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| At Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club, visitors have an array of options
that span several eras of golf and put the venerable resort at the
cutting edge of golf travel.
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| First, there's the golf course itself. Itıs vintage Donald Ross,
opened in 1928 and playing today with most every tee, green, fairway
contour and obstacle existing as it did nearly seven decades ago.
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| It's classic, old-style golf at its finest. It's the kind that made
former U.S. Women's Open champion Pat Bradley remark at the 1996 Open:
I've been playing Opens for almost 20 years now, and this is one of
the better Open golf courses that I've ever played. It just flows from
start to finish. And there are no gimmicks out there.
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When Ross built the course, golf carts did not exist, so walkability
was always an issue in course layout. Greens and the next tees were
generally placed close together, unlike most modern courses that are
stretched in order to place more real estate around the course. Pine
Needles has always been walker-friendly.
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| In the 1950s, the advent of the motorized golf cart changed the way
people took to the game, and within a couple of decades riding a cart
was taken for granted in many golf circles. Most resorts today require
players to take carts.
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| That's another area when Pine Needles stands apart.
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| Guests at Pine Needles pay one golf fee and have the choice of
walking or riding. The option is the result of the belief of Director
of Golf Chip King and General Manager Kelly Miller that golfers should
be allowed to walk and not be forced to take a motorized cart. The
walking initiative is being called Walk with the Legends and is
signified by a logo featuring silhouettes of Pine Needles owner Peggy
Kirk Bell and Donald Ross.
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Golf is coming full circle back to the days when walking was taken
for granted, says Miller. It was the only way to play. We want to be
on the leading edge of that trend.
Another area in which Pine Needles is taking a strong initiative is
speed-of-play. Fast Play Makes for Fast Friends will emphasize to
golfers the benefits of playing in less than 4 hours, 30 minutes.
King notes that there was a study done by Ross, who served for many
years as the head pro at nearby Pinehurst Country, in 1921 that found
the ideal length of an 18-hole match was two hours, 40 minutes. Of
course, that was during the days of flat, clay/sand greens with little
or no undulations and thus no time needed to read putts. Still, a
lesson is there to be learned about speed of play over the years.
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| For people who'd like to play golf as it was in the early days by
walking and playing quickly we'd like to have that option for them,
says King.
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| The walking and pace-of-play focuses are coming in 1997 after several
years of emphasizing facility renovation leading up to the Women's
Open. The pro shop and locker rooms have been expanded and renovated;
the golf course has been completely regrassed and the bunker edges
trimmed and sand replaced; and a state-of-the-art Learning Center and
practice range make learning and improving your game more convenient
and fun than ever.
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