Mid Pines arose directly from a 1920–21 initiative to relieve golf demand at Pinehurst by developing a separate, private club and lodging just north of Southern Pines. Ross selected an undulating valley site and prepared a 36-hole plan, of which a single 18 opened in November 1921 to strong early notices. Club records summarized for the centennial note that the development company acquired roughly 180 acres for the golf and inn project in 1921 and recorded a course construction cost of $46,152, contextualizing the scale and speed of the work in the immediate post-war boom.
Evidence accessible online does not show Ross returning for a later redesign phase at Mid Pines. Contemporary sources describe continuous operations with routine maintenance and post-Depression and wartime interruptions—during World War II the property served a military purpose and re-opened in 1944 under the Cosgroves’ management—but no specific Ross-authored second phase has surfaced in digitized archives.
In 2013, Kyle Franz led a comprehensive restoration that used a 1939 aerial photograph to re-establish the scale and geometry of Ross’s features—expanding fairways and greens, reopening waste areas, and clearing encroaching trees that had accumulated over decades. The greens were resurfaced to ultradwarf bermudagrass (MiniVerde), part of a region-wide shift to warm-season putting surfaces for firmer, faster conditions in summer heat.
Unique Design Characteristics
Ross’s routing at Mid Pines alternates between the flat floor of the main valley and the surrounding slopes, producing a sequence of uphill, downhill, and side-hill stances without exhausting the golfer. The effect is especially clear at the short par-4 4th, where the land tilts left-to-right; strategy hinges on holding the high left side from the tee to access a narrow green set on a left-to-right diagonal. After Franz’s restoration, a left fairway hazard and subtly expanded short-grass to the right accentuate the risk-reward of chasing the proper angle; the green here is among the sternest on the course, with tight short-grass surrounds that can whisk balls off the surface.
The par-3 2nd crosses the valley from one high point to another, its crowned target falling away on all sides—an atypical treatment for a one-shotter on a hillside and a distinctive surviving Ross contour. Nearby, the 5th’s greenside bunkers cut into a natural hillock illustrate how Ross leveraged existing relief to deepen hazards; restoration work reintroduced their vertical drama.
On the valley floor, the 6th (par 5) demonstrates how width and contour supply choices: removing a mid-fairway pine and extending fairway right created alternate lay-up lanes, so players can choose angle versus proximity—a restoration that revived Ross’s original intent by restoring short-grass to the edges of the sandy floor.
The up-and-down run at the property’s rim yields some of Mid Pines’s most celebrated holes. The par-5 15th plunges, banks left, then climbs to a green tucked against a sideslope; staggered bunkers and the fairway’s pronounced lateral tilt reward the drive that flirts with the right hazard for a clear second shot. The par-4 16th then fires from a high tee into the valley to a “domed” green with a high middle section, punishing indifferent approaches. These holes exhibit Ross’s ability—partly recovered by Franz—to anchor strategy in the site’s natural pitches and rolls rather than in overtly manufactured features.
Franz’s own analysis highlights a subtle but course-defining difference from Pinehurst No. 2: while Mid Pines’s fairways are comparably wide, Ross’s clearing corridors here were intentionally tighter. Archival and on-site study suggests Ross often left virtually no buffer between fairway edges and dense pine, wiregrass, and wisteria, heightening the risk of chasing favored angles off the tee. That “blood-pumping tee-shot course” character remains legible today, even as underbrush management has improved everyday playability.
The restoration also drew on specific Ross documentation. At the 1st, Franz adjusted the bunker pattern to match an original Ross blueprint and re-established the expansive look from an elevated tee to a deep, uphill green. At the 2nd, he recaptured the fall-away crowned putting surface by expanding and reshaping the green pad to its historical edge. Course-wide, expansion of green perimeters returned an estimated ~15,000 square feet of putting surface, recovering classic hole locations—front-right at 7, back at 18—that had been lost to shrinkage.
Historical Significance
Within Ross’s Sandhills work, Mid Pines mattered as the first full-scale course developed beyond the Pinehurst core, built from a 36-hole conception that underscored expectations for demand and Ross’s confidence in the site. The course’s early acclaim and its immediate pairing (a few years later) with Pine Needles across Midland Road reveal how Ross and the Tufts circle exported the Pinehurst model to adjacent, rollier terrain.
