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From our Directory of the most recommended golf courses
Tobacco Road Golf Club
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Located a half hour south of Raleigh, the course was designed by Mike Strantz, and you'll either love it or hate it. It seems at times as a quirky, tricked up, unexplainable design, but after a while it might grow on you, if just for the challenge. Strantz is notorious for designing tough courses, and he didn't disappoint here. The front nine features some visual illusions like fake dunes and mounds seem to constrict the fairway from the tee, but when you get to your shot, there was plenty of room. The greens are like McCord described at Augusta before getting thrown out, look like they have elephants buried under them, and put lightening fast. The back nine has more unique elements, like the blind 13th green, target golf features, and again the tough greens location and undulations. The course has a slope of 150 and a yardage of 6560 from the "ripper" tees. In my opinion, you don't need to rip anything here, it's all course management. Fun or frustrating course, must be played more than once to enjoy.
Published by: edb
Posted by: graeme64
Oct 14th, 2011
Tobacco Road is unique. Very few golf experiences create the feeling of seeing something truly different. Tobacco Road is DIFFERENT...until you have been there, it is hard to understand what that means. I am glad to have seen it once and I certainly have to give it credit for being original.
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Posted by: jcbama85
Aug 17th, 2011
Tobacco Road is an awesome golf course. I love Mike Stantz courses and this is his crown jewel. It's tricked up, but what I love is it is much more visually intimidating than it actually is in play. If you get the chance to play on a weekday afternoon, you'll find it a great time to play; very little traffic and often you'll have the course to yourself. I highly recommend it.
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Posted by: mutiger97
Jul 19th, 2010
Count me in as one who dislikes this course. Too many blind shots and too many gimmicky holes. On that hole where the green sits behind the hill, I was standing in the fairway with my group and we were all trying to figure out where to hit our next shot. Well manicured goofy golf
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Posted by: Colin
Jul 1st, 2010
It must be a 7300 yard behemoth of a course right? Absolutely not; it's barely over 6500 yards from the tips. The slope from the championship tees tops out at 150. We dialed it back just a little (the second set of tees were pushed back pretty far that day, within a putt of the back set on most of the holes) to a slope of 141. The starter attempts to guide you to the "correct set of tees" based upon your handicap, but who pays attention to that? Many of the locals in the Pinehurst area did not speak so fondly of Tobacco Road. Many feel that the course is contrived, has too much sand and is too target oriented. Well, I have yet to play a round of golf anywhere that isn't target oriented; it's the name of the game. Contrived? Hmmmm, not really, maybe a few of the holes are, like number one, a 547 yard par five (Disc tees) where you have to literally smash the perfect tee shot and thread a needle in order to drive through two huge, fescue infested sandhills.Could there be a little more grass around the par 3 greens? Absolutely, but I never felt "punished" on these holes, even when missing the green. For the most part, there was ample room to land on all of the par fours and fives. Too much sand? Sure, but local rules state that nothing on the course is designated as a sand trap, everything with sand is a waste area and practice swings anywhere in the sand are in fact, allowed. We abused that rule as if it was going out of style. Furthermore, if your ball comes to rest in a tire track, footprint or animal track you are allowed relief. The greens rolled quite nicely, especially for early December and one never felt they were tricked up. Strantz defintely did a nice job as far as the putting surfaces are concerned. Additionally, there is no out of bounds here, not anywhere on the course. It just doesn't get much better than that. The layout, variety of holes and flow of this course was heavenly. By flow I mean the holes themselves, not the pace of play which can be a bit slow if the group in front of you is struggling.
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Posted by: McCallan
Jun 2nd, 2010
Tobacco Road is different and everyone needs to play it at least once. You will either love it or hate it, seems like there is no in between. Not as much target golf as people say. It is very wide open just can't tell it from the tee box, and placement is key. Widest fairways you will ever play. The greens are what make it so tough. If you hit your irons well and hit the right tier it is not a hard course. Tot Hill is very similar but is about a 45 minute drive. If you don't mind a little drive Anderson Creek is a decent course and doesn't cost much. Think it's about 30 minutes.
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Posted by: Phillip
May 29th, 2010
It’s probably good I didn’t have my camera out on the course, as no pictures could have done it justice. Architect Mike Strantz pulled out all the stops and rejected nearly every conventional standard of golf course design. What resulted was a course with stunning visuals and testing risk-reward shots throughout the property. It seemed like every other shot was a blind one—I actually played over the group in without realizing it… twice. Fairways were two or three times wider than they appeared, but miss the fairway and you were likely in the waste areas that spread throughout the property. The greens were even more variable than the fairways—rolling and multi-tiered, anywhere from 10 to 100 yards long. Yeah, 100. Some bunkers were cut essentially into small cliffs and left no option for escape. It was a roller coaster ride of a golf course that embraced its own over-the-top characteristics. Golf Digest called it, "Pine Valley through a funhouse mirror" in their "America's 50 toughest courses" article. And the course could get tough quickly, but actually set up well for my game: forgiving off the tees and creative approaching the greens.
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