Answers to the trivia questions asked in our Phurst Look newsletters
October 13, 2026
October 15th Phurst Look
Question: Just months after Jack and Arnold Palmer battled on Pinehurst No. 2, the course hosted the 1994 U.S. Senior Open. Who took home the title?
Answer: Simon Hobday. The South African came to the 72nd hole tied with Graham Marsh at 10-under. Marsh bogeyed the final hole, and Hobday held on to win by a stroke. Jack, the defending champion after his 1993 win at Cherry Hills, finished in the top 10.
August 11th Phurst Look
Question: Which legendary golfer used to only stay at The Manor when they came to Pinehurst?
Answer: Arnold Palmer The King’s connection to Pinehurst ran deep. Following in his father Deacon’s footsteps, Palmer made The Manor Inn his preferred place to stay when visiting the Sandhills, creating a lasting legacy at the resort.
Question: Before Pinehurst No. 1 existed, what occupied the land where guests first played golf?
Answer: A dairy farm
Before Pinehurst had an official golf course, hotel guests introduced the game by playing in the dairy cattle grazing fields. Their golf shots often disturbed the herd, prompting James Walker Tufts to commission the resort’s first golf course in 1898.
Question: Which legendary golf course architect won the North & South Amateur Championship three times at Pinehurst?n The Cradle?
Answer: Walter Travis
Walter Travis was one of golf’s most accomplished amateurs. In addition to his three North & South Amateur victories at Pinehurst, Travis also captured the U.S. Amateur Championship three times (1900, 1901, and 1903). He later became one of the game’s most influential golf course architects and contributed to the development of Pinehurst, consulting with Donald Ross during the early work on Pinehurst No. 2 in 1904. His notable design work includes Garden City Golf Club, Ekwanok Country Club, and Hollywood Golf Club.
Mr. Travis posing for photo in Outlook magazine (1904)
June 3rd Phurst Look
Question: What is the signature cocktail served at The Nest, the halfway house for Pinehurst No. 2 and No. 4?on The Cradle?
Answer: The Woodpecker
Recipe: Fill a cup with ice, add 1.5 oz Tito’s Handmade Vodka and a splash of grenadine, then top with Sprite. Stir gently and enjoy after a 2 on 2.
May 5th Phurst Look
Question: What is the current course record on The Cradle?on The Cradle?
Seven birdies. An ace. And one par. That, friends, is how you card an 18 on The Cradle, Pinehurst’s 9-hole par-3 short course designed by Gil Hanse. On the card, it reads: 2-2-2-2-2-1-2-2-3.
Question: In which years did Pinehurst host the PGA TOUR Championship?
Answer: 1991 and 1992
Pinehurst hosted the PGA TOUR Championship in back-to-back years on Pinehurst No. 2. The event brought the game’s top PGA TOUR players to one of golf’s most historic championship venues. Those tournaments helped further establish Pinehurst No. 2 as a stage for elite professional golf.
April 3rd Phurst Look
Question: What rare sight might you spot from the tee of the 10th hole at Pinehurst No. 10 and what equally rare achievement on that hole earns you a special commemorative coin?
ANSWER:A bald eagle and making an eagle 3 on the 10th hole earns you the infamous Eagle Coin
March 20th Phurst Look
Question: What tree is featured in the First Day of Spring Cradle logo?
ANSWER: A Dogwood Tree.
The Dogwood tree is abundant throughout the North Carolina Sandhills, and was named as the official state tree of North Carolina in 1941. It’s not the first tree to bloom in our area every season – that’s usually the Bradford Pear – but the Dogwood is often found growing in the wild among the tall longleaf pines you see around Pinehurst.
The Spring Cradle Logo
March 10th Phurst Look
Gil Hanse's first hole-in-one
Question: On what course did famed golf architect Gil Hanse, the designer of The Cradle, make his first hole-in-one while playing golf?
ANSWER: The Cradle!
Now, we can get into the debate of whether a hole-in-one on a short course counts as an actual hole-in-one, but what’s the fun in that? Instead’ let’s just revel that on September of 2019, about two years after The Cradle opened, Hanse aced the 78-yard 2nd hole.
Question: What is the record snowfall in a span of 24 hours for Pinehurst?
ANSWER: 18 Inches!
On February 18th, 1948 Moore County, which includes the Village of Pinehurst received 18 inches of snow within a 24 hour period.
The Village of Pinehurst covered in snow
January, 22nd Phurst Look
Question: Sand from the Pinehurst Sandmines was used to construct which notable North Carolina landmark?
ANSWER: The Blue Ridge Parkway
Beginning in the 1920s, the sandy soil in this location proved useful to multiple mining operations, specifically Pleasants Sand and Supply, which was founded after World War II. Over the next half century, sand mined in Aberdeen was shipped along the adjoining railroad for building projects all over the United States, notably including another North Carolina landmark – the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Question: How many Christmas trees are in the Carolina Hotel this holiday season?
ANSWER: The Carolina Hotel has over 22 beautiful Christmas trees on display this holiday season.
December, 9th Phurst Look
Question: How much did it cost to spend a night at The Holly Inn on December 31, 1895?
ANSWER: Three Dollars!
November, 6th Phurst Look
Question: What famous sharpshooter managed the Pinehurst Gun Club and put on shooting demonstrations in the early 20th century?
ANSWER: Annie Oakley
Annie Oakley had already made a name for herself as part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show when she arrived in Pinehurst in 1916.
After she and husband Frank Butler joined the staff of the Carolina Hotel, she taught shooting lessons and hosted exhibitions. Butler managed the Pinehurst Gun Club.
And where was the Pinehurst Gun Club? On the land that would one day become Pinehurst No. 8. The course opened to celebrate Pinehurst’s centennial in 1995. While designing and building the course, Tom Fazio would often find discarded shotgun shells still in the soil – the remnants of Oakley’s Pinehurst Gun Club and its guests. Shells are still found at times today.
Oakley is estimated to have helped thousands to nail the bric-a-brac pigeons flying around the gun club every winter through 1922. Her bird dog, Dave, was popular for his act of sniffing out money from exhibition spectators that would later be donated to the Red Cross.
Famed sharpshooter Annie Oakley arrived in Pinehurst in 1916. She and her husband Frank Butler ran the Pinehurst Gun Club: pic.twitter.com/QCLIK7MoMP
Question: Which legend of golf won his first PGA Tour title at the North & South Open on Pinehurst No. 2?
ANSWER: Ben Hogan
IT WAS MARCH OF 1940, and Ben Hogan was winless in seven years of professional golf. At times, he was on the brink of chucking it all and returning to a club pro job at home in Fort Worth, Texas.
One report said he had $30 in his pockets and bald tires on his second-hand automobile on the eve of the annual North and South Open, held each spring after the tour left its wintertime swing through Florida.
“Ben Hogan was starving for a tournament triumph as the 1940 tour began,” Gene Gregston wrote in “Hogan: The Man Who Played for Glory.” “The achievements of fellow Texans Ralph Guldahl and Byron Nelson added fuel to the fires smoldering within him until he was walking around the golf course like a volcano on the verge of eruption.”
Hogan was the second-leading money winner, with $3,038 to his credit, when the tour arrived in Pinehurst and had finished second six times — to six different players — in the previous 14 months. He was buoyed by his near-misses, reasoning to wife Valerie that if six different players were one shot better than him, there wasn’t one player head and shoulders above him.
“One day I’ll get so far ahead no one can catch me,” he said.
