The Cradle of American Golf
By 1903, the Pinehurst Golf Club was established, the North and South Championship series was underway, and Pinehurst was becoming a major focus for golf in the U.S. The best in the world have played Pinehurst: Harry Vardon, Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen, Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson, Glenna Collett Vare, Babe Zaharias, Patty Berg, and Louise Suggs. Snead once proclaimed Pinehurst No. 2 “as my number one course.”
It has greeted and challenged golfers from throughout the world, as the site of the 1936 PGA Championship, the 1951 Ryder Cup Matches, the 1962 and 2008 U.S. Amateur Championships; the 1989 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship, the 1991 and 1992 TOUR Championships, the 1994 U.S. Senior Open, and the 1999 and 2005 U.S. Open Championship, the first of which was won with a famous 15-foot putt by Payne Stewart. In 2014, Pinehurst hosted both the U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open Championships in back-to-back weeks, marking the first time in history both tournaments were played in the same year, on the same course.
Not bad for a ravaged timberland.
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