Golf came to this ridge of rolling Sandhills in 1906, when a rudimentary nine was laid out by James Peacock and James MacNab, two men then working under Donald Ross in Pinehurst. Ross himself soon took the commission in hand, expanding and rebuilding the course through the 1910s over land bolder than almost anything he had at Pinehurst — real elevation change, tumbling ridges, greens perched where the ground wanted them.

The club lived a full and unpretentious twentieth century. The Philadelphia Phillies held spring training on the property before the First World War. Sam Snead came through in November 1946 and shot a course-record 63, beating Ben Hogan head-to-head. And in 1951 the local Elks Lodge bought the course from the town for just under $60,000 — beginning seventy years as the area's beloved, slightly scruffy members' course, a Ross original hiding behind a fraternal-lodge sign while the golf world drove past to Pinehurst.

In 2020 the family behind Pine Needles and Mid Pines bought Southern Pines and handed it to Kyle Franz, the restorer who had already revived its two sister courses. Franz expanded the greens, replaced turf lines with rustling native sandscapes, removed some 700 trees to reopen the long views across the ridges — and rebuilt Ross's 'lost hole,' a short par 3 the architect created around 1911 that had vanished from the routing, now waiting as a nineteenth-hole bonus.

Since reopening in September 2021, Southern Pines has been the Sandhills' great rediscovery: the course architecture pilgrims now argue might be the most naturally gifted Ross site in the cradle of American golf. Playing it feels like being let in on a secret the Elks kept for seventy years.

Museum-quality Southern Pines Golf Club map art, traced from real course data — Donald Ross's rediscovered Sandhills gem, every green and sandscape. Four designs, six sizes, or personalized with your own round photo.

Course data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL)