How golf living differs from community to community.
Author
Blake Altman · Realtor, Moore County resident
Reading time
6 min read
Last updated
Updated September 12, 2026
Category
Golf communities
Editorial status: Facts requiring local verification are clearly marked and should not be used as market, school, tax, or travel-time advice.
How golf living differs from community to community.
What makes this golf country
Pinehurst Resort operates eleven 18-hole courses plus The Cradle short course and the Thistle Dhu putting green. Course No. 2 hosted U.S. Opens in 1999, 2005, 2014 and 2024, and the USGA named Pinehurst an anchor site with Opens scheduled for 2029, 2035, 2041 and 2047. No. 10, a Tom Doak design, opened in the Pinehurst Sandmines area. Ten minutes away, Southern Pines holds three Donald Ross courses: Pine Needles, the first course in the country to host four U.S. Women's Opens, Mid Pines beside it, and Southern Pines Golf Club, one of Ross's earliest works, opened in 1906. Talamore adds a well-known daily-fee option.
Access structures differ more than the courses do
This is the part buyers underestimate. Pinehurst Resort play, Pinehurst Country Club membership categories, and separate private clubs — Country Club of North Carolina, Forest Creek, Pinewild, National Golf Club — are different things with different costs, waitlists, and guest rules. Seven Lakes and Foxfire have their own community courses. Southern Pines' Ross courses are generally easier to arrange play at without a membership. Sort out how you intend to play, how often, and with whom before you choose a neighborhood, because the neighborhood decision often locks the golf decision.
Living on a course
Golf frontage carries a premium and some trade-offs worth naming: early morning maintenance, cart and player traffic, errant balls on certain holes, and HOA or club rules about landscaping and fencing along the corridor. Villas and townhomes near the courses are the county's easiest low-maintenance living, which is why they suit seasonal owners. Ask which holes a lot backs to, ask about netting or screening, and visit at 7 a.m. on a Saturday before you decide.
What to verify
Confirm current membership categories, initiation and dues, waitlist status, and whether property ownership carries any membership obligation or right — these change and are not reliably described in listings. Confirm what any HOA covers versus what the club charges. And if you plan to play the resort courses as a resident, ask about resident play policies and tee-time access during championship weeks, when village traffic and course availability both change.
Blake Altman has lived in Moore County for seven years and works with buyers relocating from across the country. Broker with Keller Williams Pinehurst, NC License #326008.
