From Fossil to Fame

FROM FOSSIL TO FAME

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From Fossil to Fame

A dino-sized discovery

By Hampton Williams Hofer

Step into the SECU DinoLab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, and you may find yourself shoulder-to-shoulder with a paleontologist dusting off a specimen or examining a slide with a microscope. This high-tech research laboratory is open to the public, a chance for regular folks to see real science in action. And it’s home to a pair of very famous residents: the “Dueling Dinosaurs.”

The Dueling Dinosaurs — thought to be the remains of an intact tyrannosaur and Triceratops that died 67 million years ago — are considered perhaps the most significant fossils ever recovered from Montana’s storied Hell Creek Formation. For one, the specimens were nearly complete and exceptionally well-preserved. For another, these two dinosaurs had interacted, likely even died fighting, as evidenced by teeth fragments embedded in the Triceratops. They were first unearthed in 2006 by Clayton Phillips, a Montana rancher and self-styled dinosaur cowboy, who excavated and stored the specimens while spreading word of his discovery.

By 2016, Dr. Lindsay Zanno, head of paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, had heard of the fossils. She and her team traveled to New York, where the Dueling Dinosaurs were being stored, to verify the legitimacy of the fossils, then on to Montana to examine the conditions of the landscape where they were excavated.

Convinced of their importance, Zanno, along with the Friends of the NCMNS, worked to raise the funds to not only bring the Dueling Dinosaurs to North Carolina, but to build them a new home worthy of what she knew would be one of the most significant paleontological finds of the century. The NCMNS acquired the dinosaurs in 2020 — and got to work.

The museum built a new annex to support the Dueling Dinosaurs’ 31,000 pounds of bone, sediment and plaster. Unlike the way fossils have been treated in the past, the Dueling Dinosaurs would not be fully excavated and reassembled but remain within their plaster preparations — all the better to learn clues about how they behaved and appeared. (In the stone surrounding the Triceratops, for example, are impressions left by octagonal formations on its frill, offering insights into how the dinosaur’s skin may have looked and felt.)

While paleontologists had historically spent their research work dusting bones in dark museum basements, their work at the NCMNS would literally be brought to light. Visitors can see them, even talk to them, ask questions and observe their work in real time. The SECU DinoLab at the NCMNS, which opened in spring 2024, revolutionized the visitor experience with this groundbreaking exhibition.

The remarkably preserved fossils and whatever Cretaceous secrets they held were, as Zanno said at the time, like “a big, unopened Christmas present.” Now, less than two years since the museum welcomed the Dueling Dinosaurs, the first gift has been unwrapped. And it’s a whole new species, flipping decades of Tyrannosaurus rex research on its head.

The small tyrannosaur was believed to have been a teenage T. rex for the 20 years since Phillips spotted its pelvis weathering out of the ground. Using CT scans and imaging to look inside the blocks of earth housing the fossils, paleontologists at the NCMNS uncovered characteristics in their tyrannosaur specimen that set it apart from a T. rex, including larger forelimbs, more teeth, fewer tail vertebrae, and distinct nerve patterns. In addition, growth rings and spinal fusion data proved that the specimen was an adult. But at 18 feet long and 1,500 pounds, it is only around a tenth of the body mass and half the length of a full-grown T. rex.

That meant that the small tyrannosaur is, in fact, a mature Nanotyrannus lancensis.

“The implications are difficult to overstate,” says Zanno. “The fact is, much of our current understanding of T. rex was built on three decades of research that unknowingly mixed data from Nanotyrannus with that of Tyrannosaurus — two different tyrannosaurs that aren’t even closely related. Most of that research now needs a second look.”

Along with co-author Dr. James Napoli, a vertebrate paleontologist at Stony Brook University, Zanno published the findings of their study in Nature this past October.

The scientific gift of the Dueling Dinosaurs exhibit will continue to give, as Nanotyrannus changes much of what paleontologists have believed about history’s most famous dinosaur and the world in which it reigned supreme. A longstanding debate in the realm of paleontology questioned whether Nanotyrannus was a distinct species or simply an adolescent T. rex. Zanno and Napoli showed that the Nanotyrannus at the NCMNS is biologically incompatible with a T. rex — meaning that the T. rex’s dominance in the final million years leading up to the asteroid was not unchallenged.

“To me, what’s exciting about this discovery is that it opens the door to a whole new series of questions about how these drastically different predators — one built for brute strength and one built for speed — interacted in the twilight of the dinosaurs. What we can say right now is that life at the end of the Cretaceous was a lot more colorful than we had imagined,” says Zanno.

Though smaller than T. rex, Nanotyrannus was still a valiant competitor, and a quicker, more agile hunter. Its existence proves that predator diversity at the end of the age of the dinosaurs was richer than previous research suggests. Now a new question arises: How many other mistakenly identified dinosaur species could be hiding in plain sight?

“Scientists have long debated whether dinosaurs were thriving or diminishing when the asteroid struck,” Zanno says. “Without understanding the number of dinosaurs alive at the time and the ecological roles they filled, we cannot document how mass extinction events have shaped life on our planet in the past, nor how they are likely to affect us in the future.”

Zanno and Napoli conducted exhaustive research before releasing their findings in Nature, work supported by the State of North Carolina, N.C. State University, the Friends of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and the Dueling Dinosaurs Capital Campaign. Their process included examining more than 200 other tyrannosaur fossils. One of those, like the specimen at the museum, was originally believed to be a teenage T. rex, but also ended up being a fully-grown Nanotyrannus.

Interestingly, this specimen differed enough from Nanotyrannus lancensis at the museum for them to conclude it was, in fact, a new species entirely. (Zanno and Napoli named it Nanotyrannus lethaeus after the underworld River Nethe in Greek mythology, where souls who drank the water forgot their past lives and were ready to be reborn.)

“Nanotyrannus was clearly an animal capable of speed, darting about on long limbs, unlike its bulkier cousin, T. rex. It also had powerful, dextrous arms, large hands, a shorter tail, and unserrated peg-like teeth at the front of the mouth — oddly, not that dissimilar from yours and mine,” says Zanno. “But how fast could it run? How did it hunt? What was its favorite prey? I am excited to dive into Nanotyrannus itself. We know next to nothing about its biology; in a very real way, this is a dinosaur being reborn to the scientific community.”

The specimens at the NCMNS have affectionately been named after two North Carolina locations. Murphy, the Triceratops, is named for the westernmost town in the state, signifying the strength and longevity of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Manteo, the Nanotyrannus, is named for the coastal town on Roanoke Island, home to The Lost Colony and the original American mystery. It suits the Nanotyrannus, a name that now represents question, discovery and the spirit of exploration.

Zanno says this is just the beginning. “We have decades of incredible research in the pipeline on the Dueling Dinosaurs. This is all made possible not just by the outstanding preservation of the fossil carcasses and the talent and dedication of the team we have put together, but also by the community backing we have received,” he says, adding, “The people of North Carolina and beyond banded together to protect these fossils for science and the public alike — a powerful force for good that will continue to pay dividends.

“We simply can’t wait to keep sharing the excitement with all.”

 

The Ruth Pauley Speaker Series welcomes Dr. Lindsay Zanno, PhD, for National Geographic Live: “Rise of T. Rex” on Tuesday, April 28, 2026 at 7:00 PM in Owens Auditorium at the Bradshaw Performing Arts Center (BPAC). Join RPS as Dr. Zanno explores the story behind one of history’s most fascinating creatures. Admission is free, but tickets are required and available at TicketMeSandhills.com.

