Pinehurst No. 2

Donald Ross opened Pinehurst No. 2 in 1907 and spent the next four decades refining it, later calling it the fairest test of championship golf he ever designed. Routed across the sandy Carolina pine barrens of Pinehurst, North Carolina, the course is famous for its subtly domed, crowned greens that repel anything but a precise approach. In 2010-2011 Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw led a landmark restoration, stripping away roughly 35 acres of irrigated rough and reintroducing sandy, wiregrass-dotted waste areas that echoed the layout's 1940s character. That tawny, firm-and-fast look debuted at the 2014 U.S. Open. No. 2 has hosted more championship golf than nearly any American course, including U.S. Opens in 1999, 2005, 2014 and 2024, and is now an anchor site for future U.S. Opens.