Since the first golf championship was held at Pinehurst Resort in 1901, it is recognized as one of the most prestigious golf resorts in the country. Pinehurst N˚2 golf course was originally designed in 1907 by Donald Ross and has a history of developmental milestones. After it was redesigned in 1974, the course was redeveloped for championship venues in the 1990s and renovated by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw in 2010. It was under their guidance, that CIPM director, Danesha Carley and her NC State graduate students helped with its renovation, converting hundreds of acres of a landscape dominated by high water-demanding bermudagrass into a more natural environment. The goal was to restore Pinehurst N˚2 as close as possible to its original design, while fostering a renovation plan that could be environmentally sound as well as economically beneficial to the resort and the golf industry. By 2011, around 700 sprinkle heads were removed, and water usage was reduced from 50 million gallons a year to about 10 to 12 million gallons.
Installation of native vegetation was a critical component of this renovation. With the help of pocket-size guidebooks specifically created for this endeavor, unwanted plants, weedy and invasive species, were easily identified, keeping those that naturally occur in the North Carolina Sandhills, including the Eastern prickly pear cactus, pineweed, pigweed, and yellow toadflax. In 2014, prior to the men’s and women’s U.S. Open championships, Dr. Carley and her team were invited to be on site and follow the progression of the native vegetation coming back into the rough terrain off the fairways. Aside from the incorporation of 10,000 sprigs of wiregrass and sand fairways, restoring the original ‘Ross’ design also involved, as Carley said: ‘moving turf areas into a more natural state, including native grasses or adapted species’.
With a more natural ecosystem given by the return of native North Carolina plants, biodiversity has flourished within the Pinehurst area, and bees and other pollinators have notably increased since the renovation process started more than a dozen years ago. This has prompted Carley to not only continue fostering the growth of Sandhill-native plants but also to study and catalog the native and exotic bee populations, whether they are honey bees, sweat bees, and bumble bees. Plants that are not pollinated by bees like bergamot, false dandelion, and broom sedge, provide refuge and serve as hosts for reproduction. A significant amount of work has been dedicated to making sure the golf course has a well-established bee population adapted to the new ecosystem.