Tea Leaf Astrologer

TEA LEAF ASTROLOGER

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Pisces

February 19 – March 20

No, you’re not going crazy.
Yes, you know what you know. And, no, you don’t need to explain your so-called prophetic dreams to anyone (they’re not ready to hear them). Here’s what you should do: Cut ties with the friend who makes you feel like a doormat. Get clear on your boundaries — and honor them. And when the new moon graces your sign on March 18, inspiration for a fresh skin care routine could be the glow-up that you never saw coming. Or, maybe you did.

Tea leaf  “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Aries (March 21 – April 19) 

Try taking a cold shower. 

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

Two words: leafy greens.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

You’ll know when you know.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Make a date with the sunrise. 

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

The signs won’t be subtle. 

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)  

Pay attention to your jaw and shoulders. 

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Put your playlist on shuffle and move your feet.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Pick up where you left off. 

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Prepare to surprise yourself. 

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Work with the chaos. 

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

Explore a different vantage point.

Omnivorous Reader

OMNIVOROUS READER

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Storytelling at Its Best

A sweetly crafted tale of golf and life

By Stephen E. Smith

The best writers, those gifted beyond the ordinary, harbor obsessions, and when producing their finest work, they transform those obsessions into prose that they share communally with readers. That’s the case with Bill Fields’ A Quick Nine Before Dark. His obsession is golf — and anyone who’s been caught up in the intricacies of the game will want to read Fields’ memoir, front to back.

Fields is a North Carolina boy. Born in Pinehurst in 1959, he attended public schools in Moore County and graduated from the University of North Carolina. For 20 years, he was a senior editor for Golf World and is the recipient of the PGA Lifetime Achievement Award.

A Quick Nine Before Dark is for golfers of all skill levels. Even if you’ve never whacked a golf ball and you surf past reruns of Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf like it’s a Progressive commercial, you’ll likely find yourself swept up by Fields’ beautifully crafted prose, and the personal twists and turns of his life as a golf writer. He comes across as a gentle, earnest and thoughtful human being who has nevertheless tackled life head-on. You’ll find no scandals, no shocking moral shortcomings, no dark musing, no vilifications of former friends — just straight-ahead storytelling at its best.

Writers have tics and twitches of style that identify them as surely as their DNA, but Fields’ flaws are few, if any, and there’s nothing about his writing more rewarding than his efficient use of descriptive prose. When he feels the need to shine, he does precisely that, as with this excerpted Golf World description of Davis Love III as he captured a major title: “The conclusion to the ninety-seventh PGA Championship was soggy and sweet, like strawberries and sponge cake. As quickly as the late afternoon rain had come on Sunday to Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, New York, it stopped, and the sun peeked through an angry sky. Two rainbows arched over the course at just the right moment, as if scripted by Frank Capra himself, and for Davis Love III, there wasn’t a burden in sight.”

Fields blends the elation of honest achievement with the whimsy of happenstance. In three carefully crafted sentences, he transports the reader to a significant moment in professional golf, evoking the sweetness of strawberries and sponge cake, and framing the moment of triumph with an allusion to a great filmmaker. Then he concludes with a pithy understatement: “. . . there wasn’t a burden in sight.” Could there be a more endearing description of earned exhilaration?

When the occasional somber moment intrudes, it’s handled with grace and thoughtful solemnity, as when Fields learned that his former wife, Marianne, had died. He was hundreds of miles away, talking with his mother by phone, when he heard the news: “It’s Marianne, Bill. She died. . . . Nothing in divorce-recovery books, the radio talk show advice, or the support of friends in the wake of a failed marriage had prepared me for those words.” The deaths of his mother and father are likewise handled unsentimentally but with a necessary touch of sentiment. “Life is ragged,” he writes. “Voids linger. Loose ends are everywhere.”

Fields’ obsession with sports began when he was a child, gravitating toward any game that involved a ball. When he failed to become a basketball star, he turned to golf after receiving a Spalding starter kit for Christmas in 1969. His focus on the game waxed and waned until he was a student at UNC, where he wrote for the Daily Tar Heel. After graduation, he knocked around the golf world, promoting the game, until he accepted a position with the Athens Banner-Herald, which would evolve into an associate editorship at Golf World. What followed was a series of positions that eventually led back to Golf World, the magazine that started in the same town where he was born.

Fields covered tournaments in the United States and overseas, which brought him into contact with the greatest golfers of our time. How many golfers can boast that they’ve played the game with Sam Snead and Tiger Woods?

But A Quick Nine Before Dark is more than another golf book — it’s also about becoming a writer and what it takes to remain ascendant in a field where technology advances at breakneck speed. From the moment Fields, an elementary school kid, put pencil to paper and wrote “I like to write,” his life had been about arranging the right words in the best possible order.

Fields’ work may require him to live in Connecticut, but he is as much a Southern writer as Faulkner and as romantic about his hometown as Thomas Wolfe was about Asheville.

At 13, Fields worked as a busboy at Russell’s Fish House in Carthage, which recently closed. Describing the restaurant in its heyday, he treats us to magical paragraphs that touch all the senses: “. . . Russell’s was the most clamorous place in creation — more deafening than any argument my sisters ever had, more ear-piercing than the hocking sounds made by my fifth-grade teacher, more thunderous than a Seaboard freight train when it trundled through town . . . Wooden chairs scraping angrily on cement floors. Customers’ animated conversations and guffaws reverberating off cinderblock walls . . . Flatware and platters clanging into busboys’ bins as they and the wait staff dashed about like running backs seeking holes in a defense.”

And like any good Southerner, Fields brings us home, mystified, as most of us are, by the relationship of the past to the present: “Stretches of U.S. 1 and U.S. 15-501 are now blighted by a sprawl of commercial establishments, stores and restaurants. Attempting a left turn without an illuminated green arrow can be risky business. Traffic planners debate solutions. Meanwhile, at certain times of day, dozens of cars idle, waiting to pass the busiest intersections.”

Fields’ writing is unfailingly lucid, exact, and engaging. What’s not obvious is that he’s worked over his prose until that “worked on” feeling is gone. His many readers will be the beneficiaries of that labor. 

Birdwatch

BIRDWATCH

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A Feisty Little Bird

The active lifestyle of the brown-headed nuthatch

By Susan Campbell

If you have ever heard what seems to be a squeaky toy emanating from the treetops in the Sandhills or the Piedmont, you may have had an encounter with a brown-headed nuthatch. This bird’s small size and active lifestyle make it a challenge to spot, but once you know what to look and listen for, you will realize it is a common year-round resident.

Brown-headeds are about 4 inches long with grey backs, white bellies and, as the name suggests, brown heads. In this species, males are indistinguishable from females. Their coloration creates perfect camouflage against the tree branches where the birds forage in search of seeds and insects. Their oversized bill allows them to pry open a variety of seeds, as well as pine cones, and dig deep in the cracks of tree bark for grubs.

By virtue of their strong feet and sharp claws, brown-headed nuthatches can crawl head-first down the trunk of trees as easily as going up. Although they do not sing, these birds have a distinctive two-syllable squeak they may roll together if especially excited.

