When you were planning the green complexes and shaping, was Ross and particularly Number 2 in the back of your mind?
Ira:
Yes, but more in the sense that we ought to do something different than Ross did, instead of copying him, considering that the area in general and the resort in particular has so many Donald Ross greens! It would be kind of silly to copy the greens of #2 on a course four miles away from it . . . just like I didn't want to build a Redan hole at Sebonack when the best one in the world was a couple hundred yards from our ninth tee.
One thought I had early on was that while Pinehurst has a lot of raised greens it doesn't have any that resemble punchbowls, even though the ground is sandy enough to make a low green work. So, I made a point of looking for a couple of green sites that sat down low in the terrain: the 5th and 6th sit in little bowls, the 9th is on a saddle, and the 3rd is a fallaway green at grade. We really have just tried to make the greens as varied as we can, and I think it's a really good mix of styles.
That's not to say we haven't gone and walked around Pinehurst #2 occasionally for inspiration . . . more in terms of the fairway widths and the bunkering than the greens, but our 13th and 18th greens borrow a little from course #2.