the community, including Southern Pines Golf Club, Pine Needles and Mid Pines. Golf’s popularity was spreading like wildfire in the early 1900s, and Pinehurst was at the epicenter.
“My friends laughed at me,” Ross said. “They said it was folly to try to make a winter golf colony down in the jack pines and sand of Carolina.
“Pinehurst was absolutely the pioneer in American golf. While golf had been played in a few places before Pinehurst was established, it was right here on these sandhills that the first great national movement in golf was started. Men came here, took a few golf lessons, bought a few clubs and went away determined to organize clubs.”
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.
Other Blogs
The Spring Thaw
“While golf had been played in a few places before Pinehurst was established, it was right here on these sandhills…
New Bites at Pine Needles
“It’s very exciting what’s going on here. Our guests are enjoying it, and the local residents are starting to take…
Romantic Pinehurst Weekend
Related
Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club1005 Midland Road
Southern Pines, NC 28387
The Lodges at Mid South610 Palmer Drive
Southern Pines, NC 28387
Talamore Golf Resort48 Talamore Drive
Southern Pines, NC 28387
Pine Crest Inn50 Dogwood Road
PO Box 879, NC 28374
Forest Creek Golf Club Meeting Facilities200 Meyer Farm Drive
Pinehurst, NC 28374
The Inn at Mid Pines1010 Midland Road
Southern Pines, NC 28387
Legacy Golf Packages12615 US Hwy 15-501
Aberdeen, NC 12615