Brown-headed nuthatches do take advantage of feeders. They are very accustomed to people, so viewing at close range is possible, as are fantastic photo opportunities.

This species is one of our area’s smallest breeding birds. It’s a non-migratory resident, living as a family group for most of the year. Unlike its cousin, the white-breasted nuthatch, which can be found across the state, the brown-headed is a bird of mature pine forests. Brown-headeds are endemic to the Southeastern United States, from coastal Virginia through most of Florida and west to the eastern edge of Texas. Their range covers the historic reaches of the longleaf pine. However, this little bird has switched to using other species of pine such as loblolly and Virginia pine in the absence of longleafs.

Brown-headed nuthatches are capable of excavating their own nest hole in small dead trees in early spring. Because so few of the appropriate sized trees are available (due to humans tidying up the landscape), in recent years brown-headed nuthatches have taken to using nest boxes. However, unless the hole is small enough to exclude larger birds, such as bluebirds, they may be outcompeted for space. For this reason, the species is now one of concern across the Southeast, with populations in decline. In addition to reductions in breeding productivity, logging, fire suppression as well as forest fragmentation are causing significant challenges for this feisty little bird.

“Helper males” have been documented assisting parents with raising subsequent generations. Without unoccupied territory nearby, young males may consciously be choosing to stay with their parents in hopes that they may inherit their father’s breeding area over time. If this approach sounds at all familiar to bird enthusiasts in our region, it should. It’s similar to the strategy of the red-cockaded woodpecker, another well-known, albeit less abundant, inhabitant of Southeastern pine forests.

Sporting Life

SPORTING LIFE

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The Gift of Time

Planning new adventures

“The best thing about hunting and  fishing, is that you don’t
have to actually do it to enjoy it. You can go to bed every night thinking about how much fun you had twenty years ago and it comes back clear as moonlight. It is a kind of immortality, because you’re doing it all over again.”   
— Robert Ruark’s Africa

By Tom Bryant

I had been thinking right regularly about mortality and immortality, having been recently diagnosed with cancer. The folks at Duke University performed their miracle, and on my latest scan and workup the cancer had disappeared. When I asked the doc about limits I might have, she replied, “Nothing, you can do whatever you were doing before all this came about.” Naturally Linda, my bride, and I rejoiced, and on the way home from Duke, I was like a kid the day before Christmas.

That night as I was relaxing by the fire reading some old columns I had written years before, I determined that the plan for the immediate future was to categorize things I wanted to do in the field, and things that Linda would enjoy doing with me. I grabbed a yellow legal pad from my desk, and I was off and running.

The musings I had made years before when I was in my prime, climbing over obstacles rather than going around them, got my list started with a flurry.

Ages ago, it seems like, I used to goose hunt, Canada geese, that is. It was before the geese that migrated every year realized they really didn’t have to do that. The ones that used to come down from the frosty North and set up camp in the sunny South would lounge around enjoying all that fresh grass recently planted on golf courses and the fields full of winter wheat just ripe for the picking. But then spring and a little warmer weather would roll around, and it would be time to pack up and wing it back north.

I don’t know how it happened, but I can imagine it went something like this: A couple or three geese were lolling about munching lunch on the 14th green when one of them said, “Well, it’s about time to hit the road back to the old homestead.”

Another of the geese, maybe one with a little more mileage on him, spoke up. “Boys, I’ve been making that trip more times than you are old, and I just made up my mind that I’m gonna stay here this summer. Why do all that flying and wandering about when we have everything we need, plus some, right here? Y’all have a nice trip and I’ll see you next winter.”

Thus it started. Wild Canada geese that were as skittish as bobcats overnight became residents and all but demanded their entitlement — fresh grass for everyone.

That’s what’s happening now. What I wrote about in those aged scribblings that dotted outdoor magazines and sporting pages in newspapers was when the noble Canada goose was a worthy game bird, worth all the notoriety given.

Every January, for about eight or 10 years in the late ’70s and early ’80s, my good friend Tom Bobo and I would head to the Eastern Shore of Maryland and the little town of Easton to goose hunt on the famous Plimhimmon plantation, located on the Tred Avon River close to Oxford, Maryland. The owner was a crusty old guy by the name of Bill Meyers. His land was about 400 acres with the river on one side and an estuary off the Chesapeake Bay on the other. It was as if it was made for goose hunting. We were in high cotton, so to speak, in those days, hunting with the likes of such notables as Bing Crosby, Ted Williams and Phil Harris.

So how can I follow up those ancient days of classic goose hunting in these modern times? Easy, first thing to do is head to Easton and get the lay of the land today. Then the plans will follow.

I made a few notes on my pad and moved on to the next adventure.

When I was a youngster growing up in Pinebluff, I had the best of all worlds as far as outdoor living was concerned. If not camping with the Scouts from old Troop 206, I was scouting on my own, finding likely places to explore. I would hook my Red Flyer wagon to my bicycle, loaded with camping gear, and head to the woods.

That was my first experience pulling a trailer, and I never forgot it. Decades later, the year I retired from my day job, Linda and I bought a little compact Airstream Bambi travel trailer, hooked it up to a Toyota FJ Cruiser, also new that year, and started the trip of a lifetime. Where to? North to Alaska, of course. We were on that special adventure for two months and drove over 11,000 miles.

Since that first epic experience, we have towed and camped in the Bambi several times across the country and to Florida during the winters. In Florida we would camp at a small scale campground on Chocoloskee Island, just south of Everglades City. Linda called it our fish camp.

In the summers we tried — and were usually successful — to camp at Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina one week out of every month.

I made a few more notes on my pad, put another log on the fire and thought about what it would take to get the little “Stream” back on the road. Not that much really. A detailed check at the Airstream place in Greensboro, maybe a new set of tires, then rig her for running sometime in the late spring.

Linda had gone on to bed and I was ready to hit the hay myself, so I banked the fire to be ready for the next morning and quietly moved down the hall to bed trying not to wake her. Lying there snug under the covers, I thought back over the last year-and-a-half.

Cancer puts a hold on everything. Every day during my experience with the disease we waited for the other shoe to drop, not knowing if it was going to be terminal or just debilitating. The waiting was the hard part.

But just like Robert Ruark said in his book on Africa, I’ve had a lot of experiences in our great outdoors, and thinking about them from 20 or more years ago and reliving them all over again is a kind of immortality.

Now, amazingly, the good Lord, along with the wonderful health professionals at Duke, have made it possible to continue my adventures, hopefully for a few more years. I put together a good start sitting by the fire.

I heard the ship’s clock in the den ding six bells, 11 o’clock. Time to sleep and dream good dreams. 

Character Study

CHARACTER STUDY

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Pots and Pennywhistles

And peddling positive energy

By Sharon McNeill

You could say Michael Mahan is a soulful guy. Potter, flute and pennywhistle player, artist, writer, amateur archaeologist, father, husband … well, you get the idea.

Mahan makes all sorts of beautiful wood-fired and electric kiln pots, but his “soul pots” have something special about them. Round, with a small hold, they have a Vidalia onion shape — similar to the Native American seed pot — with decorations on a band at the mouth. A sign in the shop says, “This pot is meant to be placed so that people who visit your home can pick it up. It is designed to absorb and release positive energies of love and kindness.” Since they aren’t glazed inside, only love and kindness can go into them because oil or water might seep out.

“People like the way they feel,” he says. “And if you need some positive energy, they can give it.”

