Playing Tobacco Road Golf Club during its grand-opening round with architect Mike Strantz more than a decade ago now, I hit what I thought was a horrible drive on No. 15, striking it some 50 yards off-line to the right. As I cussed my way off the tee, Strantz interrupted my tirade with a "that's perfect" utterance.
I turned and laughed, and spewed yet another profanity toward the Carolina Blue sky.
Unsuspecting to me, the hole turned out to be a split fairway, parted by one of a number of sandy graves placed throughout the course on land that was once a productive sand quarry used to build roads and baseball fields across North Carolina.
My golf ball was indeed in the short grass. I knew it well before that hole on a golf layout that will literally "scare you straight," but it was a poignant moment and one where I realized what Strantz created in 1998 was, to use a baseball term, "out of left field."
There is some debate as to just how many blind shots golfers face at Tobacco Road. My tally is 10 of the 18 approach shots, and that doesn't count the two tobacco smokestacks used as aiming tools on your drives at Nos. 16 and 18. There are also five bells to ring for the "all clear" sign and several 10-foot-high flags as players stretch their necks at times to see where to aim.
And did I mention the 33 wooden steps you must descend to a vast sand pit if you try to go for the green (now 40 feet above you) in two on the par-5 11th hole - and come up short?
Tobacco Road is a crew-cut haircut by today's distance standards, the par-71 course measuring just 6,532 yards from the "Ripper" tees, named after a metal tool used back in the day to till and break up hard soil for cultivating tobacco. But with a 150 Slope rating from the tips, it's beyond a James Bond thriller.
Tobacco Road quickly overcame its original "goofy golf" label and has thrived to the tune of 35,000 rounds a year as the fun alternative to a round of traditional golf in the Pinehurst area, one of the world's golfing Meccas that's located about 25 miles south of the Strantz layout.
Tobacco Road has been so successful in holding golfers' interest it now demands $134 for a weekend round from March 19 to May 6 as its reputation among "Snowbirds" has grown quicker than a tobacco plant in Carolina's August heat.
"We were just excited as it progressed because we could see what Mike (Strantz) had seen all along," said Mark Stewart, who co-owns the upscale public course with brother-in-law Tony Woodell. "It was visually stimulating and we figured it would attract interest and play. And we wanted a course that would be marketable.
"Most golfers feel like they can design a golf course and . . . think it is easy, but you have to be able to sell it to the public. It was so unique and dramatic we knew it would photograph well. What do they say; a picture is worth a thousand words."
Much of the successful marketing of Tobacco Road has been orchestrated by director of golf Joe Gay, a former N.C. State University standout golfer who has been at the Sanford course since Day One.
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