The Country Club of North Carolina was founded in 1963 on a 900-acre wooded tract on the Pinehurst/Southern Pines border. Founders engaged land planner Willard Byrd and architect Ellis Maples (a Donald Ross protege) to design the community and its flagship Dogwood Course, which opened in December 1963. A second course, the Cardinal, began as a Byrd nine in 1970 and was completed to 18 holes by Robert Trent Jones in 1981. The Top-100 private club hosted the 1980 U.S. Amateur.