Articles Celebrations Obituaries

The par-five 13th has one of many blind shots.
(Joe Avento / Johnson City Press)

Tobacco Road: Extreme golf at its best

By Joe Avento
Press Sports Writer
javento@johnsoncitypress.com

 Printer-friendly version

 Email Article

SANFORD, N.C. — It’s been called the rock-n-roll thrill ride of golf. After spending an entire day at Tobacco Road Golf Club, you’ll know why.

Be warned. If you attempt to tackle Tobacco Road, it’ll probably bite you back. But if you have an adventurous side and like a challenge, you’ll enjoy every step you take on this extreme course near Pinehurst.

It might even reward you with a good score, one that will leave you feeling like you’ve tamed a monster. But remain humble. You’ll be heading back sometime soon and it will be there waiting for you.

Chances are it’s unlike any other course you’ve ever played, and if you go in with an open mind, it will reward you with one of the best golfing experiences you can imagine.

Golf World recently rated Tobacco Road as the No. 4 public course in the country. Golf Digest picked it as the 10th most difficult and Golf Magazine called it the most adventurous.

If you had to pick one course to play every day for the rest of your life, it should be Tobacco Road. For one thing, golf would never be boring. You can call this course a lot of things — and plenty of people do in hand-written notes tacked to the restroom wall — but you can’t call it boring.

The course elicits all kinds of emotions. It will leave you exhilarated or flabbergasted. Some people love it, some hate it. There doesn’t seem any in between.

We discovered the course on a recent excursion to the golf-rich area called the North Carolina Sandhills, and Tobacco Road should be its poster child. Sand and hills seem to make up 90 percent of this course.

It starts on the very first tee, where your opening shot must carry — or split — two mounds that are several stories high and full of gnarly grass. The fairway between them is as wide as your driveway.

But on the first hole you quickly learn something about the late Mike Strantz’s course-design philosophy. It’s frightening to the naked eye, but it’s doable once your pulse returns to normal and you think about the task at hand. Beyond those intimidating mounds is an ample landing area, something you find throughout the course.

If this layout seems like one big bunker with tees, fairways and greens sprinkled about, it’s because it’s built on the site of an old sand quarry. And they left plenty of sand behind.

Some of the sand pits are so deep, there are steps, lots of them, leading to the bottom.

Avoiding a sandy fate is part of the challenge. Getting out of it is part of the adventure, and when you do so successfully, it adds to the satisfaction of the entire experience.

Strantz, who died in 2005 after a battle with tongue cancer, forces you to use your imagination while playing his courses. He said golfers enjoy playing holes which look impossible but are eminently playable.

He hit the nail on the head at Tobacco Road. With so many blind shots, the course might appear unplayable at times. But once you figure out where to go, it all makes perfect sense. The concept of risk-reward wasn’t born here, but it has matured quite nicely.

That’s why it’s recommended you play it twice. That second time around is not nearly as intimidating, although it’s just as exciting.

At times, the first trip around the course felt like walking through a dark room. With so many blind shots, we were afraid to go too fast, fearing what we might run into. During that second round, the light bulb was on and at least we could see what we were facing.

Despite its reputation and 150 slope rating (second highest in the Carolinas only to Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course), the layout is fair. You’re never asked to pull off the impossible, although it will punish a bad shot. And bad shots usually end up in the sandy waste areas, which, believe it or not, are much more playable than the U.S. Open rough at Bethpage Black.

As difficult as it can play, the course would be considered a short one by today’s power-golf standards. It measures only 6,500 yards from the tips, but that’s plenty of course with all the stuff in the way, blind shots and forced carries to reach the fairways.

Unlike other courses, you don’t get a breather here. All 18 holes make you think. On every shot and every putt, you have to concentrate like you’ve never concentrated before.

In the description of the ninth hole, a 427-yard par-four, the course guide seems to enjoy the test it’s putting forth. “Final hole on the outward nine features wetlands, sandy natural areas, sand mounds, bunkers, trees, elevation changes and yes, even some fairway and a sliver of green,” it says.

On the 17th hole, a short par-three, the pin was on the left. We never even ventured to look at the right side. The green was so wide, it was too far. The guide says “Shallow green meanders through sandy native areas.”

Greens aren’t supposed to be big enough to meander, but this one is.

The course is relentless, and it might seem a bit overwhelming at first. It’s the kind of place that gives you a headache on the front nine and kicks your butt on the back. Then you can’t wait to play it again.

We thought a good lunch at the turn might be a hot dog and a cyanide pill. Instead, we pressed on, and we were much better for the experience.

When we finished, we asked one of the rangers what percentage of people loved the course and what percentage hated it. He told us it was roughly 50-50, and we said there were four believers in our group.

“We had a couple of non-believers this afternoon,” he said, laughing.

Those “non-believers” just don’t get it, and that’s their loss.

If you’re headed to the Pinehurst area, put Tobacco Road on your must-play list. If you’re not, go soon. You’ll never forget it.