Mahan was born in Wisconsin, grew up in Miami, and came to Waxhaw, North Carolina, when he was in the 10th grade. He went to N.C. State to study engineering, but switched to writing and editing. After graduation he landed a job at the Courier-Tribune in Asheboro, where he wrote a story about some potters in Seagrove. That was all it took. He quit his job and went back to school full-time to study pottery.

Mahan created the “soul pot” with his ex-wife, Jane Braswell — who decorated the band at the top — when they founded Wild Rose Pottery on N.C. 705 in Whynot, south of Seagrove. After the couple divorced, Mahan built his current studio, From the Ground Up, at 172 Crestwood Road, in Robbins. One day, poking around the property with his kids, he discovered a few old pottery shards. The artifacts were from the 1890s when the land belonged to another potter, W.J. Stewart, who is buried a few hundred yards away from the studio. Stewart made functional salt-glazed pots in a wood-fired groundhog kiln, including the jugs he used for the whiskey he distilled and sold.

Trees are an artistic theme in Mahan’s work, representing strength and connection, both to the land and its occupants. “When I’m carving a full tree on a pot, I can get lost in it and not take a break for an hour or more,” he says. “The more branches I make, the more complicated it becomes, hunting limbs that need another branch, or perhaps there’s one that broke off and is left hanging. I get to decide. Occasionally, I’ll make a dead tree. I love the beauty of a dead tree, still serving a purpose — as a perch for a bird, a landmark, a memory.”

Once, while selling his wares at a street festival, Mahan was attracted to a bamboo flute in a booth nearby. With a touch of Irish in his blood, the simple instrument led him to National Public Radio’s The Thistle and Shamrock show. Another potter, David Stuempfle, advanced the musical cause by teaching Mahan a couple of tunes on the flute.

Mahan’s second wife, Mary Holmes, is bona fide Irish, and she organized a trip for the couple to the old country, where they visited Clonmacnoise, a monastic site founded in the 6th century in County Offaly along the River Shannon. Leaning against an old stone wall inside one of the ruins, Mahan played the same melody that he played for Mary on their first date. Feeling a strong connection to the land and the people, they built a pottery studio in Limerick and travel there for two months every summer.

Pottery is something of a family affair for the Mahans. Two of his children have taken up the art form. His youngest son, Levi, is a potter who lives in Brooklyn and shows his work in the gallery in Robbins. His daughter, Chelsea, lives in Pensacola, Florida, where she teaches pottery. Eldest son Wil, is the only one of the children not in the family business — he sells real estate in Asheboro.

The word for soul in Irish is anam, and whether by flute or fire or the land he lives on, Mahan seems to have found it. 

Tea Leaf Astrologer

TEA LEAF ASTROLOGER

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Aquarius

January 20 – February 18

Buckle up, space cadet. The new moon eclipse on February 17 is going to be what the normies call “a moment” — especially for you. Yes, you’re different. We know, we know. But when you’re done trying on hats for the thrill of it, a seismic shift will occur in the quirky little core of your being. Reinvention is no longer performative. It’s the only path forward. Believe it or not, the world is ready for the weirdest version of you. Are you ready?

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Wear the lacy blue ones.

Aries (March 21 – April 19) 

A little dab will do.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

Milk and honey, darling.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Don’t forget the reservations.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Three words: breakfast in bed.

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

You can buy yourself flowers.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)  

Order the fancy entrée.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Just tell them how you feel already.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Edible is the operative word.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Try flirting with a deeper perspective.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Hint: polka dots.

Golftown Journal

GOLFTOWN JOURNAL

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The Scottish Invasion

Planting the roots of golf

By Lee Pace

Golf clubs across America in the early 1900s were frequently governed by fair-complected men who rolled their Rs, said aye and nae and wee, and spoke fondly of The Macallan and a dish from their homeland made of sheep’s innards.

Here in the Sandhills, the memory of Donald Ross, a native of Dornoch on the northeast coast of Scotland, is revered.

Hope Valley Country Club in Durham is 100 years old and has had a member of the Crichton family from Monifieth on its golf shop payroll every single day of its existence. That’s right — some 36,500 days (plus leap years) of paying Marshall and his offspring David and Maggie.

Other early Scotsmen who moved to America to carve a career in the golf business and landed in the Carolinas were Ralph Miner of New Bern Country Club, David Ferguson at Greenville (S.C.) Country Club, and Frank Clark of Asheville Country Club and later Biltmore Forest Country Club.

“You had to listen carefully,” Greenville golfer Heyward Sullivan said of Ferguson. “He talked through a thick burr. He used to say, ‘Laddie, the short game will help your long game, nay the long game will never help the short game.’ He wanted you to practice chipping and putting.” 

Hope Valley member Joe Robb once said of Marshall Crichton, the club’s first pro when it opened with a Ross-designed course in 1926: “A Scotsman replete with a brogue, bandy legs, a caustic tongue and a terrific sense of humor. Marshall’s brogue was so thick that his cuss words often sounded like music.”

One of the most fascinating stories of Scotsmen coming to America was that of the Findlay brothers — Alex and Fred. There were eight boys in the Findlay family of Montrose, and all of them learned to play golf. Alex was the oldest and in 1886 became the first golfer to ever post a 72 in competition. The next winter he left Scotland for America at the behest of fellow Montrose resident Edward Millar, who had established Merchiston Ranch near Fullerton in Nebraska in February 1887.

The so-called “Apple Tree Gang” at St. Andrew’s Golf Club in Yonkers, New York, is roundly credited with playing the first game of golf in America in February 1888. In truth, Alex Findlay had laid out a six-hole course at Merchiston Ranch by April 1887, played it with clubs he brought from Scotland, and sought to spread the virtues of golf in the Wild, Wild West. Some said as the game grew in popularity that he was the “Father of American Golf.”

“The people round about used to come and laugh at us for running after a white ball,” Findlay said in a 1926 interview with the London Evening Standard. “But at length I asked them to have a game and soon afterwards they were all keen to play. Before very long a golf club had been formed and the first steps to making America a golfing country had been taken.”

Meanwhile, Fred moved to Australia in 1909 with his wife in search of a warmer climate for their son, Freddie, who suffered from tuberculosis. Fred soon found work as head pro and course superintendent at Metropolitan Golf Club and stayed there for 14 years. Unfortunately, his son died at a young age despite the advantages of the warmer climate. Findlay’s daughter met a young man from Richmond, Virginia, who had served in the Navy during World War I and traveled to Australia as a merchant seaman.

Ruth Findlay married Raymond “Ben” Loving in 1924. They moved to Richmond and Fred followed them. Findlay knew Australian golfers Joe Kirkwood and Victor East, who had ventured to the States to play golf and give exhibitions, and both spoke highly of the New World and the opportunity for an accomplished golfer. His brother Alex cabled him from America, “Come at once.” 

“I came to Richmond to visit my daughter,” Fred said. “They were talking about building a course there. I loved the game, and I was interested in anything that would make an honest dollar.”

Findlay quickly established himself as a talented golf architect in the mid-Atlantic region. Though his career would not prove as prolific as that of Ross, who is credited with some 385 course designs in the eastern United States, he was “the man” in the state of Virginia, designing some 40 courses.

