PINEHURST, N.C. -- They weren't kidding with the names. Once you get in the vicinity of Pinehurst and Southern Pines, you start noticing the trees. Lots of pine trees. Farm stands sell pine needles from flatbed trucks. Old pickups chug down Highway 1 loaded with tilting bales of them. Although the trees come in many varieties, longleaf pines, with clusters like green fireworks, hold center stage. But over the past century they've lost ground, literally, to a local obsession -- golf.
A lovely Southern swing In Pinehurst, N.C.,the passion for golfis contagious
There were many more longleaf pines here when wealthy businessman James Walker Tufts of Charlestown arrived in 1895 to build a resort village, a place to escape New England winters. (Tufts was said to be a second cousin to Tufts University founder Charles Tufts.) The landscaping was done by Central Park and Emerald Necklace designer Frederick Law Olmsted and his associate Warren Manning. Golf came a few years later, when Tufts hired Scotsman Donald J. Ross to develop courses. Ross ended up spending 48 years here, designing more than 400 courses in North America. He laid out courses at Pinehurst Golf Club, now the Pinehurst Resort, and in Southern Pines, 5 miles to the east. (The Tufts family sold the resort and land in the 1970s.)
Get a taste of Pinehurst's flavors and New England-accented history. Pages E6-7
There's also an active equestrian scene here, but it's overshadowed by golf, with its whopping 43 area courses.
Next month, Pinehurst plans to party like it's 1999 -- the 1999 US Open, that is, when the late Payne Stewart embellished the game's history with his dramatic 15-foot putt on the final hole, winning his second Open in eight years. The Open comes back to the Pinehurst Resort June 13-19, marking the quickest return to a host site in half a century. Plan your trip another time, though, since all lodging and tournament tickets are sold out.
Unlike most visitors to this quiet New England-style village of about 10,500 residents, we planned to avoid golf, not seek it out, when we visited in March. The only golf we play is the kind where you aim the ball through a moving windmill. Instead, we had been attracted to the area for its nature and to Pinehurst and Southern Pines for their lovingly restored early-1900s architecture.
Then the unexpected happened. We paid a visit to ''the club," the Pinehurst Resort, to see statues of Ross and Tufts and found ourselves smitten, not with the playing of the game, but with the history, pageantry, and passion of the sport here. Our change of heart had started earlier in the day at the Tufts Archives, a splendid repository of photos, artifacts, and documents dating from the first days of Pinehurst (originally named Tuftstown). But it was the club that intrigued us.
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