Pine Needles Golf Club

Pine Needles began in 1927 as a golf resort and real estate development led by the Tufts family of Pinehurst and a group of businessmen and golf enthusiasts. Construction of the hotel and course started in January 1927, and Pine Needles Inc. was formed on March 18 that year. Donald Ross drew the plan in 1927. John Fought, who studied that drawing before his 2004 renovation, writes that the course was built by Frank Maples, one of Ross's trusted associates, and that the greens on Ross's plan were small squares. Like other Sandhills greens of the 1920s they were sand; grass putting surfaces came in the mid-1930s with the first simple irrigation. The hotel opened on January 28, 1928, and the course held its first competition, the Women's Mid-South Open, in early February, when Virginia Van Wie beat Glenna Collett on the fourth extra hole.

The Depression ended the real estate plan. The hotel became a care facility, later St. Joseph of the Pines, and the golf course was sold separately. In 1953 the Catholic Church, which had owned the course for five years, sold it to a partnership of Frank and Maisie Cosgrove, their son-in-law Julius Boros, and the newly married Warren and Peggy Kirk Bell. The Bells built a lodge on the south end of the property and a driving range in the swale between it and the course, and to suit the new lodge they reversed the start and finish: Ross's 2nd hole became the 1st, and his 1st became the 18th. Later work on the course was by John Fought in 2004 and Kyle Franz from 2016.

Holes to Know

From the Medal tees (7,025 yards on the club's card) Pine Needles is par 35-36, with four par 3s (3, 5, 13 and 16), eleven par 4s and three par 5s (1, 10 and 15). Each nine opens with a par 5, and the stroke-index 1 hole is the 449-yard 6th.

The 501-yard 1st was Ross's 2nd hole. It bends right about 230 yards short of the green, with its own fairway bunkers on the left, about 310 and 80 yards short, and a bunker on each side of a long, narrow green with the lodge beyond it.

The 466-yard 2nd is the longest par 4 on the card. The tee shot carries a band of native sand and scrub, and bunkers then run down the right side of a straight, pine-lined fairway; the one greenside bunker sits short and left.

The 148-yard 3rd is the shortest hole. A pond crosses the line from about 50 to 105 yards out, stopping about 35 yards short of the green's centre, with a larger lake beyond the trees on the left. The green, the smallest on the course, has three bunkers today: one short left and one on each side.

The 518-yard 10th starts over a pond, which the line from the back tee crosses from about 90 to 170 yards, and then turns left through the pines with bunkers down the left edge. Two more bunkers sit in the approach about 55 and 90 yards short of a green guarded by a single bunker at its front right.

The 411-yard 18th was Ross's opening hole. It plays downhill and bends gently left, with pines down the left and three bunkers around an oval green. Franz added sandy native ground on its left side; he said that "what was conceived as a relatively easy starting hole didn't stand up as a finishing hole."

Ross's Design Here

The documented Ross elements are the plan of 1927, the holes themselves and their sequence, with the Bells' swap of the first and last. Fought's reading of the plan shows small square greens, and those surfaces have since been grassed, converted to bentgrass, rebuilt in 2004 and converted again in 2016 to MiniVerde Bermuda, so no putting surface is in its 1928 form. Franz rebuilt all 70 bunkers in the rolled-over style of Ross's courses in the mid-to-late 1940s, added eight for modern length, and restored what he called "horse-and-blade caliber micro-contours" in the greens.

The bunker patterns on the 1st, 2nd and 10th, the pond carries on the 3rd, 4th and 10th, and the sand-and-wiregrass edges are what the ground shows today, and they are described here as that. The 18th is the clearest case of Ross's intent recorded in print: Lee Pace and Franz describe it as Ross's opener, a downhill hole with no trouble on the left until Franz added the native sandscape so it would hold up as a finishing hole.

The course was built across the road from Mid Pines, Ross's 1921 design for the club Leonard Tufts helped found. LINKS Magazine reports that Ross played most of his golf at Pine Needles in the last 15 years of his life.

Historical Significance

Pine Needles is the leading women's championship venue among Ross's courses. It staged the 1972 Titleholders Championship, the last playing of that major and the only one away from Augusta Country Club; Sandra Palmer won by 10 strokes with 283, one under par, the only under-par total. The USGA came in 1989 for the U.S. Girls' Junior and in 1991 for the U.S. Senior Women's Amateur, won by Phyllis Preuss.

The U.S. Women's Open followed in 1996, when Annika Sorenstam defended her title with 272, six ahead of Kris Tschetter; in 2001, when Karrie Webb also defended, with 273, eight ahead of Se Ri Pak; and in 2007, when Cristie Kerr won by two over Lorena Ochoa and Angela Park. Peggy Kirk Bell is credited with being the driving force behind those three Opens. In 2019 the course held the second U.S. Senior Women's Open, won by Helen Alfredsson. In 2022 it became the first course to host the U.S. Women's Open four times, and its seventh USGA championship: Minjee Lee won at 271, 13 under par, four ahead of Mina Harigae, on a par-71 setup of 6,597 to 6,644 yards by round.

Peggy Kirk Bell, a founding member of the LPGA Tour, ran Pine Needles with her family from 1953 until her death in 2016. She began teaching there in 1955, started the Golfari schools for women in 1959, and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2019. Golf Digest ranked Pine Needles 60th in America's 100 Greatest Public Golf Courses for 2025, GOLF Magazine ranked it 39th in its Top 100 Courses You Can Play for 2024-25, and the club cites a Golfweek ranking of fifth in North Carolina.

