Prepping Pinehurst: no stranger to big tournaments, No. 2 will make history in 2014 with two U.S. opens in two weeks played there.

• Author: Pace, Lee
• Position: FEATURE

Golfers try to keep their hands warm and backs limber while waiting out a 90-minute frost delay on Pinehurst No. 2, site of two U.S. Opens, two U.S. Amateurs, one PGA Championship and one Ryder Cup Matches over its century-plus existence. As the temperature inches into the 40s, Don Padgett II--the president and chief operating officer of Pinehurst LLC, which owns The Carolina Hotel, Pinehurst Country Club and eight golf courses--inspects work on the Member Clubhouse, which overlooks the 18th green. Built in the 1970s, this appendage on the north side clashes with the original clubhouse's early-1900s look, and the club is spending $3.7 million to renovate and update its interior and rebuild the facade to harmonize with the columns and arches seen behind Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus and Billy Joe Patton as they collect victory checks or trophies in the old black-and-white photos.

The restoration is not being done specifically for Pinehurst's next major event--the U.S. Opens for men and women on consecutive weeks in June 2014. A more ambitious project of demolishing the addition and starting from scratch was on the drawing board in 2008 before the recession scuttled it. But the Opens provide a deadline for getting the smaller-scale project done. "You've never seen a really good photo of the 18th hole from the fairway because the Member Clubhouse in the background didn't fit," Padgett says. "This is going to have an iconic look; it's going to look like it would have 50 years ago. It will be spectacular--for our members any day of the week and for spectators and TV viewers the week of the U.S. Open."

Seventeen months out, the preparatory pulse remains languid, but in many quarters of this 118-year-old village nails are being hammered, dirt sculpted and ideas hatched as its residents prepare for their third U.S. Open and first U.S. Women's Open--and the first-ever staging of those events on one golf course on back-to-back weeks. "One of the most important elements in accomplishing anything is urgency," says Marty McKenzie, a lifelong Pinehurst resident and businessman. "We've needed to address some problems in the village for years--parking, streetlights, sidewalks. We've got some major infrastructure improvements in the works. And having the U.S. Open gives us a reason to do them now."

In the center of town, approximately a quarter-mile from the clubhouse, is the Pinehurst Department Store building, which opened in 1897 and originally housed a general store, post office, library, meat market and the village offices. Today on the ground floor are a men's clothing store, a deli and a gift shop. A sign hanging from the white, wood siding beneath the forest-green roof identifies the second-floor tenant--"United States Open Office." From this suite, Reg Jones, director of the event, and four colleagues plan the details and logistics of America's national golf championship in such locales as this year's event at Merion Golf Club, near Philadelphia. Four more staff members work exclusively on the 2014 Pine-burst events from an office on the ground floor of the Member Clubhouse. "This will be such a historically relevant set of championships," Jones says. "That's the driving force behind it. It's something that's never been done before--the opportunity to crown the two best golfers in the world on back-to-back Sundays, on the same golf course, pretty much under the same conditions. The level of discussion and debate and attention these two events will receive will be good for the game. And 2014 is a 'home game' for us, so it's extra special."

The United States Golf Association, which holds 13 professional and amateur championship competitions, is based in Far Hills, N.J., but opened its Pinehurst office in 2007 because the U.S. Open is such a travel-intensive enterprise--Jones is on the road about 130 days a year--and communication is so seamless over cables and cyberspace that it doesn't matter where key executives are based. Jones cut his teeth in golf administration in the 1990s working for Pinehurst Championship Management, a division established by the resort to operate the men's Opens in 1999 and 2005 and the three women's Opens at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in neighboring...