How Pinehurst Became a Destination for Dreamers and Golfers Alike

This podcast series started with a voice. Southern. Melodic. Ebullient. A voice in both the literal and figurative sense. 

It was February 2024 and author James Dodson had just come on board to lend us his insights–and his narration–for a podcast we were going to call “The Road to Pinehurst.” It was focused on the history of both the town of Pinehurst and how it became such a celebrated host for the U.S. Open, which starts this week. 

But as Dodson told us stories, a theme emerged. This Donald Ross masterpiece in the sandhills is much more than a premiere golf resort: there might just be some spiritual gold in “them thar hills.” It seemed to be a place of healing and transformation. But, how? 

When we dug into the history of Pinehurst, predating its use as a golf course, it started to make sense: this place was born of healing. More than a hundred years ago, the James Walker Tufts family of Boston purchased some 6,000 acres because they thought the air there could cure tuberculosis. While their initial vision was misguided, it was serendipitous–this place did have therapeutic properties, just not the kind that cures sick lungs. 

The podcast became The Pinehurst Cure, which we are launching this week as a partnership between The Assembly, Plott Hound Media, and Perfect Cadence Productions. The three-part series will roll out weekly beginning June 12, and can be found on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

As any good storyteller knows, people relate to characters more than places. It turns out, we had a great character sitting in the writer’s chair. With the hope of uncovering the mysterious pull of Pinehurst, Dodson was the perfect fit. As the author of Final Rounds, A Son of the Game, The Range Bucket List, the biographer of Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer, and a columnist for Golf Magazine, he has a unique vantage point. His personal stories created a roadmap for this audio journey, with his own Pinehurst Cures leading the way. 

From the time he was 13, Pinehurst played a transformative role in Dodson’s life. He was at the Green Valley Golf Course in Greensboro where he missed a short putt and slammed his Bullseye putter into the green. Such antics got him banned by the volcanic and profane golf pro, Aubrey Apple. So, Dodson’s father, Brax–whom he refers to as “Opti-the-Mystic”–drove him to the Sandhills to show him what golf could be if he learned to control his temper.

Dodson explained that Brax earned his nickname because “he was this funny, life-loving, philosophical, upbeat guy.” He was also an advertising man who wrote the campaign “North Carolina Variety Vacationland.”

 “You couldn’t dissuade him that life wasn’t this joyful thing,” Dodson says. Brax’s relentless optimism–quoting Shakespeare and Emerson, speaking to strangers, talking to babies in grocery stores–was embarrassing when he was a kid. It would take maturing and Pinehurst for him to understand “the higher game.” 

And it’s that journey that drives The Pinehurst Cure. 

In 1974, the PGA Championship was held at Tanglewood in Clemmons. In a documentary of that week, narrator John Facenda (the famous voice of NFL films) says of golf, “In the beginning they will not only be competing against each other, but against themselves, for golf is the most personal and self-centered of all sports. A man’s performance is entirely his own affair. He is master–or victim–of his own destiny.” 

Facenda’s words speak to what makes golf an ideal sport for personal transformation. And this podcast speaks to what makes Pinehurst the ideal setting. 

The N.C. Association of Broadcasters produced an ad campaign in 1981, narrated by Andy Griffith that included the song, “I Like Calling North Carolina Home.” Anyone who grew up here gets it. There is a sense of family, kindness, and manners that sticks with you, whether you stay here your entire life or move continents away. 

We discovered that it does something similar for those who built Pinehurst But the phenomenon of the Pinehurst Cure goes one better, because it invites in people who are not from North Carolina. It taps them on the shoulder, much like it did to amateur golfer Harvie Ward and U.S. Open champion Payne Stewart. “Sit a spell,” it says. “We’ve got something special to teach you.”

We are not alone in our belief that Pinehurst has mystical qualities. Maybe it’s one of those mysteries that will never be understood. But we think listening to The Pinehurst Cure is a good start.

Patricia Beauchamp and John Meroney are cofounders of Plott Hound Media. They are executive producers, with Peter McDonnell of Perfect Cadence Productions, of The Pinehurst Cure.