ABERDEEN, N.C. — Pinehurst is having a heck of a year. In June the resort’s historic No. 2 course will host the U.S. Open for the fourth time, and the Donald Ross masterpiece is scheduled to host that USGA championship four more times before the halfway point of this century.
But Pinehurst’s big year isn’t only about the best players in the world competing for a national title. There’s welcome news for traveling golfers who will never tee it up in a U.S. Open, as well.
Pinehurst Resort this month opened No. 10, a new course designed by famed architect Tom Doak with a big hand from lead design associate Angela Moser. As the name suggests, this is the 10th 18-hole course at the property that has been dubbed the Home of American Golf.
The new course sits on land formerly occupied by The Pit, a layout that was shuttered in 2010. There was frequent speculation about the site in the ensuing years before Pinehurst Resort announced early in 2023 that it planned a new Doak course.
The land includes sections that for decades were used as sand quarries and later were integral to The Pit, a Dan Maples design that opened in 1985. Doak designed several holes for the new No. 10 that play across these formerly mined areas, using the slopes and mounds left over from mining operations to create an entirely new routing.
But while Doak used parts of the old mining pits, those bits of chunked-up ground don’t define the new course. There’s much more in play on Doak’s No. 10 and the property as a whole. He and Moser have take the best parts – the sandy terrain that is worth more than gold to an architect, and the natural terrain – to create a can’t miss experience at the historic resort.
No. 10 stretches across 265 acres about three miles south of the main Pinehurst Resort campus, and the new course is just part of a 900-acre region the resort has acquired and named Pinehurst Sandmines. Complete plans for the future development of the area have not been announced in detail, but they will include cottages and another 18-hole golf course to be designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.
And at a resort decked out in great golf, with five layouts ranked among the top resort courses in the U.S., No. 10 is certain to open some eyes to a new experience. Playing to 7,020 yards off the back tees with a par of 70, this layout stands on its own.
To explore how the course plays, take a look at how it stacks up according to Golfweek’s Best course-ranking criteria. The hundreds of raters who help compile Golfweek’s annual best-of course lists look at 10 topics, then give each course an overall ranking. And it’s worth noting: Any course ranked above a 7 overall is a great layout, one worth climbing onto an airplane and flying cross-country to play. Only 31 resort courses in the U.S. have earned an average rating of 7 or higher.