One of his early works that remains today is the James River Course at the Country Club of Virginia, in Richmond. He took 14 holes from a plan drawn by William Flynn and added four more, and supervised the construction of the course that opened in 1928. The collaboration certainly worked out well, as the James River course was the venue for the 1955 and 1975 U.S. Amateur Championships.

His most revered and solo design opened one year later — Farmington Country Club in Charlottesville. Findlay made his first visit to the site just west of the campus of the University of Virginia in September 1927, and the course opened two years later.

Findlay was given a special piece of ground when a group of Charlottesville business leaders decreed the town should have a sports and social club. The site had been under the purview of 13 owners over nearly two centuries, dating to 1744, when King George II of England conveyed 4,753 acres to Michael Holland of Hanover County. A manor house built in 1785 and expanded in 1803 under plans drawn by President Thomas Jefferson would be refurbished and expanded to serve as the clubhouse.

Findlay surveyed the misty mountain range to the north and west that would one day become the Shenandoah National Park. He traversed the slopes and hollows and in his mind pictured the flight of a golf ball cracked from his wooden-shafted mashie, soaring through the crystalline air and across a winding brook. He scanned the hillsides and factored the flow of fairways amid the Scotch broom running rampant.

“I just walk around and commune with nature in her visible forms,” Findlay said of his process. “And then, as if by inspiration alone, it comes to me suddenly, and I see the finished course far more plainly and vividly than if it were charted on cold blueprint paper. It has a character. And then I set out to make it what I have dreamed of — to materialize my vision. Nature herself gives me most of my ideas.”

Loving helped his father-in-law build the course and stayed on for half a century as the club’s general manager. After years living in Richmond, Fred moved back to Charlottesville and spent his later years playing golf, fishing, hunting and painting.

Newspaperman Ross Valentine wrote of Findlay at age 90 in October 1961: “To see Fred Findlay, clear-eyed, lean-muscled and fit as a fiddle on the eve of his 90th birthday, with whipcord and steel wrists hit a golf ball straight down the middle, was inspiring.”

Findlay immersed himself in the idyllic settings of Farmington and the surrounding countryside, capturing many in paintings that hang in the clubhouse today. The Findlay Room is decorated with three scenes from the 1950s and early ’60s — one of the third hole of the golf course and two with pastures, distant mountains and the lakes where he frequently cast a fishing line.

Findlay died on March 9, 1966, at age 94, in a Charlottesville nursing home, where he had recently moved following a period of declining health.

“Aye, Laddie,” the old Scotsman said, “if I had my life to live again, I wouldna’ change one day. The world owes me na’thing. My life has been coupled with nature, and I am sure there is nothing that keeps one closer to God.”

History in the Backyard

HISTORY IN THE BACKYARD

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History in the Backyard

Leaving a legacy on Pinehurst No. 2

By Jenna Biter 
Photographs by John Gessner

A couple of years back, Quinn Breuer accompanied her son, Quinton, to a U.S. Kids Golf tournament in Pinehurst. One visit was all it took. “It’s the pine trees. The environment. The people. The village,” Breuer says. She asked her husband, Todd, “Can we retire here?”

Quinn has been a stay-at-home mom, but now her babies are heading out the door. Todd hasn’t retired yet — home base is in Peoria, Arizona — but the Breuers are already preparing for their golden years in the village. The empty nesters purchased a modified Cape Cod a month before the 2024 U.S. Open on Pinehurst’s No. 2 course. “Good timing, you know?” says Quinn. Their backyard abuts the third hole.

The 5,240-square-foot, five-bedroom, pass-it-down-to-the-kids legacy house lounges on a half-acre plot that sidles up to No. 2’s wiregrass. “It’s location. It’s history. It’s unique,” she says.

The house on Midland Road was built in 2005. “It’s only two doors down from the Donald Ross house,” she says, referring to Dornoch Cottage, the home that was built by and belonged to the Scottish golf architect and mastermind of No. 2.  “When you walk into the backyard, it’s the flowers and the golf course and the pine trees. We don’t have trees in Arizona. We have desert.”

The couple initially purchased land on Linden Road and were finalizing plans for new construction. Todd surveyed the property on a visit. He longed for a better view, preferably a golf course. Father and son both enjoy the game. Quinton is 19 years old and plays on the golf team at South Mountain Community College, in Arizona.

The Breuers wanted something different than the lot they had. They lined up a Hail Mary and asked their Realtor to notify them if any houses on No. 2 came onto the market.
“A week and a half later, we got the call,” Quinn says, still in disbelief. “About a month later, we owned the house.”

The exterior is classic Pinehurst. The Breuers liked the village vibe and kept it that way. Its painted brick is a warm Southern cream; crape myrtles flank the front portico; and a wing sweeps out to each side. The left side extends further than the right, ending in a cupola-topped, two-car garage that connects to the house via breezeway.

Interior remodeling began right away. “We wanted it to be warm and traditional and modern at the same time,” says Breuer. Constrained by only a short list of musts and must-nots (a sectional in the family room, substantial bookcases in the study, no window treatments obstructing the golf course view), interior designer Angela Budd of Angela Douglas Interiors had enough creative wiggle room to run.

Quinn didn’t love the cherrywood floors — “too red,” she says — but they could be replaced more easily than a place on No. 2 could be found. The old floors came out and new ones went in. Just inside the front door, the white oak planks piece together in a herringbone pattern. A blown-glass chandelier counterbalances the floor and draws the eye upward. Attention fixes straight ahead on a black entry table that pops against the clean, white walls.

Like a roundabout, the table’s circular top whirls guests around the foyer, spinning them off into the rest of the home. To the left is Todd’s study. A drip painting print in the style of Jackson Pollock hangs on a wall. Pop art lips rendered by the Breuers’ daughter decorate another. Kiana, now 20, made the artwork for her dad when she was a kid. “I always think the best homes are personal,” says Budd. “They feel collected.”

Opposite the study is the formal living room. A marble surround frames the gas fireplace, and shearling swivel chairs sit in conversation with a white couch. One room removed, closer to the back of the house, guests can find the dining room drenched in a dramatic blue called Gray’s Harbor. “It’s not all blue, and I don’t do navy because it feels too nautical,” Budd says, “but this color is a nice blend between moody and elevated.” A pair of panel-ready, Sub-Zero refrigerators keep the Breuers’ wine. A bar between them doubles as a buffet for dinners when the kids are home.

“It’s a family space,” says Quinn.

The kitchen, across the hallway, underwent a light refresh. In the family room, Budd added a corner banquette for chatting, sipping and informal eating. The L-shaped sectional occupies the rest of the room.

“The house is just very . . . to me, it’s so warm, and it fits with their personality,” says Budd.

The master is on the first floor. It’s beige and green, clean-lined but cozy. The kids each have an ensuite on the second floor. French doors open onto a shared balcony that overlooks the brick-edged pool and outdoor seating, lush flowers trailing over the white picket fence, and the pinch-me-I’m-dreaming view of the fairway beyond.

“We want to hand it down to the kids, and the kids to their kids,” Breuer says. “We still can’t believe we own the house.”

Home Away From Home

HOME AWAY FROM HOME

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Home Away From Home

The legend and allure of the Pine Crest

By Bill Case

It’s March 1961. You’re 45 and a lifelong resident of Erie, Pennsylvania, where you’re the respected managing editor of the local newspaper, the Erie Daily Times. You’ve worked at the paper for 20 years and been its editor for five. You have an excellent relationship with the paper’s owner. The job is yours as long as you want it. And you love it.

