Pinehurst has ten 18-hole courses, a nine-hole short course, an 18-hole putting course, and more package options than a rental car website. Here is how to think about it.
April 8, 2026
Pinehurst has ten 18-hole courses. It has a nine-hole short course, an 18-hole putting course, and more package options than a rental car website. The marketing is relentless and the choices are real.
Here is how to think about it.
No. 2 is the reason you go. Donald Ross's masterpiece. Host of five U.S. Opens. The wiregrass and crowned greens combination is unlike anything else in American golf. If you are booking a trip to Pinehurst and skipping No. 2, you are doing it wrong.
No. 4 is the second course worth prioritizing. Gil Hanse redesigned it and the result has drawn serious praise, a visual stunner built in the classic Sandhills tradition. It is the best of the other nine.
No. 8 is long, modern, and the one most likely to punish a shaky iron game. Good if your group wants a genuine test. Skip it if you are there for the history and the walk.
No. 3 is underrated. Kyle Franz recently restored it to its original pine barrens aesthetic. At just over 5,000 yards it is the shortest course on property, full of classic Ross characteristics, and iron play is at a premium. It makes for a good second-day warm-up before you go back and replay No. 2.
Play it. Gil Hanse designed it over just 10 acres and 789 yards total, and it is as much fun for scratch golfers as it is for beginners. A short course competition on The Cradle is one of the better hours you will spend on any golf trip.
Courses 1, 5, 6, 7, and 9 exist. They are fine. They are not why you drove to Pinehurst. If your package gives you unlimited replay rounds and you have already played 2, 4, and The Cradle, pick one as a filler. Do not build your itinerary around them.
Tobacco Road is 20 minutes away. Mike Strantz designed it in 1998 and it is genuinely strange in the best way: blind shots, severe bunkering, and a routing that makes no apologies. It is in the conversation for the most interesting course in North Carolina. If you are doing three rounds, make one of them Tobacco Road.
Mid Pines and Pine Needles are another 15 minutes. Classic Ross designs, beautiful properties, and consistently well run. Staying at Mid Pines and playing it plus Pine Needles plus a day at Pinehurst No. 2 is arguably the best three-round golf trip itinerary in the Southeast.
Peak season at Pinehurst runs March through May and September through November. Book early. The Premier Package, unlimited golf plus lodging and meals, is worth the price if your group plays 36 holes a day. If you are a casual-rounds group, the standard stay-and-play is plenty.
Drive in from Charlotte: two hours. Raleigh-Durham: 90 minutes. Atlanta: four hours, which is a lot, but people do it.
Pinehurst is not a secret. It has earned everything said about it. Go play No. 2 before you convince yourself it is too obvious.
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