Pinehurst Number 2

Pinehurst number 2 is considered holy ground, created by God and shaped to His plan by Saint Donald Ross, and watched over by icons. On the walk of fame by the 18th green the statue of Payne Stewart in ancient clothes and magnificent triumph provides a fitting shrine for golfing pilgrims from all over the universe.
But I am a golf agnostic when it comes to this place, some would even say sacrilegious. I learned to play the game here, and love the course- but not for golf. Pinehurst number 2 was not my golf course, but my nursery, my back yard, my playground, my private estate. I grew up across the road from the second hole, where hooked tee shots occasionally made it through the long leaf pines bordering the highway, landing in my sandbox or rattling off the roof of my tree house. Although separated by road and trees and at times off limits because of paying golfers, the second fairway was mine.

When I was just a toddler I would often follow my parents on their twilight round. My dad had been a soldier for 40 years, and loved golf. My mom, 30 years his younger was a better athlete. They would tee off on the second fairway, making the 464 par 4 more like a 380 yarder. Then play 3, 6, and 7, just enough to whet the appetite. I and my brothers would, as we were able, follow them around the loop. My dad was a short man, but had some seriously stiff Kenneth Smith clubs that he hit with power. If I had just been following him I never would have learned the game. But my mother had the long, sweet, flowing swing with the big hip and shoulder turn of so many of the best women golfers, and she was who I watched. Until I was 22 I played with her clubs., and her tempo and was the better golfer for it.

Of course I didn't always play with my parents. Whenever the urge came on we would step out onto number two, tee it up and play on. With friends we would usually include 4 and 5 though they are such grueling holes we would hit from the Ladies tees. But they were the most remote of holes, and there was always the chance of seeing a black snake or copperhead along the treeline of 4. Sometimes we would continue on down the eighth hole, as there was a refreshment stand on the ninth tee. Then it was a toss-up whether to play 9 and 10, or cut through he woods to 16, which would bring us back home. Rarely did I play a full 18.

But playing golf on number 2 was only more an act of conformity than passion. Our real game was baseball, and we played it from early Spring until the World Series. When we weren't playing it we were listening to it on the radio, organizing and trading baseball cards, or practicing. The courses were closed in Pinehurst in the summer, and the second fairway was the perfect place for hitting flies. When the course was in-play we would be forced to shag flies in our yard, where it was likely that either the ball or the fielder was going to collide with one of the Longleaf Pines that bordered the lawn, but out on the fairway running full tilt for an over the shoulder catch presented no such dangers. Occasionally we would put out bases for a game, but all that wide open space was not as good for four kid to a side games- too many home runs.

Number two also held many sensual pleasures for us. Running in the sprinklers in the evening cooled us down from the sweaty Carolina summer days. The weather shelter by the 8th tee provided just the right combination of privacy and open air for trying out the Pall Malls and Kents we stole from our parents. And it was where I learned about girls. There was my first serious kiss on the 16th tee as my friend Skeeter and I vied for the attention of Cindy, an out of town visitor whose aunt fixed us up with a golf play date. And there were later beach blanket parties in various sand traps, with the twin pleasures of girls and 2.0 Pabst Blue Ribbon.

One of the best things about number 2 today is that there are no golf cart paths, and that was certainly the case then. Nevertheless, it was where I learned to drive. Sandy roads for maintenance access run through the woods throughout the course. First we rode our bicycles along them , and then later when my dad bought my younger brother a go-kart they provided long straight aways for speed and sandy turns for sliding and spin outs. It was also where my brothers and I would sneak away in our parents cars before we were old enough for licenses. Crossing over Palmetto Road at the top of our yard, onto the service road that cuts behind the first green gave us access to miles of forest roads, and the woods on the other side of town. Best of all, it gave us access to the training oval at the Pinehurst harness track where we could play that other great Southern sport, stock car racing. There were a few dings in my mothers Ford station wagon, but she never mentioned them, and once my older brother reached 16, my father bought a very basic VW bug, which, though not as fast as the big Ford V-8, was four speed manual. Having suffered through the agony of teaching of my own three children the art of clutch and gears I can say there is no better way to do it than turn a 14 year old loose on a sandy horse track in a 1959 VW.

Of course Pinehurst then as now attracted great golfers and other assorted celebrities, and they all eventually passed by my house. The 1951 Ryder cup was the last time pros played there until recent times, but the North and South brought the best amateurs from around the world. Usually we would walk across the second hole and park chairs behind the 16th green. From here you could watch matches coming up the 7th, teeing off on 8, and with just a short walk catch the 1st green and the second tee. As it was match play, this way you could be sure of seeing some of the matches that ended early and be ready to follow the close matches to the club house.

My favorite was Billy Joe Patton, for a number of reasons. He was from North Carolina, a powerful golfer, who was always a contender, and had a proper two part name for a Southerner. He and Bill Campbell won seven times over a period of 17 years, and seemed to dominate the tournament. Dick Chapman, a Pinehurst resident and a perennial presence at the Masters won in 1958, a special pleasure, since it was he who made my first set of clubs when I was eight. But of all the golfers it was Nicklaus' win the next year that stands out in memory.The big, crew cut bear was truly a force, and he played in my back yard.

And then there were the others, famous for something other than golf, who came to play. General George Marshall was a part time resident and merely the most prominent among a brigade of Generals who had come to rest in Pinehurst after the War. Proximity to Fort Bragg medical care and commissary made Pinehurst a good retirement choice, and the surrounding pine barrens and countryside made a great location for military maneuvers. Long convoys of troops and equipment often passed through the village on route to camp McCall, an occasion for most of us kids to put on our army hats and stand by the road at attention, saluting each passing truck. And in the summer we would sit on the front porch and listen to the boom of artillery practice, and when the 82nd Airborne had war games we would watch them bailing out all over the countryside, and find lost and abandoned gear in the woods.

Pinehurst has always attracted celebrities. Annie Oakley and Will Rodgers in the early days, and I am sure it was no different when I was a kid. But the only celebrities we were interested in were major leaguers- baseball. Somewhere I have autographs from Yogi Berra, Bobby Thompson, and Enos Slaughter all gathered as they followed their tee shots on the second hole of number 2. Of course the ones I wanted, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, and Gil Hodges never came by. Now that I think of it, the only other place besides next to number 2 I would have wanted to live in those days was across the street from Ebbets Field.