Your wife, Betty, comes from a prominent Erie family. Her father, Charles A. Dailey Sr., owned and operated Dailey’s Chevrolet from 1925 until his death in 1958, when Betty’s brother, Charles “Chuck” Dailey Jr., took over. The Dailey family has been among Erie’s foremost philanthropists. And your kids  — Bobby, age 9, and Peter, age 5 — are happy in Erie.

Bob and Betty Barrett seemed the unlikeliest of couples to pull up stakes and seek a new life. While Bob was making a good living at the hometown paper, he wanted to own his own business. He discussed the possibility of partnering with Betty’s father in a second auto dealership in Erie, but that trial balloon blew away with Charles Sr.’s death. His passing did, however, result in a significant bequest to daughter Betty. With this nest egg and additional assistance from Betty’s mother, Elizabeth Dailey, the Barretts began looking for investment opportunities. But where?

“My dad had contracted pneumonia and worried he might not live long if he stayed where he was,” says Bobby Barrett, now 74. “He thought he stood a better chance of a long life if the family moved south. The Barretts and Daileys made regular golf trips to the Sandhills after my dad started playing in his mid-’30s. He fell in love with Pinehurst.”

While walking down Dogwood Road during a March ’61 vacation, Bob happened to encounter Carl Moser, then owner of the Pine Crest, sweeping the inn’s front steps. The men struck up a conversation in which Moser indicated he would consider selling if the price was right. Bob and Betty began mulling over the idea of making an offer. While the Pine Crest was no luxury hotel, the Barretts knew that many golfers weren’t interested in cushy surroundings. The inn’s 44 modestly sized rooms provided a homey, affordable alternative to the upscale lodgings at the Carolina Hotel and Holly Inn. And it was a going concern. The Pine Crest boasted a solid base of recurring guests, migrating golfers who returned like swallows year after year. Some had been doing it for as long as the inn had been in existence, 48 years.

Built in 1913, the hotel was the creation of enterprising innkeeper Emma Bliss. A New Hampshire native, Bliss had spent the previous nine years (1903 to 1912 ) managing The Lexington Hotel — where The Manor is today — which primarily served as a boarding house for resort employees. Leonard Tufts, who controlled most business activity in Pinehurst, hired Bliss after being impressed with her surehanded management of a Bethlehem, New Hampshire, inn.

Bliss shuttled back and forth with the seasons between managing The Lexington and her inn in Bethlehem. Possessing an entrepreneurial spirit of her own, she aspired to own a hotel herself, not just manage one. In January 1913, Tufts sold Bliss property on Dogwood Road, adjacent to the Lexington. By year end, she had erected and opened the Pine Crest Inn.

The Pinehurst Outlook hailed the inn’s arrival as a “delightful addition to the list of hotels; its comfort is suggested by the charm of its exterior . . . Modern in every particular, it provides several suites with private bath; radiant with fresh air; sunshine, good cheer, and ‘hominess’.”

Bliss operated the Pine Crest for seven years before selling it in April 1920 to Donald Ross and his fellow Scot expatriate W. James MacNab for $52,500. Ross, Pinehurst’s patron saint, was hitting his stride in the golf course architecture business and supplied the money for the purchase. MacNab managed the inn.

Instead of simply returning to run The Lexington, Bliss bought that property and tore down the old hotel. In its footprint, she erected a new lodging house — The Manor, a far more upscale house than its predecessor. Neither Tufts nor Ross seemed to begrudge Emma’s maneuvering, and Bliss owned and operated The Manor until her death in 1936.

To keep pace, Ross financed several improvements at the Pine Crest. He summarized them in correspondence with a prospective buyer in 1939: “Ever since I purchased the property, I have put back every cent earned and also some additional cash in the furnishing and maintenance of it. . . . Among the improvements I made are a telephone in every room and a Grinnell fireproofing system.” Ross dropped an additional $35,000 adding the inn’s east wing.

The Ross era at the inn began winding down after MacNab died in 1942. Aging himself, Ross chose to sell the inn in 1944 to the Arthur L. Roberts Hotel Company for $65,000. The company operated hotels in Florida, Minnesota and Indiana. The company’s founder, Arthur L. Roberts, arranged for title to the Pine Crest’s property to be placed in his individual name.

In September 1950, Carl Moser came to Pinehurst to manage the Pine Crest. Moser had extensive experience in hotel management and customer service. In 1941, the native New Yorker managed the Officers Club at Fort Bragg while serving in the Army Reserve. He had subsequent stints managing hotels in Greensboro (the Sedgefield Inn), Charlotte (Selwyn Hotel) and Stamford, Connecticut.

Along with his wife, Jean, the Mosers chose to live in the Pine Crest, occupying rooms 6, 8 and 10 on the first floor. Daughter Carlean joined her parents in these cozy quarters following her birth in May 1953. Arthur L. Roberts passed away in October 1952, and the trustees of his eponymously named company began liquidating its portfolio of hotels. In June 1953, Carl and Jean Moser entered into a land contract with Roberts Hotels to buy the Pine Crest Inn for $65,000 — $12,000 down and the balance paid over time.

By virtue of the deed records, Roberts’ heirs thought they owned the property, not the company. If they were right, neither Roberts Hotels nor the Mosers had any cognizable interest in the property. To resolve the issue, litigation was instituted in Moore County in September 1953. After hearing evidence, a local jury determined that (1) Roberts was acting in his capacity “as president and agent” of Roberts Hotel in effecting the 1944 purchase from Ross and MacNab; (2) it was Roberts Hotels, not Arthur Roberts individually, that paid the $65,000 purchase price; and (3) Roberts Hotels was not “under any duty to provide for the said Arthur L. Roberts in purchasing said property.”

Roberts Hotels was declared the inn’s rightful owner. Carl and Jean Moser breathed a sigh of relief; they had been dealing with the right party after all. And if in the future they wanted to sell the inn, they could do so.

Eight years later, the Mosers were ready to entertain offers, but according to daughter Carlean, her parents did not initially consider the Barretts serious prospects. After the sidewalk chat between Bob and Carl, there was no immediate follow-up. Not long afterward, however, representatives of the Barretts — probably Betty and her brother Chuck, who had experience in evaluating businesses — came to inspect the premises. Negotiations heated up, and in May 1961, the Barretts agreed to buy the Pine Crest for $125,000.

Since the Dailey side of the family was providing the capital, it was determined Betty would hold title to the property.

Unlike Carl and Jean, the Barretts chose not to reside in the Pine Crest. They bought Chatham Cottage (now Barrett Cottage) across Dogwood Road and made it the family’s home. Over the summer, Bob moved his wife and children to Pinehurst, took a crash course in hotel management, and announced a fall reopening date of October 12, 1961.

Eight-year-old Carlean Moser was heartsick to be departing the inn. “My dad broached the subject by asking whether I thought it would be fun for us to live in our own house,” recalls Moser, now 74 and living in Washington, Georgia. “I said it wouldn’t be fun if it meant I had to make my own bed or couldn’t order off a menu like I could always do at the inn.”

To Carlean the Pine Crest’s employees were like family. Some doubled as playmates. Carl Jackson, the inn’s head chef since the Donald Ross days, was a special favorite. The burly African American would spot Carlean entering the kitchen and commence beating the pots and pans hanging over the counter. The cacophonous clanging delighted the little girl. “I nicknamed Carl “Boom-Boom,” says Moser. “He was kind and fun.”

