GOLFTOWN JOURNAL

Tufts died in 1902 of heart disease, and the evolution of Pinehurst remained in the hands of his son Leonard and three grandsons. In the late 1960s, the aging of that third generation, the specter of inheritance taxes and the need to spend millions of dollars to upfit what was an aging resort in a time of rapid growth of the golf industry led the Tuftses to sell the resort and club. They found a buyer in a man who grew up 30 miles away and had just collected $160 million for selling a company that had revolutionized the shipping industry.

Malcom McLean grew up on a farm near Maxton, graduated from high school and went directly into business for himself, purchasing a used pickup truck for $120 with savings from his gas-pumping job. He and two of his six siblings — sister Clara and brother Jim — then opened McLean Trucking Company, expanding their fleet and hauling crops from farm to market, and empty tobacco barrels from market back to farm.

Meet Our New Associate

Joshua Eickstaedt, MD

• Dermatologic Surgeon and Fellowship Trained Mohs Surgeon

• Member of the American College of Mohs Surgery, the American Society of Dermatologic Surgery, and The American Academy of Dermatology

• Board Certified Dermatologist

• Mohs Fellowship completed at the Surgical Dermatology Group in Birmingham, AL

• Completed thousands of Mohs cases and complex reconstructions

Dr. Eickstaedt is available August 1, 2023 for your skin cancer treatment.

Ask your provider for a referral.

MOHS MICROGRAPHIC & RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY

Phone 910.295.1761 • Fax 910.295.2937

5 FirstVillage Drive, Ste. 101 • Pinehurst, NC 28374

Office Hours: Monday through Friday 8:00 am - 5:00 pm

Another early job during these mid-1930s formative days of what would become the second largest trucking firm in the country was in Pinehurst. McLean had the account of Pinehurst Inc. to haul guests’ luggage from the train station in Southern Pines to the hotels in Pinehurst.

Frustrated in 1937 by having to wait days at a New Jersey dock to unload his cargo of cotton onto a ship bound for Istanbul, McLean groused “there must be a better way” than loading a ship with cargo piece by piece. The idea fomented for two decades until he acted on his instincts in 1956 — that of designing cargo containers that could be easily separated from the truck bed and then neatly stacked on a ship designed to haul hundreds of containers at a time. He bought a fleet of old tankers, converted them to cargo ships and was off on his next venture, one that would revolutionize the shipping industry.

The eventual sale of Sea-Land Service Inc. to R.J. Reynolds in 1969 made the McLeans multi-millionaires. One of McLean’s sidelines was the resort and residential development concern that he named the Diamondhead Corporation, and that had projects underway in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. He remembered Pinehurst fondly from his luggage hauling days and eventually bought the resort from the Tuftses on Dec. 31, 1970, for the price of $9.2 million.

Diamondhead expanded the golf offering, building course No. 6 in the mid-1970s, creating the new World Golf Hall of Fame, and getting Pinehurst No. 2 back on the PGA Tour from 197382. It also embarked on an aggressive home-building expansion, with one ill-conceived and hideous idea to build condominiums within the No. 2 course that was thankfully thwarted by a lawsuit. In time, the company lost the resort to bankruptcy proceedings, opening the door for Dedman to step in in 1984.

Dedman was a self-made billionaire who worked his way from the farmland of Arkansas to law school and on to creating a business that owned and operated country, athletic and city clubs around the world. He was working as in-house counsel for Dallas oilman H.L. Hunt in the mid-1950s when he perceived an opportunity to spread the country club concept beyond the 1 percent of elite citizens. He saw hundreds of thousands of potential homebuyers and members amid the masses of people now working, earning a good living and raising families in the post-war ’50s.

Dedman soon learned of the inefficiencies inherent in the operation of clubs, most of which are governed by committees of members. They are experts in their chosen fields — doctoring or lawyering, for example — but limited in their expertise of club business. One of his favorite sayings was, “For God so loved the world that he didn’t send a committee to save it.” He brought systems and procedures to running his clubs. By bundling its buying power across dozens of clubs, his company found significant savings in purchases from fertilizer for golf courses to food for dining rooms.

Club Corporation of America eventually would own and operate more than 200 clubs total and have assets of more than $1.6 billion. Dedman died in 2002, and his son, Robert Jr., took over. The Dedman family sold its interests in what had become ClubCorp in 2006 but kept Pinehurst.

“Where would this place be if not for Robert Dedman?” Jim Hyler mused during his 2010-11 tenure as president of the USGA. “He might have been the one man in golf at the time who could pull it off. He literally saved the place.”

“The Dedmans are the ‘anti-Wall Street,’” added Mike Davis, the USGA’s executive director from 2011-21. “They don’t think about the next quarter. They think long term. You cannot put a value on that. We simply don’t have another relationship like the one we have with Pinehurst. They genuinely care about the game of golf, preserving and protecting the game.”

Tufts to McLean to Dedman.

Interesting to ponder over the next year as the new Golf House Pinehurst opens and Pinehurst No. 2 plays host to its fourth men’s national championship. PS

Chapel Hill based writer Lee Pace has written extensively about Pinehurst since the late 1980s and has authored a half dozen books on Sandhills area golf. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @leepacetweet.

FINE ITALIAN DINING | HOUSE-MADE PASTAS AND BREADS MADE DAILY

Born amid the storied walls of the historic Magnolia Inn in the heart of Pinehurst Village, Villaggio Ristorante promises an exquisite fine dining experience second to none. Live music every weekend on the patio in weather-permitting months. For diners only.

Reservations required | reservations@villaggioristorante.net

Washington as Count Dracula

Tryon Place, 1791

Washington comes in. He is wearing black velvet with gold buckles at the knee and foot, a sword with finely wrought steel hilt, in scabbard of white leather, a cocked hat with a cockade and a feather, also black. His powdered hair is gathered in a black silk bag. His hands in gloves of yellow clasp extended hands. Above his head medallions of King and Queen flicker beneath dripping wicks, the little flames in circles on the chandeliers surrounded by bits of glass, like worlds in the sky, the telescopes of astronomers. The crystals like Newton’s prisms split the flames, blue, yellow, red, violet.

As in the “The Masque of the Red Death” the dance goes on in rooms, where colors glint from rubies in women’s ears. He bows deeply, his corneas refract ideas: science dances from tiaras, bracelets, rings. The battle of Alamance was lost. The Regulators’ defeat had finished the rebellion, or so Tryon thought.

Washington’s eyes grow red. He leads the minuet.

— Paul Baker Newman