Changes Since Ross

Under the Bells the original Bermuda greens were replaced with bentgrass, and irrigation and cart paths were improved. In 2003 the family hired John Fought. He found 70-year-old push-up greens and trees encroaching on the green complexes; his crew removed a large number of trees, rebuilt the greens to USGA specification with drainage and irrigation, reconstructed bunkers and added tees, using vintage aerial photographs to restore greens and bunkers to their original forms. The course reopened in late fall 2004 and held the 2007 Women's Open.

In the summer of 2016 the course closed to convert its greens from bentgrass to MiniVerde Bermuda. Kyle Franz, who had restored Mid Pines in 2013, used that closure and the following two winters to rebuild every bunker, rearrange fairway dimensions and add tees; the USGA described the aim as maximizing hole locations, and the club dates the restoration to 2017. Franz replaced about 11 acres of Bermuda rough with native hardpan, wiregrass and straw, and replaced the uniform love grass in front of many tees with sand and native growth.

Ownership has widened around the course. A new investment partner joined the Bell family in 2017, and in 2025 Pine Needles and Mid Pines entered a joint venture with Marine & Lawn Hotels & Resorts, under which both hotels are being renovated.

Uncertainties

• Bell ownership date: the club history and the USGA give 1953; a 2025 article in The Pilot says the Bells began operating Pine Needles in 1953 and bought it in 1959, and a 2022 PineStraw article says 1954. This listing follows 1953.

• Restoration date: the USGA dates Franz's work from summer 2016, Lee Pace describes it running through the following two winters, and the club and GOLF date it 2017. This listing gives both.

• Yardage: our scorecard gives 6,939 yards from the Medal tees; the club's printed card, with the same 74.7/141 rating, gives 7,025. This listing shows the club's total; hole yardages here are from our scorecard.

Sources & Notes

1. Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club, "Our Story" (club history timeline), https://pineneedleslodge.com/history/ - 1927 formation and construction, Tufts leadership, 1928 opening and Women's Mid-South Open, 1953 sale, Golfari, Women's Open winners, Franz restorations, 2017 partner, 2025 Marine & Lawn joint venture.

2. Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club, Golf page, https://pineneedleslodge.com/golf/ - Ross 1927, Franz 2017, The Loop, outside tee times, Golfweek ranking claim.

3. Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club, scorecard (PDF, May 2026), https://pineneedleslodge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/PN-Scorecard-1.pdf - printed yardages and ratings; Knollwood location.

4. John Fought, essay on Pine Needles from Golf Architecture: A Worldwide Perspective, Vol. 4, reproduced by Top100GolfCourses, https://www.top100golfcourses.com/golf-course/pine-needles - Frank Maples, square sand greens, Depression, bentgrass, 2003-04 renovation scope and reopening.

5. AmateurGolf.com, "Pine Needles to Host 2022 U.S. Women's Open" (USGA announcement, Feb. 27, 2018), https://amateurgolf.com/golf-tournament-news/20699/Pine-Needles-to-Host-2022--U-S--Women-s-Open - 1928 opening, Fought 2004, Franz 2016, Bell ownership 1953-2016, 1989 and 1991 USGA events, seventh USGA championship.

6. Lee Pace, "Eye of the Needles," PineStraw (2019), https://pinestrawmag.com/golftown-journal-12/ - 2016 greens conversion, 70 bunkers and 8 new, micro-contours, tee surrounds, reversed routing, the 18th.

7. GOLF, Top 100 Courses You Can Play profile, https://golf.com/courses/top-100-ycp-pine-needles/ - 11 acres of rough converted to native areas.

8. GOLF, "Top 100 Courses You Can Play" 2024-25 state breakdown, https://golf.com/travel/top-100-public-golf-courses-state-breakdown/ - ranked 39th.

9. PineStraw, "The history of women's golf is embedded in the Sandhills" (2022), https://pinestrawmag.com/?p=19683 - 1972 Titleholders; 1996 and 2001 scores and margins.

10. Wikipedia, "1972 Titleholders Championship," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Titleholders_Championship - dates, last edition, only one away from Augusta.

11. Wikipedia, "2022 U.S. Women's Open," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_U.S._Women%27s_Open, and "2019 U.S. Senior Women's Open," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_U.S._Senior_Women%27s_Open - Lee's 271, yardage by round; Alfredsson.

12. Wikipedia, "Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Needles_Lodge_%26_Golf_Club - 1991 Senior Women's Amateur winner.

13. LINKS Magazine, "The Accessible Donald Ross," https://linksmagazine.com/the_accessible_donald_ross/ - Mid Pines across the street; Ross playing at Pine Needles.

14. The Pilot, "Mid Pines, Pine Needles Hotels Enter Joint Venture, to Undergo Renovation" (2025), https://www.thepilot.com/business/mid-pines-pine-needles-hotels-enter-joint-venture-to-undergo-renovation/article_a03625aa-99c7-41ba-916b-9e51c288ecf3.html - joint venture; Bell operating and purchase dates.

15. Golf Digest, "America's 100 Greatest Public Golf Courses" (2025), https://www.golfdigest.com/story/americas-100-greatest-public-golf-courses-ranking - ranked 60th.

16. Greens Visited scorecard, course-tour geometry (OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL) and hole aerials (NC OneMap, 2019) - all hole pars, yardages, stroke indexes, shapes, hazards and green sizes.