You know the feeling. You spend forty-five minutes on the CCNC range flushing driver after driver, dialed in, confident, and then you get to the first tee on Dogwood and something is off. The ball starts left of where it did on the range. The trajectory feels wrong. You blame the nerves, the cold start, the extra cup of coffee.
For years, it may not have been you.
Kris Spence, the golf course architect CCNC brought back this summer to rebuild its practice facility, found something specific when he walked the old range: the tee wasn't aimed down the center of the property, and the deck sloped upward from back to front. That upward slope changes how a ball comes off the clubface, especially with a driver. Spence put it plainly when the project was announced, saying the plan was to tilt the tee about one percent back to front and lower the trajectory of the ball as it leaves, particularly off the driver. In other words, the surface you were practicing on was quietly feeding you different physics than the surface you'd actually play.
That is the real story behind the eight-to-ten-week closure that started June 8. It wasn't a cosmetic refresh. It was a correction.
What Was Actually Wrong
CCNC's practice facility has been one of the most heavily used amenities at the club, and the renovation was flagged as a priority in the club's own strategic plan well before construction crews showed up. The problems Spence identified were structural, not aesthetic. Beyond the misaligned tee and the back-to-front slope, the range operated on a two-level deck that limited hitting stations and created uneven conditions from one spot to the next. If you'd ever noticed your buddy three stations down seemed to be hitting from a slightly different pitch than you, that wasn't in your head either.
The $2 million project, led by Spence and his lead associate Jim Harbin, replaces that two-tier setup with a single 125,000-square-foot deck, about 30 percent more hitting area than before, adding at least eight new stations. CCNC's COO and general manager, Jim Sutton, framed the investment as a direct response to how much time members were spending there and the trend he expects to continue.
The Detail Most Ranges Skip: Turf That Matches the Course
Here's the part that separates this project from a typical range facelift. Forty thousand square feet of the new tee is planted in zoysia, matched specifically to the Dogwood Course fairways. The rest is Bermuda, matched to Cardinal. That means the ball is now sitting on the same grass, with the same lie characteristics, that you'll actually play from later that afternoon.
Most private clubs treat the range as its own separate turf question, whatever holds up to volume and mows well. CCNC's version treats it as a rehearsal space for the actual round, which is a different design philosophy entirely. It's the difference between hitting balls off a mat and hitting balls off the fairway you're going to play.
What's New, at a Glance
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Practice deck | Two-level layout, uneven pitch | Single 125,000 sq ft deck, roughly 30% more hitting area |
| Tee alignment | Off-center, sloped upward back to front | Corrected orientation with a controlled 1% back-to-front tilt |
| Turf | Standard range grass | 40,000 sq ft zoysia matching Dogwood; remainder Bermuda matching Cardinal |
| Target greens | Original practice greens | Four new greens at 3,000 to 3,500 sq ft, plus two dedicated wedge greens under 1,000 sq ft |
| Short-game area | Original footprint | Expanded by roughly 80% |
| Safety netting | Original height | Raised at key points around the range |
| Winter play | Grass tee only | Synthetic mats added at both ends |
The short-game expansion is worth sitting with for a second. An 80 percent increase in that area, paired with bunkers built to mirror what you'll actually face on the course, means the chipping and pitching work you put in this fall should translate more directly to scorecard results than the old layout allowed.
Where Everyone Went in the Meantime
While the range sat closed, CCNC members were given access to practice facilities at Knollwood Fairways in Southern Pines. If you found yourself making that short drive more than once this summer, you weren't alone, and it's worth remembering that option exists any time the home range needs work in the future.
The Timing, If You Haven't Been Back Yet
Construction started June 8. The club's own estimate was eight to ten weeks, which puts a realistic reopening window somewhere between the first week of August and right about now, mid-August. If you haven't swung by to check, this is the point where a quick call to the golf shop tells you whether the new tee is grassed in and open or still in its final stretch.
Why This Isn't Just About Better Ball Flight
CCNC's willingness to spend on infrastructure that most members will never think twice about, drainage, agronomy, tee orientation, is consistent with how the club has handled its two courses generally. Spence is the same architect who oversaw the 2016 renovation of Dogwood, the course that went on to host the 2021 U.S. Junior Amateur, won by Nick Dunlap. That same attention to getting the underlying conditions right, rather than chasing a dramatic redesign, is what he described applying to the range project too. His stated focus was safety and functionality first, with a specific design flourish reserved only for the short-game area.
That matters because CCNC isn't finished hosting big golf. The club is already scheduled to bring in the 2030 U.S. Senior Amateur and the 2037 U.S. Women's Amateur. A club planning that far out treats its practice facilities the same way it treats its championship courses, as infrastructure that has to hold up under real scrutiny, not just look good in a brochure.
What This Means If You Golf Here
If your range sessions never quite matched what happened once you got to the tee box, you now have a specific, documented reason why. The tee was mis-angled and mis-sloped in ways that changed how the ball behaved leaving the clubface. That's fixed. The turf under your feet now matches the course you're walking onto next. That's new. And the short-game work you put in has a larger, more course-realistic space to happen in.
None of that guarantees a lower handicap. But it does mean the hour you spend out there this fall should tell you more truth about your game than the hour you spent there in May.
If you're a CCNC member sizing up whether it's time to sell, buy your next home inside the gates, or just want a read on how the community's recent capital investments are shaping resale interest, I'd love to talk it through with you. I spend a lot of time inside CCNC and Pinehurst's other country club communities, and I'm always glad to share what I'm seeing on the ground.
Kelly Ward knows Moore County's country-club and golf communities from the inside. Let's Connect whenever you're ready to talk about what's happening in your neighborhood, on or off the course.
