The centurion: Pinehurst No. 2 remains second to none. A century after it was built, Donald Ross' commanding, demanding masterpiece still holds highest rank among the state's top 100 courses.

• Author: Droschak, Dave
• Position: Special Section

It's always big news when Tiger Woods swings a club or lifts a pen. Whether it's winning another major championship or signing a million-dollar endorsement deal, golf's greatest player draws a crowd. Woods also attracted his share of curiosity seekers recently when he announced he was forming his own design company. What kind of courses would Woods build? How difficult would they be? His answer hit close to home. "I play golf courses on tour, and we all see it: Miss the green, automatic lob wedge, hack it out of the rough," Woods says. "That to me is not fun golf. Fun golf is Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina. Fun golf is learning how to maneuver the ball on the ground and give yourself options." [??] Woods singled out the course legendary architect Donald Ross called "the fairest test of championship golf I have ever designed." It's the same one Jack Nicklaus says is his "favorite golf course in the U.S. from a design standpoint." The Ross masterpiece turns 100 years old in 2007, withstanding the sport's biggest test of all--time. Though it was built with mules and drag pans, stronger players, vastly improved club technology and longer-traveling balls still haven't been able to dent Pinehurst No. 2's mystique as one of the world's best--and most difficult--layouts. "This land just screamed out to have a golf course put on it 100 years ago," says Brad Kocher, vice president of grounds and golf-course management of Pinehurst Resort. [??] More recently, the course hosted Woods and fellow pros for U.S. Opens in 1999 and 2005, reviving even more interest in how Ross used sight lines, mounds, hollows and bunkers to create what many pros believe is the game's best test of talent, skill and mental fortitude. The results bear Ross out. In two U.S. Opens, only one player, 1999 winner Payne Stewart, finished the tournament under par, and he made it by only one shot. But the real beauty of No. 2 remains as simple and straightforward as its design-even the high handicapper can enjoy the rich rewards of the golfing experience. And anyone can play the course. Pinehurst No. 2, Bethpage State Park's Black Course in Farmingdale, N.Y., Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, Calif., and Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla, Calif., are the only Open venues open to the public.

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Mark Bourgeois, 41, occasionally makes the five-hour drive from Washington, D.C., for an overnight stay at the resort and a few rounds on No. 2. The financial-institution consultant played golf on five continents last year but calls Pinehurst No. 2 his favorite course. "I play all over the world, and you just don't see this style anywhere. You can come out here and be a 24-handicap, an 18-handicap, you can be a kid, and you can be an old person--any golfer at all--and have a great time. Anybody can play it, but at the same time nobody can master it. That is the charm of this place--you can't figure it out. This is my fifth time, and it gets harder because you start to remember all your bad shots, so it's like a graveyard or a cemetery of memories. I mean, I've messed up the 15th hole in so many different ways that I'll try anything now."

Edward Kezar of Eden played No. 2 for the first time in December. He compares it to seeing the Grand Canyon. "You can read about it, and you can watch it on television, but until you are actually here and play on it, you have no idea how great it really is and how hard it really is. What sticks out for me is how hard I had to concentrate to play well and what a challenge it is."

Two of today's best architects, Tom Fazio and Pete Dye, almost genuflect when talking about the way Ross designed No. 2. "I've been lucky," Dye says. "I've played No. 2 more than the Lord should allow." Fazio says there is a reason No. 2 hasn't been duplicated. "Why haven't the great artists painted another Mona Lisa? Why did Picasso do what he did? Why didn't Ross take all his other courses at Pinehurst and make them look like No. 2? He could have done it, but he didn't. Why dilute the product?"

What makes No. 2 different? It starts with how it makes players approach the game. Most of today's golf in the U.S. is played through the air. However, the best way to play some shots at No. 2, especially around the greens, is closer to the ground, just as it was a century ago. "The fact that you can be 8 feet off the green and hit every club in your bag from the same spot is something people don't experience on any other course in the world," Kocher says. "Typically, the first club golfers want to pull out of the bag around the greens is a lofted club, and then when the ball rolls back to them they go to a putter or some other straight-faced club where they can get the ball rolling. People are used to playing the ball up in the air, so it is a different experience for them. Up in the air is not always the best way to get back on the putting surface here."

The questions of how and why to play certain shots on No. 2 keep players thinking harder than during a normal round, creating a game within a game. "Most people don't really appreciate what they're playing because there is not a mountain around here. There is not an ocean," Kocher says. "But if you love golf-course architecture, if you love to play well-designed golf courses, you'll never play one that's any better than this one."

The best place to trace the 100-year history of No. 2 is in the Tufts Archives in the Village of Pinehurst library, a collection of hundreds of photos, drawings and newspaper clippings of the evolution of the Ross design. Any Ross enthusiast interested in his architectural philosophy could spend days in the archives and not examine every tidbit. Eleven of the 18 holes in the existing layout at No. 2 were in the original 1907 corridor but not necessarily the holes they are today. Holes 3-6 were reconfigured in the 1920s and '30s.

Few know that the first greens on No. 2 were flat, square and covered with sand. They were seeded with Bermuda grass in 1935 and built up to some of the turtleback greens seen today. Changes were made through the years as ownership changed hands and grasses were developed. "Ross died in 1948, and the Tufts family owned the resort until 1970," Kocher says...