SCGA TRAVELER PLAY Indulge in Mike Strantz’s architectural brilliance at Tobacco Road. Off for Pinehurst For more than a century, golfers have queued up for a golf trip to the Sandhills. BY LEE PACE THE ICONIC POSTER from the 1920s depicts the Pinehurst “Golf Lad” in his flop-py hat and golf bag slung over his shoulder amidst the well-dressed crowd at New York’s Grand Central Station. The words “Off for Pinehurst” say it all — a trip south to what at the time was a 72-hole resort in the North Carolina Sandhills, later augmented by three courses in Southern Pines and more to come in the mid-and then late-1900s. “They’d get off work on Thursday in New York, board the train, travel all night and get to Southern Pines at 7 o’clock Friday morn-14 Palmetto Golfer SPRING 2022 T ing,” remembered Peggy Kirk Bell, the late LPGA founding member whose family has owned and operated the Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club since 1953. “We’d pick them up in two station wagons, and those going to Pinehurst Resort & Country Club would jump on a big bus and go to the Carolina Hotel. They’d play golf all weekend and get back on the train at 7:30 Sunday night. They’d be at their desks Monday morning.” Travel is much easier in the 2020s and the options are more plentiful. But now as then, there’s no better venue for a buddies trip ADVERTORIAL 1920s promotional poster inviting golfers to the area.