‘You’d Better Not Mess This Up Because If This Golf Course Goes, So Goes This Whole Town’ - Pinehurst Architect Explains 'Very Difficult' Restoration

Throughout a golf course's lifetime, it is highly like that it will see design changes. Whether it's via a hole being re-shaped, or perhaps the type of turf used, chances are a golf course will, architecturally, see some sort of change.

One of those examples is the 2024 US Open venue, Pinehurst No.2 which, in 2010, received a mammoth $1.5 million makeover from famous golf course architect Bill Coore and two-time Masters winner, turned golf course architect, Ben Crenshaw.

Essentially, the duo increased the widths of the fairways, widening some by as much as 50%, as well as ripping out all of the Bermuda rough that had been planted in the 1970s. Those were the big changes but, like anything, the re-design didn't come without its pressures, as Coore revealed to Golf Monthly in an exclusive interview.

"Certainly, from a restoration standpoint, it was very difficult purely because of the scale of it. Every hole was touched completely - the appearance, the character and in many ways the playability too," explained Coore.

"The golf course was altered in many ways. At a lot of these clubs, the Oakmont’s, Seminole, Cypress Point, the changes are very, very minimal, but at Pinehurst it encompassed the entire golf course. The next closest to that would have been Maidstone, but even there it was minimal in terms of scope compared to Pinehurst. Number 2 was definitely the most stressful in terms of working with old courses."

Such was the pressure, Coore added: "I remember one story, I was walking out, we were in the process of removing turf, they took nearly 40 acres of grass and people were watching this with total amazement and one gentleman stopped me and said ‘you’d better not mess this up because if this golf course goes, so goes this whole town.’ He then turned and walked away and he was not alone in thinking this".

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Growing up in North Carolina, Coore knows all about Pinehurst No.2 as he lived just an hour away from the iconic track. Such was the impact of the No.2 course, he credits it as one of the two courses to inspire his golf course architect journey.

"(There are) two courses that would be foremost in terms of creating my awareness in both interesting golf and challenging golf certainly from my perspective. The first was Pinehurst, primarily No. 2. I played a fair amount as a kid, and in the summer they would keep two courses open and back then you could play for $5 and you could play as much golf as you wanted".