State

Tar Heel Towns By Lynn P. Williams Pinehurst This Moore County golfing mccca was once considered nothing more than worthless farmland. spell. Kill the village of Pinehurst itself. with its winding streets, quaint bin к shops and tail, shads' pines, looks like noothei pl.i< r in North C Carolina. Off the beaten path, with no major high wavs feeding dire» tlv into it. Pinehurst is a picitiic-poslcaid jewel waiting to Ik- discovered. Only the golf world has known ahonl ii for years. The site of 19 Professional (•oilers' Association tournaments over the veais. including the 199-1 U.S. Scnioi Open Championship. Pinehurst is hallowed Пи ipiaint shafts in the village help retain Pinehurst s original New England flavor Ii all started when James Walk- ei Tufts, a Boston businessman who made a fortune in die soda fountain business, decided to build a health resort. I’hc sandy soil in southeastern Moore County was essentially worthless as farmland, but the good drainage meant water didn't sit around in pools and stagnate. 'Hie climate was mild. North Carolina was midway between the Northeast and Honda, and the aroma of pine sap was considered healtliful. So Pinrhtirst was bom in 1895. designed by Frederick Law Olmst¬ ed. the architect of Ness- York's Cen¬ tral Park, and advertised to doctors all over the Northeast. Tufts care¬ fully pointed out in bis brochure, however, that the resort was not a sanitarium or hospital, and no “con¬ sumptives" would lx- accepted. Tufts built the first of several inns, the Holly Inn. and 20 cottages that were rent¬ ed out for the winter season. .Among t In¬ activities originally offered at Pinehurst were tennis, croquet, lawn bowling, bicy¬ cling and biking. But some fearful cows prompted the s|H»it that lias made Pinehurst a legend. When a local dairy fanner complained in 1897 that resort guests were hitting little white balls in his pasture and frightening his cows. Tufts built a nine-hole golf course. They decided to put in a golf course to keep guests out of trouble." says Khristinc Janu/ik, curator of the Tufts Archives in Pinehurst. By 1900. Donald Ross arrived on the scene .is л golf pro. But his talents as a golf course architect proved immense to Pine- n~*b,L)«.r Will— hurst in the -18 years he served there: he reworked the first nine holes, added another nine to complete the Pinehurst No. 1 course, constructed the famed No. 2 and. later. Nos. 3 and 4. Pinehurst now boasts Nos. 6 and 7. and the Centennial Course No. 8. designed by well-known course architect Tom Fazio. is under con¬ struction. Another factor in Pine-hurst's es¬ tablishment as a resort town was the open¬ ing ol the Carolina Hotel, which l ulls opened in 1901. A 250-room glittering extravaganza that became known as the "Queen of the South." the Carolina I lotel was ahead of its time, offering -19 suites and electric lights, a telephone and a bath in each room. The hotel, home today of the Pinehurst Resort and Country Club, remains the central focus of Pinehurst. and its wide porches, complete with ceil¬ ing fans, still invite guests to simply rock a the Stale/Mav 1995 15 ground for many. The greats of golf, both amatucr and professional, have played the stuff of legends on these fairways and greens. Today, the Sandhills area features 36 golf courses in a 20-mile radius in Moore Counts. Six more arc being built, with at least two others planned. Caleb Miles, executive diicctoi and chief executive officer of the Pinehurst Area Convention and Y'isitois Bureau, says Moore County, with its 60,000 resi¬ dents. was found to have the highest con¬ centration of golf courses |h-i person in the country. Over the years, the rich, the famous, the movie stars, die presidents, the gen¬ erals have all found refuge among line- hurst's stately pines. The tippet c rust — the Rockefellers, the DuPont», the Mor¬ gans — discovered Pinehurst in it\ fust decade. Annie Oakley, John Phillip