Bill Coore, Ben Crenshaw to build Pinehurst No. 11 course at famed North Carolina resort

USA Today

21-04-2025

Bill Coore, Ben Crenshaw to build Pinehurst No. 11 course at famed North Carolina resort
The golf design team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw are back at it in the Sandhills of North Carolina, this time laying out a new course that will become Pinehurst No. 11 and that is expected to open in the fall of 2027. Construction will begin this year.
The new layout will join the Tom Doak-designed Pinehurst No. 10 course that opened in 2024 in an area Pinehurst Resort has named Sandmines. With 900 acres available in Aberdeen just a few miles south of the main resort and famed Pinehurst No. 2, the Sandmines is being developed to include cottages and other amenities. The 6,000-square-foot pro shop and locker room opens this June, and in August the Sandmines' restaurant and bar will open. Plans for lodging for guests staying on property are ongoing and could be available by the end of 2027.
Doak's No. 10 sits on land previously occupied by The Pit, a course that closed in 2010. The Sandmines area previously had been mined for, as the name implies, sand. Those mining operations left contours and features that were incorporated into Pinehurst No. 10 by Doak, and they also will play a big role in Coore and Crenshaw's No. 11.
'It's such a wonderful site, just because of its inherent character,' Coore, who along with Crenshaw restored Pinehurst No. 2 in 2010 for a 2011 reopening, said in a media release announcing plans for No. 11. 'That character was essentially created, not all of it is natural, but it has all been reclaimed by nature. This land is left over from all that mining from the 1930s. The spoil piles are here, and Mother Nature provided the trees, and it's all incredible. It's not too often you get that kind of combination, and it creates a site that is extraordinarily interesting for golf.'
Coore and Crenshaw's restoration of No. 2 focused on reintroducing sandy expanses alongside the fairways and greens designed by legendary architect Donald Ross. The restoration has been most prominently featured in two U.S. Opens (2014, won by Martin Kaymer; 2024, won by Bryson DeChambeau) and a U.S. Women's Open (2014, won by Michelle Wie West). Pinehurst Resort is slated to host the U.S. Open again in 2029, 2035, 2041 and 2047, and the U.S. Women's Open is scheduled to return in 2029.
Coore and the Hall of Fame golfer Crenshaw head one of the most decorated design firms of the modern era, having created such highly ranked courses as Sand Hills in Nebraska, Friar's Head in New York and two layouts at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon, Bandon Trails and Sheep Ranch, among many others around the world. The duo loves sandy sites, as found at the future home of Pinehurst No. 11.
'It's this choppy, ridgey ground,' Coore said. 'It's not as much elevation change, but it's so quirky with the ridges and the piles and the trees and the angles. 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.'
And while they will sit adjacent to each other on similar ground, Coore and Crenshaw are working on a set of plans that will make their new course stand out from the already well-received No. 10.
'The two courses really couldn't be more different, and we love that,' said Tom Pashley, president of Pinehurst Resort, in the media release. 'The designs of No. 10 and No. 11 complement each other so well by contrasting so much. Golf in the North Carolina Sandhills can be an experience unlike any other, and we believe the golf at Pinehurst Sandmines will be a great representation of that.'
Specifics for No. 11 are still in the works, but the expansion is welcome at a resort that already is home to 10 courses plus an incredibly popular par-3 course, the Cradle. Pinehurst Resort operates six courses ranked by Golfweek's Best as among the top 200 resort layouts in the United States: No. 2 ranks third on that list, the new No. 10 course is 19th, the No. 4 course by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner ranks 29th, the No. 8 course by Tom Fazio ranks 84th, the No. 7 course by Rees Jones ranks 164th and the No. 9 course by Jack Nicklaus ranks 194th.
'We want Pinehurst Sandmines to be a special place not just in Pinehurst, but in the game of golf that will stand the test of time and enhance the soul of American golf,' Bob Dedman Jr., owner and CEO of Pinehurst Resort, said in the media release. 'The vision Coore and Crenshaw have for No. 11 coupled with what Tom Doak has already done at No. 10 makes that hope more of a possibility, and we couldn't be more excited about what the future has in store.'