As a piece of the modern canon, Mid Pines regained national attention after the 2013 restoration. GOLF ranks it among America’s “Top 100 Courses You Can Play,” a recognition that reflects not only visitor access but the renewed clarity of Ross’s strategy and the restored sandscape aesthetic. The course has also served as a championship venue in its own right, hosting the 2002 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur and recurring USGA qualifying, including a 2015 U.S. Amateur sectional in which a 10-under 62 tied the course record.
Current Condition / Integrity
Routing integrity at Mid Pines is high: the original 18 has remained in place since 1921, and the 2013 work focused on restoration rather than re-routing. The course now presents naturalized waste areas and wiregrass fringing restored fairway edges, greens expanded to original perimeters, and bunkers with profiles once again keyed to hillside cuts or lowland sand faces, depending on setting. The two known non-Ross greens (8 and 9) were reworked in 2013 to better fit the historic set; elsewhere, expansion recaptured lost pinnable space and re-established false fronts and edge fall-offs.
Tree management has been central. Decades of growth had narrowed lines of play and obscured long views across the bowl-shaped property; Franz’s program cleared encroaching trees and underbrush while keeping the corridor-tight feel that differentiates Mid Pines from No. 2. Presentation today is bermudagrass tees and fairways with ultradwarf bermudagrass greens (converted in 2013), yielding firm conditions suited to the Sandhills. The club’s current scorecard lists a back-tee yardage of 6,730 yards, par 72—figures broadly consistent with Ross’s scale but playing markedly different thanks to restored short-grass surrounds and sandy ground beyond fairways.
What survives most clearly as Ross: the overarching routing between valley floor and slopes; crowned and diagonally oriented green sites like 2 and 4; the use of lateral ground tilt to set angles on holes such as 4, 7, and 12; and the psychological pressure of “angle-seeking” tee shots along tight corridors (15, 17, 18). What has changed: vegetation density relative to the 1920s (less underbrush today), bunker edges and sandy margins re-naturalized after mid-century simplifications, and turfgrass species updated to ultradwarf bermuda—a material change that nonetheless supports the intended firm-and-fast presentation.
Sources & Notes
Mid Pines—Course “100th Year” web page, summarizing 1921 land purchase, construction cost, and 36-hole plan/opening in November 1921. Mid Pines Inn & Golf Club: “Mid Pines—Our 100th Year” Official Mid Pines website (main and course pages) for operating model, resort context, facilities, and restoration credit to Kyle Franz (2013).
The Fried Egg—Course Profile/Review, for restoration methodology (1939 aerial as guide), corridor/valley description, and hole-specific notes (esp. 4 and 15) and the Inn’s Aymar Embury II attribution. Garrett Morrison, “Mid Pines Golf Club,” The Fried Egg (2024–25).
GolfClubAtlas—Feature Review (Ran Morrissett), for hole-by-hole design characteristics (e.g., crowned 2nd, restored hazards at 4th, options at 6th, green expansions ~15,000 sq ft, non-Ross 8th & 9th prior to 2013).
Kyle Franz—Project page (Mid Pines), for blueprint-based bunker adjustments at the 1st, expansion and shaping notes (e.g., crowned 2nd), and overall restoration approach.
GolfClubAtlas—Feature Interview with Kyle Franz (2021), for corridor-width comparison between Mid Pines and Pinehurst No. 2 and the resulting strategic/psychological effect.
USGA Championship Database, confirming that Mid Pines hosted the 2002 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur.
Carolinas Golf Association news post (2015), documenting U.S. Amateur sectional qualifying at Mid Pines and course-record-tying 62.
HomeofGolf.com feature – Regional turf/industry reporting on greens conversion, for the 2013 switch to ultradwarf bermudagrass (MiniVerde) at Mid Pines within the broader Sandhills “Bermuda revolution.”
Disputed / Uncertain Points Requiring Primary Verification
Scope of non-Ross greens before 2013: GolfClubAtlas notes the 8th and 9th were the only non-Ross greens prior to restoration; this aligns with on-site accounts but should be cross-checked against original green-as-built sketches as available.