She played with guests too. At age 6, she sat on the lap of 19-year-old lodger Jack Nicklaus, in town for the 1959 North and South Amateur (which he won). ”We sat in the lobby watching the Mickey Mouse Club on television, and I wore my mouse ears,” says Moser. “Jack was very shy then. As long as I was on his lap, no one was going to bother him.” (Nicklaus bunked in room 205 in ’59; 26 years later, son Jack Jr. also roomed in 205 while winning his own North and South title).

The inevitable pitfalls of Barrett’s unlikely career switch presented the sort of scenario reminiscent of the 1980s comedy Newhart, the long-running television show about a New York City-based author of travel books, played by Bob Newhart, who abandons his former life to operate a 200 year-old Vermont inn.

In contrast to Newhart’s neighbors — Larry, Darryl and his other brother Darryl — a coterie of dedicated employees kept Barrett on track. Foremost was Jackson, who proved to be the ultimate lifer, remaining the inn’s chef until 1997, a full 61 years of employment. Starting in 1936 as “the pot washer” in the kitchen, Jackson began preparing meals about five years later.

“I started cooking under a German lady, “he told a Pilot interviewer in 1986. “She became ill and left it in my hands.” Jackson mastered a variety of Southern-style recipes. His pièce de résistance was “Chef Jackson’s Famous Pork Chop,” 22 ounces of meat “so tender you can cut through it with a fork,” effused writer John March in his 100th anniversary piece “Legends of the Pine Crest.” The famous dish is still on the menu.

Barrett insisted the kitchen serve the best cuts of prime meat. Specially ordered steaks came from Gertman’s in Boston. Freshly squeezed orange juice graced breakfast tables. Assisting Jackson in the kitchen was his apprentice and nephew, Peter Jackson. Peter had been employed at the inn for three years when the Barretts arrived and worked in tandem with his uncle for nearly 40 years. Carl Jackson’s cousins Elizabeth “Tiz” Russell and Josephine “Peanut” Russell Swinnie were sisters and permanent fixtures on the housekeeping staff. Tiz also babysat for youngsters Bobby and Peter.

Then there was Peggy Thompson, who supervised the dining room for decades, charming the guests and making a point to know them on a first-name basis. She recruited Marie Hartsell, who labored at the inn for 33 years, first on the wait staff, then as kitchen supervisor. Though Hartsell did not fancy herself a cook, she assisted in the kitchen baking pies. Her tasty banana cream became a Payne Stewart favorite.

And Betty Barrett was a worker bee too. She assumed the duties of an assistant manager, working behind the counter, preparing menus and ordering supplies. Even Betty’s mother, Mrs. Dailey, a frequent presence in Pinehurst, pitched in, assisting with the inn’s bookkeeping.

Though it took time for Bob Barrett to find his innkeeping sea legs, his personality proved perfectly suited for his position. A natural schmoozer, Barrett easily befriended guests. A major factor was his resourcefulness in arranging golf itineraries, an aspect of the job he enjoyed. During the ’60s, independent hotels like the Pine Crest had little difficulty getting starting times at the Pinehurst resort, Mid Pines and Pine Needles — a lifeblood for the inn.

Barrett also expanded the Pine Crest’s footprint. When the old telephone exchange building next to the inn was offered for sale, he outbid The Manor to get it. The revamped “Telephone Cottage” would become a favorite lodging choice for pros like Roger Maltbie and Ben Crenshaw.

Things ran relatively smoothly for the Barretts throughout the 1960s, but that changed when the Tufts family sold Pinehurst in 1970 to Malcolm McLean. His Diamondhead Corporation promptly converted vast wooded acreage into housing subdivisions, tacking on Pinehurst Country Club memberships to lot purchases. With the ranks of new club members swelling, securing tee times by the independent hotels became a nightmare. Under the new regime, outside starting times could, at best, only be reserved three days in advance.

Barrett did find a lifeline at the resort who assisted him in coping with the new order. Young Drew Gross, the first assistant to the resort’s director of golf, greased the skids for Barrett, keeping him abreast of last-minute openings on the resort’s tee sheet. The two men formed a bond that would have lasting impact.

Despite Gross’ assistance, the early 1970s were a bleak time for the Barretts. Bobby recalls his dad becoming so frustrated with the starting time debacle he considered suing Diamondhead for ruining his business. Instead, Bob and Betty decided to get out altogether. In 1974, they sold the Pine Crest to Richmond businessman Nat Armistead. The Barretts agreed to take periodic payments from the buyer and to continue managing the inn for an interim period.

The Barretts were in the midst of planning their future when tragedy struck in 1975. Betty Barrett, just 53, died suddenly at home. The family was devastated. To make matters worse, Armistead defaulted and Barrett (now in joint ownership of the inn with sons Bobby and Peter) remained saddled with a teetering business.

Barrett rededicated himself to improving the Pine Crest’s facilities. He installed air conditioning in 1977, allowing the inn to stay open during the summer. He reduced the number of rooms in the hotel to 35, increasing the size of several, and added rooms by moving out of Barrett Cottage and converting it into an eight-room headquarters for larger golf groups. When Diamondhead exited the scene, obtaining tee times at the resort eased up and new courses, like the Carolina Golf Club and The Pit, were open for play.

A 1978 change in state liquor law provided a major boost to the Pine Crest’s bottom line. North Carolina had historically been a “brown bag” state; customers brought their own booze to restaurants, and the bartender would mix their drinks. But with passage of the new law, inns and hotels could sell liquor themselves. Originally situated in the Crystal Room at the western end of the inn, the bar was ultimately moved to its current location, just off the lobby. Bill Jones, the flamboyant personality who tended the bar, began attracting regulars to the watering hole known as “Mr. B.’s.”

While Jones’ long blond hair gave him the outward appearance of a California surfer dude, he was actually a high-voltage comedian, flashing his rapid-fire albeit caustic humor. John Marsh wrote that Jones’ “rapier-like wit reminded many of comedian Don Rickles, and it was generally conceded that you weren’t really accepted within the Pinehurst community until you had been insulted by Bill Jones.”

Adding to the atmosphere at Mr. B’s were regular appearances of renowned golf writers Bob Drum, Dick Taylor and Charles Price, all bon vivants. They formed the bar’s notorious “Press Row.” A Pittsburgh Press alum, Drum was Arnold Palmer’s muse and later a feature presence on CBS golf telecasts. Taylor was the longtime editor in chief of Golf World, and Price was the author of several noteworthy books (A Golf Story: Bobby Jones, Augusta National, and the Masters Tournament and Golfer at Large), and at one time or another wrote for every golf publication worth the ink. Bob Barrett often permitted these luminaries, as well as other notable golf figures, to imbibe on the house, or at least at a steep discount. And they made the most of it. 

Just about everyone in Drum’s family worked at the Pine Crest in some capacity. Son Kevin served as busboy or, as he puts it, “the relish tray girl.” Bob Drum himself served as a celebrity bartender from time to time, standing in for Jones. On one such occasion, a customer ordered a “George Dickel.” Drum, a man of substantial girth, broke a sweat rummaging through the bar in feverish efforts to locate the whiskey. Once he was ready to pour, the guest said, “Oh, and mix Coke with it.” The thought of despoiling fine Tennessee whiskey so offended Drum he suggested the man take his business elsewhere.

