Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club

Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club is a Donald Ross design from 1928 that has hosted four U.S. Women's Opens, set on Midland Road in Southern Pines directly across the street from its sister property Mid Pines. Ross built it seven years after Mid Pines, and the later design benefits from a maturity in his approach that is evident in the routing. The course moves through longleaf pine corridors with a naturalness that conceals the strategic complexity beneath each hole.

The USGA returns to Pine Needles because the course delivers what modern championship venues often struggle to provide: a real test for the best players without relying on extreme length. At 7,015 yards from the tips with a par of 71, the layout plays at distances accessible to a wide range of golfers while presenting strategic questions that scale with ability. Longer hitters gain on the par 5s. Shorter hitters find that accuracy and green-reading compensate on the approach-driven par 4s. The design rewards whoever is playing the best golf on a given day.

The Ross greens here are more receptive than those at Pinehurst No. 2, with less severe crowning and more putting surface available to well-struck approaches. The contouring is still present, and misses still gather in collection areas, but the transition from fairway to green is gentler. For golfers who find No. 2's short-game demands exhausting across eighteen holes, Pine Needles offers a Ross experience that balances challenge with enjoyment more evenly.

Donald Ross at his most balanced, with championship pedigree and a host inn that turns it into a complete trip. Pair it with Mid Pines across the street and you have a Sandhills experience that rivals anything on the Pinehurst Resort side, often at lower cost.