When Pinehurst #10 opened a year ago, it marked the debut of not just the resort’s first new 18-hole course in 28 years but an entirely new project, called Sandmines.
Sandmines is a satellite development on a 900-acre parcel of land several miles south of the main Pinehurst campus that the resort acquired 15 years ago. Previously the site of a large sand mining operation and later a golf course called The Pit that closed in 2010, it’s now home to the Tom Doak-designed No. 10 course, Golf Digest’s Best New Public Course in 2024.
Sandmines will also be the location of the new Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw-designed #11, breaking ground later this year.
The site of Pinehurst #11’s 17th hole.
Sandmines has two attributes that set it apart from Pinehurst’s nine other 18-hole courses. The first is the property’s isolation. The golf is set deep within the perimeter of the land and is absent of homesites, resort activities or other development, so the experience of playing is one of pure, undisturbed nature among the pines.
The second is the rugged remnants of the mining process that dug into sections of the ground creating quarries and tall sand spoils that have since sprouted trees, grasses and their own natural ecosystems. These are the backdrop of #10, particularly holes like the one-of-a-kind eighth and 14th that weave through the strange landscapes. #11 will intersect with many similar relics, though overall the land is calmer than #10, which is expansive and moves across more exaggerated terrain.
Coore, in a release from Pinehurst, describes #11 as having choppy, ridgey ground. “It’s not as much elevation change, but it’s so quirky with the ridges and the piles and the trees and the angles,” he says.
“This is going to be so intimate in scale. You’re winding your way through trees and over old piles and across ridges. We’re far, far from the sea, but we have these contours and features and landforms that remind you of spots in Ireland or Scotland. And yet here it is, in Pinehurst.”
Pinehurst is comfortable territory for Coore and Crenshaw. In 2010 they oversaw the restoration of the #2 course’s bunkers and sand and wiregrass perimeters bordering the fairways, reestablishing the native landscapes from Donald Ross’s era that had been converted to green Bermudagrass roughs in the 1970s. The restored look was familiar to Coore, a North Carolina native and Wake Forest graduate who frequently visited Pinehurst to play golf when he was young. The pair also built The Dormie Club, six miles north of the resort, in 2011.
Other elements of Pinehurst Sandmines continue to develop. This summer it will open a 6,000-square-foot pro shop and locker room, and the property’s restaurant and bar will be ready by August. The resort is also building on-site lodging. Those rooms and the #11 course are expected to be complete by the end of 2027.
Stay tuned to GolfDigest.com for more information about the design and construction of Pinehurst #11.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
