Pinehurst No. 10, designed by Tom Doak, opened in early April.

It’s been turning heads ever since.

And now it’s turning up in its first Top 100 list. On Tuesday morning, Golf.com released its Top 100 Courses in the United States for 2024-25, and Pinehurst No. 10 debuts at No. 88 just seven months after opening.

“This muscular Tom Doak design was run by his associate Angela Moser. Some guests of the resort are surprised by No. 10’s hilliness, but they shouldn’t be,” writes Golf.com Architecture Editor Ran Morrissett. “Appropriately, this region is called ‘the Sandhills of North Carolina,’ and Doak’s design steadfastly embraces it.”

Since opening, Doak’s No. 10 has been hailed as “rugged,” “mammoth” and with “holes that are unlike anywhere else,” by many major media outlets and players. Golf.com featured the course just a few weeks ago.

“Pinehurst’s newest golf course was everything it’d been billed to be: interesting, creative, eye-popping and thought-provoking,” wrote Golf.com’s James Colgan. “I thought its contours were friendlier than anything I’d encountered in the Pinehurst area, and found its variety unusually beguiling. In my mind, it easily achieved the difficult feat of being totally distinct to anything in the (already loaded) North Carolina Sandhills region.”

 

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With the Top 100 nod, the praise didn’t end there, and may be only just beginning. Golf.com’s description of No. 10 linked Donald Ross’s triumphs here to Doak’s masterful interpretation:

“Give a talented architect a sandy, rolling piece of land and place few restrictions on him or her, and it’s amazing what can be produced. Donald Ross did so with a flourish at this resort, and this time, it was Tom Doak’s turn — and he was bonused with not having to make an allowance for where homes might go or having the nines return. The result is a meandering tour that enjoys its own pacing. The first eight holes feature three par-4s — the drivable 4th, the burly dogleg-right 6th and the intermediate length 8th that plays into old mining spoils — that highlight the property’s diversity. Meanwhile, the run from the bruising uphill 468-yard 9th to the 264-yard 14th is one of Doak’s sternest stretches. Natural wetlands feature at two of the final four holes. This variety of obstacles ultimately make No. 10 an immediate stalwart among the resort’s offerings.”


And of course, what would a review of No. 10 be without a mention of the dazzling 8th hole?

“A legitimate surprise awaits at the 8th, where you have to launch your tee ball over a 30-foot-high landform dubbed the Matterhorn by Doak’s crew,” Morrissett writes. “This piece of the property was mined for sand nearly a century ago, and the hole requires negotiating rambunctious upheavals.”


Pinehurst No. 2 comes in at 13th on Golf.com’s Top 100, reminding readers of how monumental Coore & Crenshaw’s restoration of Ross’s masterpiece has been for course design and playability.

“Donald Ross’ chef d’oeuvre rolls spaciously through tall longleaf pines in the Carolina Sandhills with holes culminating with legendary inverted-saucer greens. For the 2014 U.S. Open, a Coore-Crenshaw restoration brought back the tawny-edged fairways and native areas last seen in the 1940s. Even with no rough, the runner-up could muster only one under par over four rounds. After the Women’s U.S. Open was played the following week, a powerful message had been broadcast around the world from the home of American golf about the virtues of width, short grass and great greens. This is one of a handful of courses that presents resort guests with a fun test on which they won’t lose a single ball, and a week later can be ready to host a U.S. Open. That’s the flexibility of short grass — and Ross’ design genius.”

Golf.com’s panel of raters is comprised of a wide swath of design opinions, describing it as such: “We rely on our panel of design aficionados — 127 of them scattered across the globe. Their handicaps range from +5 to 15. There’s a 52-year gap between our youngest and oldest panelist. Some have teed it up at over 2,000 courses, others at merely several hundred.”

Next week, Golf.com will release its new list of Top 100 Courses You Can Play in the U.S.