The Stories Behind Pinehurst’s Symbols
Pinehurst Resort has one of the most famous golf courses in the world in the renowned No. 2 layout. It also has one of the most distinguished inanimate objects in the game of golf — the “Golf Lad” and his offspring pal “The Putter Boy.”
The Lad dates to the early 1900s when a Pinehurst advertising executive named Frank Presbrey created a young boy who appeared in the resort’s early advertising and calendars. In 1912, sculptress Lucy Richards used the Lad as the model for her bronze statuette in sundial form. The statue was known as “The Sundial Boy” until the 1970s, when “The Putter Boy” name caught on, and it remains prominently displayed in the center of the practice putting complex outside of the clubhouse.
The image today is referred to as “The Putter Boy” if he is putting. He’s called “The Lad” in any other form.
Take the No. 9 course, for example.
The Jack Nicklaus-designed course was closed for eight months in 2026 and reopened in August after an agronomic and infrastructure makeover. The resort’s creative services staff was busy developing a new look for the course as well — a logo in the yellow color forever connected to golf’s “Golden Bear” and with the outline of a bear tucked cleverly into the negative space within the numeral 9. At the bottom of a yellow flagstick is a round dot in the spot where the hole would be — but it serves as the eye for the bear’s silhouette.
The logo was the work of Lauren Coffey, the resort’s senior creative services manager.
“I think the logo really plays into the Pinehurst brand,” she says. “There is always a second layer of discovery and intrigue. People look at it and say, ‘What is that?’ They look a little closer. ‘Oh my God, that’s a bear!’ A lot of our logos from our staff are so beautifully designed and are the center of conversation. They spark curiosity.”
She cites the logo for Pinehurst No. 8, which was created when the clubhouse was recently renovated, a new restaurant opened and new lodging constructed on the site just north of the Village of Pinehurst. The numeral 8 has a bold line underneath it, and those figures, if viewed from a 90-degree angle, comprise the number 100 — significant at No. 8 because it opened in 1996 as a celebration of the resort’s centennial.
At the Sand Mines, the sandy soil, the old spoils of the sand pit, the railroad — those things make the site and the golf course unique. We want the natural landscape and the history of Pinehurst to speak for itself in these elements we create.”
The Pinehurst golf staff over the last decade has had fun developing a palette of colored tees to match each of the resort’s 10 (and soon to be 11) courses.
One set of tees that generates a lot of interest are the ones set out for the first day of fall (brown and orange, of course) and spring (pink and green in honor of the tulips blossoming around the resort).
Pinehurst officials have taken the tee game to another level by giving guests a small drawstring bag upon checking into their hotel and a guide to the various tees around the resort.
“It creates a scavenger hunt for them during their stay,” says Barksdale, the resort’s vice president of golf. “Guests make a point of trying to collect every tee we have, some exclusive tees becoming almost mystical. The Dornoch Cottage tee is one of the hardest to collect. Only guests staying in the cottage, which was Donald Ross’s old home, get that tee. We’ve created something of a frenzy, but it’s a lot of fun.”
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.
