The Joy of Winter

By Lee Pace

The Pinehurst Outlook in early January 1919 celebrated the riches of the local golf experience, writing of the annual Mid-Winter Tournament and of a Tin Whistles competition.

It previewed the upcoming St. Valentine’s Day Tournament, listed hundreds of arrivals at the Carolina Hotel and advertised an antiseptic powder for the feet just used by troops in the great World War as perfect for golfers because it “takes the friction from the shoe and freshens the foot.”

Caption: The Pinehurst Outlook

The newspaper also espoused the appeal of the Sandhills: “As the winter golf centre of the two hemispheres, Pinehurst is now thoroughly established, its unequaled equipment embracing three distinct six-thousand-yard courses and an additional nine-hole course.”

Golfers in Pinehurst have always had it lucky. So what if it rains in January? The water seeps quickly through the sandy loam.

That celebration of winter golf continues more than a century later. On the cusp of another winter, those who know, know — less crowded golf courses, the joy of walking to rev up the heartbeat and body temperature, the ball rolling on dormant Bermuda, the hot chocolate afterward, the Christmas hymns emanating from the Village Chapel across the fabled acreage of Pinehurst No. 2.

Pinehurst was actually founded by an entrepreneur from Boston who yearned for refuge from the bite and blow of a dark New England winter. It took management more than three decades after the launching of the first bramble in Pinehurst in 1898 to build grass putting greens because a sand/clay surface simply functioned better during the heavy winter golf months. The Carolina Hotel turned away guests by the thousands during Februarys in the Roaring Twenties. One year the caddies were all given brand new overcoats by a generous guest, but they soon abandoned them when they realized the patrons thought they were flush with cash and didn’t need generous tips.

Who needs sun and 70 degrees? The golf course at Pine Needles opened with a women’s open tournament in February 1928.

Thousands of junior golfers have convened for more than half a century in late December at Pinehurst for the Donald Ross Junior. The 1936 PGA Championship was played on Pinehurst No. 2 in mid-November, the 1951 Ryder Cup Matches in early November. Before Florida and Hilton Head, before airplanes, before air-conditioning, the Sandhills were a Mecca for cold-weather golf.

“They came by train all winter long, from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania — places that had been covered by snow for a month,” remembered Peggy Kirk Bell, who bought the Pine Needles golf course with husband Warren (a.k.a. “Bullet) in 1953. “We’d have short cold snaps, but soon it would be warm enough to play. They would ride the train all night on Thursday, and we’d pick them up early Friday morning. They played golf all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday, then we’d give them an early dinner and put them back on the train. They were back in New York for work Monday morning.”

Caption: Peggy and Bullet Bell

Pinehurst native Marty McKenzie worked in the Carolina Hotel in the 1960s and remembers the package deals popular in the winter. Golfers checking into the hotel were given two tickets good for two meals a day, this an era when the European Plan ruled the day. New York Yankees catcher and later manager Yogi Berra was a regular in a group that bussed down each winter from New Jersey, just before reporting to Florida for spring training.

“They played hard — golf all day, cards all night,” McKenzie says. “They helped keep things going in the winter.”

The Bells conceived the idea of a ladies golf school in the late 1950s and named it the Peggy Kirk Bell “Golfari,” the word a play on the idea of a safari into golf. An annual February Golfari became an anchor on the Pine Needles calendar more than half a century ago and continues to thrive today.

“We always called our February group our heartiest group,” says Pat McGowan, Mrs. Bell’s son-in-law and the lead instructor at the resort. “The weather can sometimes be a little testy. One year we had to brush snow off the practice tee, but that didn’t stop anyone from playing golf.

Caption: Yogi Berra Golfing at Pinehurst

“It was a mystery at first why the February school was so popular. The snowbirds were going to Florida, and you’d think everyone would go there. But we’d get two or three gals from a club in the Midwest or up north, where they shut it down in the winter. Word would spread and the next year eight or 10 from the same club would come. Most days in February hit 50 degrees, so it’s not bad for golf at all. It’s kind of a kick-off for spring.”

Kelly Mitchum of the Pinehurst teaching staff was pitched on the idea in December of 2017 of playing the resort’s new short course, The Cradle, on the shortest day of the year, the Winter Solstice of Dec. 21, from sun-up to sun-down, perhaps as a charity enterprise. Mitchum played 26 rounds from 7:20 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. on something of a lark. The idea stuck and this December it will be the eighth Winter Solstice marathon in what has evolved into an annual fund-raising event.

“I was pretty sore at the end of it, but it was a lot of fun,” Mitchum says of the 2017 marathon. “It was 50 degrees or so, pretty comfortable. The thing about winter golf is the wind. If the wind blows, it’s tough. But even if it’s 45 degrees and there’s no wind, it’s pretty comfortable.”

So as winter nears, embrace the wool and Chapstick, the gray and brown, the low southern sun and sodden socks. John Updike had the right idea: “Golf feels, on the frost-stiffened fairways, reduced to its austere and innocent essence.”

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.