Pinehurst No. 2
Donald Ross's masterpiece and America's new permanent U.S. Open home — a deceptively open parkland defended entirely by the most fiendish set of crowned greens in golf. The crown jewel of the Sandhills, and you can actually get on.
There is no more important address in American golf than Pinehurst, and no more important course than No. 2. This is Donald Ross’s life’s work — he lived beside it and tinkered with it for forty years — and it has just become the permanent, recurring home of the U.S. Open. What stuns first-timers is how gettable it looks: wide fairways, no water, no forced carries. Then you reach the greens, and you understand. Pinehurst doesn’t beat you off the tee. It beats you from forty feet.
| Yards | Rating | Slope | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tips | 6,961 | 73.7 | 133 |
| Regular | 6,307 | 70.7 | 126 |
How it plays
Off the tee, No. 2 is a gentleman. The fairways are broad, the sandy native areas that Coore and Crenshaw restored are more playable than rough, and there’s rarely a shot you can’t see. The entire defense lives in the last forty yards of every hole: Ross’s crowned greens repel anything that isn’t struck perfectly, feeding timid or long approaches into tightly mown collection areas where you face the hardest decision in golf — putt, chip, or hybrid? Great players have been reduced to rubble here with a wedge in their hands.
It doesn’t beat you off the tee. It beats you from forty feet.
Where it bites
Around every green, and especially on the brutal closing stretch. The crowned surfaces mean the “miss” is never where you expect — a ball a yard off line trickles ten yards away. The genius of Ross, and of the restoration, is that there are a dozen ways to play each recovery and none of them are easy. Leave your ego in the car, aim for the fat of the greens, and treat par as a triumph.
Plan your visit
It’s in the Village of Pinehurst, deep in the North Carolina Sandhills, about 75 minutes from Raleigh. The reliable way onto No. 2 is a resort stay-and-play — pricey, but it bundles the other courses, the hotel, and the whole pilgrimage. Walk it with a caddie if you possibly can; this is a course that wants to be experienced on foot, the way Ross intended. Pair it with Tobacco Road an hour away and you’ve got the best two-day swing in American public golf.
Who should play here
Every golfer, once, as a matter of faith. No. 2 isn’t the hardest course you’ll play from the tee or the most scenic, but it is the most important — the clearest window into what Donald Ross believed golf should be, and the rare shrine that sells tee times to anyone willing to make the trip. Come humble, bring your short game, and expect to lose. You’ll already be planning your return on the drive out.
Pinehurst No. 2, quickly
- Can the public play Pinehurst No. 2?
- Yes — it's resort-public, though access runs through a Pinehurst Resort stay-and-play with a two-night minimum. The effective green fee lands around $500–$695 in peak season (with a premium over the other resort courses), caddie extra — not cheap, but open to anyone.
- Who designed Pinehurst No. 2?
- Donald Ross, who lived on the property and refined the course for decades after it opened in 1907. Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw restored it in 2010–11, removing the rough in favor of sandy, wire-grass native areas.
- What makes No. 2 so hard?
- The greens. Ross built crowned, turtleback putting surfaces that shrug mishit approaches off into collection areas, leaving maddening short-game decisions. Off the tee it's surprisingly generous; around the greens it's merciless.
- Is Pinehurst No. 2 a U.S. Open course?
- Yes — it has hosted multiple U.S. Opens (1999, 2005, 2014, 2024) and has been named a USGA 'anchor site' that will host the championship repeatedly in the decades ahead.
We may earn a commission on the tee-time link above — we only point you where we’d book ourselves. Scorecard figures are illustrative.