Reflections on Pinehurst, Payne, Peggy, & people who made golf magic

By Lee Pace

“A basic law: the more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for.” – Norman Vincent Peale

Thanksgiving No. 68 approaches. As the revolutions around the sun notch upward and upward, it’s natural to pause, reflect and be grateful for what you’ve experienced. One very satisfying and interesting compartment of my professional life has been chronicling golf in Pinehurst — beginning in 1987 when I quit my last real job to forage an existence amidst words, photos, paper and ink (later adding packets and protocols and something called HTTP).

So, I humbly offer thanks for having been able to write my Quick Nine stories of the Sandhills.

The 1980s/90s Resurrection of Pinehurst — First there was the 75-year era of the founding Tufts family in Pinehurst. Then the awkward and clumsy decade of Diamondhead. Then in marched Robert Dedman Sr. of Dallas. “Partner, I think this place is worth saving. This is one of those places you just can’t duplicate — it’s kind of like buying the St. Andrews of America,” Dedman said. It took time, money, astute leadership and vision. Gradually, Pinehurst once again became a player in American golf.

Payne Stewart

Payne Winning in 1999 — No one knew exactly what to expect when the USGA awarded Pinehurst No. 2 its first U.S. Open. Would the crowds come? Would the town support the influx? Would the golf course stand up? Those questions and many more were answered with shiny gold stars, the leading domino falling toward The Deuce being the first course designated as a U.S. Open Anchor Site. The drama and emotional wattage of Stewart rolling in a 20-foot putt on the last stroke of the championship was just icing on the cake.

The Life of Peggy Kirk Bell — She certainly knew how to play golf, having won the North & South Women’s Amateur and having been a founding member of the LPGA Tour. But Peggy and her husband Warren “Bullet” Bell learned the hospitality business as they went along, and Peggy turned an impromptu golf lesson to a lady guest in the 1950s into a thriving golf instruction business that in November 2025 saw Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club hosting its 59th Couples Golf Jamboree. Her spirit permeates the Sandhills today.

The Last Amateurs — My 1991 book Pinehurst Stories was built around interviews and chapters on 18 elite names in golf who had a good story to tell from their golf lives around Pinehurst. Hands down the highlight of that research was interviewing and getting to know Billy Joe Patton, Harvie Ward and Bill Campbell — three elite players from the mid-1900s who remained career amateurs. Patton cried. Ward’s eyes twinkled. And Campbell spoke with a notable degree of eloquence. All three loved Pinehurst.

Ben Hogan

Ben Hogan’s First Win — Hogan was winless in eight years on the pro golf tour in March 1940 and just about to call it quits. A club pro job was waiting for him at home in Fort Worth. But the volcano detonated in the North & South Open on the hallowed ground of No. 2, with Hogan shooting a tournament record 277. From there he went to Greensboro and Asheville and won two more tournaments, breaking par in 11 of 12 rounds. The world of golf never knew what hit it.

The Coore/Crenshaw Project — “This will be the smartest thing we’ve done or the dumbest,” said Pinehurst owner Bob Dedman Jr. in 2010. Dedman had just given golf architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw license to dial the clock back on his No. 2 jewel to an era broadly defined as “The Golden Age” between Donald Ross’s death in 1948 and Pinehurst’s sale to the Diamondhead Corporation in 1970. It was a brilliant move indeed, restoring the course to the gnarly look of Ross’s homeland in Scotland.

The Changes in the Village (Not) — Pat Corso, the president and CEO of Pinehurst Resort from 1987-2003, looked at a vintage black-and-white aerial photo of the Village of Pinehurst one day in the early 1990s. The photo was taken probably in the 1950s. “Except for the cars, it looks exactly the same,” he said. It would today as well. Marty McKenzie, a lifelong Pinehurst resident and businessman, likes to call it “The Magic Bubble.” There is still nothing garish or gaudy inside that bubble.

Pinehurst Caddie

The Walking Game — Pinehurst owner Richard Tufts once said there would never be golf carts in Pinehurst. They defied the spirit of the old Scottish game, he said. Of course, Tufts and his lieutenants bowed to market forces in the 1950s and ’60s and the resort followed national trends over the coming decades that sadly saw those infernal contraptions as the default mode to playing the same. Happily, those trends reversed as I chronicled in my 2021 book, Good Walks. Today at many Sandhills courses you can walk-and-carry or take a trolley — golf as it should be.

The Dynamic Decade — It was bold and drastic move for sure when Coore & Crenshaw stripped out all that lush green Bermuda grass on No. 2 and in its stead melded sand and wire grass and jagged edges. That set the template for a crescendo of change over the next dozen years — The Cradle short course, the rebuild of No. 4, the transformation of an abandoned steam plant into the Pinehurst Brewery, the launch of the satellite golf destination south of town with No. 10 (open) and No. 11 (under construction), the USGA setting up shop with offices and the World Golf Hall of Fame.

It’s been quite a run. I am thankful indeed for a front-row seat.

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.