Barrett considered his generosity toward Press Row money well spent. He’d been in the newspaper trade himself, and the writers did provide the Pine Crest some favorable publicity. Mr. B.’s soon began appearing near the top of ubiquitous listings for “the best 19th holes in golf.”

Jones fit right in, moonlighting a golf column for The Pilot. Despite his bluster, he was a revered part of the scene, and it was a shock when Jones passed away in 1995 at age 40.

Bobby Barrett’s wife, Andy Hofmann, who has worked in reservations for 45 years, got teary-eyed recalling Jones’ passing. “Bill said he wasn’t feeling well at work on November 13th,” she says, “went home, and by the 15th he was in the hospital. He died December 5th.”

Jones’ successor behind the bar, Carl Wood (now the owner of Neville’s in Southern Pines), was at first unaware of the local luminary discount. He recalls two-time U.S. Amateur champion Harvie Ward sitting down at the bar with a friend and ordering a Bombay. “That will be $6, sir,” said Wood. A clearly mystified Harvie turned to his companion and observed, “I think he’s serious!”

The return of PGA Tour events to Pinehurst, beginning in 1973, brought increasing numbers of golf greats into the village. Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Payne Stewart, Bill Rogers, Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite are just a few of the champions who stayed, ate or drank at the Pine Crest. And their appearances led to memorable anecdotes.

Barrett made friends with the great, the not-so-great and the run-of-the-mill alike. Probably his best buddy in PGA circles was Pinehurst pro Lionel Callaway. Whenever there was a March snowstorm, Bob would call on Lionel to give golf lessons in the lobby, a tradition begun by Donald Ross, who likewise provided instructional tips to snowbound guests when he owned the inn.

Callaway’s greatest contribution to the Pine Crest is the celebrated chipping board. No golfer’s Pinehurst pilgrimage is complete without trying to knock a ball into the hole in the wooden board covering the old fireplace. Ben Crenshaw has the record for consecutive chips holed  — 28. Not everyone is as accurate. The fireplace mantel has more dents than a car in a demolition derby. The glass protecting the painting of Donald Ross above the fireplace was smashed so often, it was ultimately bulletproofed.

Both of Barrett’s sons became skilled golfers. Bobby Barrett made the final field of the 1969 U.S. Amateur, competed at medal play that year at Oakmont Country Club, America’s most demanding championship test. Not to be outdone by his elder sibling, Peter Barrett would subsequently make a strong run at winning the Carolinas Open. He did win the 1974 Pinehurst Country Club championship, his 283 total edging Pinehurst mogul-to-be Marty McKenzie by one shot.

Both boys were advancing in their professional lives as well, though on different tracks. Bobby obtained professional degrees at Duke and UNC. He became a CPA catering to individuals and small businesses (including the Pine Crest). His office is located on Community Road just behind the inn. Bobby also obtained a law license but never practiced. “I never lost a case,” he deadpans.

Groomed by Bob to one day succeed him as the inn’s general manager, Peter attended hotel management school. Given his own golf chops, he related well to the younger pros, like Payne Stewart, who became a friend. It was he who created a slogan touting the inn’s no frills persona:  “A third-rate hotel for first rate people.” It supplemented the inn’s other tagline, employed since the Emma Bliss era: “An Inn Like a Home!” The youngest Barrett also sold real estate.

In the course of Bob Barrett’s first 37 years of the inn’s ownership, a slew of PGA Tour events were contested at Pinehurst, but no professional major championships. So it was a thrill for the 84-year-old when the USGA brought the 1999 U.S. Open to Pinehurst. And not surprisingly, both the Pine Crest and a longtime employee became involved in the lore surrounding Payne Stewart’s epic victory. Payne ate dinner at the Pine Crest after an early round of the championship and affixed a hyper-enlarged signature on the wall of the ground floor men’s room. The passage of time has rendered the script undecipherable, but his outsized signature is replicated in the lobby.

Margaret Swindell, a mainstay behind the desk for decades (you’re a newbie until you’ve been employed at the Pine Crest for at least a decade), had a memorable encounter with Stewart prior to his final round. Swindell was working at her then-primary job with Pinehurst Country Club at the Learning Center when Payne approached her counter and requested a pair of scissors. He did not like the feel of his rain jacket and wanted the sleeves trimmed away.

Swindell and a co-worker held the jacket taut while Stewart snipped. She placed the detached sleeves in a drawer, thinking nothing more about the remnants until Stewart won the championship, and a ruckus was made afterward concerning his sleeveless rain jacket. Today, the sleeves and scissors are displayed at the World Golf Hall of Fame in an exhibit titled “Style and Substance: The Life and Legacy of Payne Stewart.”

Bob Barrett’s hope that moving South would lead to a long life came to pass. He died at age 89, two months after the 2005 U.S. Open at Pinehurst. John Dempsey, the longtime president of Sandhills Community College, gave the eulogy.

“Bob lit up every room he ever entered,” said Dempsey. “He was truly the community’s innkeeper.” Dempsey, who first met Barrett while guesting at the Pine Crest many decades ago, credits Bob for persuading him to apply for the position of SCC’s president, a job he would hold for 34 years.

Though already performing the bulk of managerial duties, Peter Barrett formally became the Pine Crest’s general manager following his father’s death. But additional leadership was required, and it came from Bob’s old friend.

Drew Gross was hired in 2011 as the Pine Crest’s resident manager. Gross had been involved in a diverse array of activities since his Diamondhead days: caddying on tour, event planning, cultivating relationships with airlines for National Car Rental, and operating a company that provided retired baseball players moneymaking opportunities. It was Gross who arranged for retired greats like Sparky Lyle, Lew Burdette, Tommy Davis and Warren Spahn to bivouac at the Pine Crest during the old ballplayers’ 1992 Pinehurst golf get-together.

Recognizing the inn’s history constitutes a major part of its appeal, Gross organized a gala centennial celebration of its founding on Nov. 1, 2013. Bagpipers played, dignitaries spoke, Hoagy Carmichael’s son, Randy, performed “Stardust,” and a bronze bust of Donald Ross was unveiled.

Free drinks at Mr. B’s are a thing of the past. Head bartender Annie Ulrich makes sure of that. The Long Island native came to the Pine Crest as a fill-in barkeep during the 2014 Open. Ulrich, whose husband, Gus, is a two-time North Carolina Open champion, loves her job. “Making one person happy is great,” she says. “But at any one time, I can make 20 people happy.” The narrow passage between the piano and the bar is now called “Annie Avenue.” Even as Mr. B’s flourishes, courses like Pine Needles, Mid Pines, Southern Pines, Talamore, Mid South, Tobacco Road, etc., continue to work with the inn booking tee times.

It is true that the Pine Crest celebrates its history — the three barstools at Mr. B’s bearing brass plaques dedicated to the long departed trio of Drum, Price and Taylor; the two Donald Ross sculptures and the painting of  Ross over the fireplace; the many images of long-gone golf heroes; and the tiny monument to the succession of orange cats, Marmalade or Marmaduke depending on the feline’s gender, that patrolled the porch — but this is no museum. Stop by on a weekend night when music is playing, folks are dancing and guests are chipping, all in the snug, yet somehow uncrowded, lobby. It’s vibrant, intimate and fun.

There’s no place quite like it.