I’ve been fortunate to walk a handful of brand-new golf courses now with architect Bill Coore. As we traversed his latest design at Pinehurst Resort, I could tell Pinehurst No. 11 has a special place in his heart.
Coore is a North Carolina native, growing up about an hour away from Pinehurst. He’d sometimes travel to the resort as a kid. Now at 80 years old and cemented on the Mount Rushmore of designers of the modern era, he got a special opportunity to return to design an original course at the revered North Carolina resort. He and Ben Crenshaw performed one of the most important restorations of the modern era at Pinehurst No. 2 in the late 2000s, but a new design at Pinehurst is a special thing.
In the spring, Pinehurst No. 11 will join Tom Doak’s No. 10 course at Pinehurst’s new Sandmines development, a few minutes from the rest of the resort. I got to walk the site with Mr. Coore and a group from the American Society of Golf Course Architects. Here are a few first looks at one of America’s great new public golf courses.
Coore describes the walk as intimate, through tall pine trees and overburden sand spoils left over from mining on this site in 1930s. “If not for the trees and vegetation, some people might think we tried to create dunes like Ireland with the sand, but it was all here,” Coore said.
Pinehurst No. 11 will be a perfect contrast to No. 10 with its stark elevation changes and expansive vistas. This will be a classic walk with subtle features and classic Coore and Crenshaw greens.
