After closing for most of the summer, Pinehurst No. 4 is back with all new greens

A rough winter in North Carolina produced issues with the greens on Pinehurst Resort's No. 4 course that forced a truly painful decision for those associated with the famous complex — closing the entire course for much of the summer.

Originally a Donald Ross design that opened in 1919, the layout for No. 4 was renovated extensively over the years, most recently in 2018 by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner. It has since been used as one of the courses during the 2019 U.S. Amateur and in the top-tier North & South Amateur. No. 4 is ranked third on Golfweek’s Best ranking of top public-access courses in North Carolina, trailing only the No. 2 and new No. 10 courses. The No. 4 course ranks 97th on the list of top modern courses in the United States, and it ties for 29th on the ranking of top resort courses in the United States.

The course closed in mid-May so that the process could begin and reopened for play last week.

The Ultradwarf Bermuda greens have been in rough shape, but resort operators had been told they should recover as spring warmed up the courses and promoted the growth of the grass. That didn't happen as hoped, so the resort made the difficult decision to close the course instead of sending out golfers to play with less-than-stellar conditions.

Matt Barksdale, the vice president of golf at Pinehurst Resort, said the process was an arduous one.

"To be able to execute stripping 18 greens, then laying 18 greens is not necessarily an easy task," he said. "It's not just ripping up the grass and putting grass back down. We ended up going down to the base layer. We updated all the drainage on all the greens. We put a gravel layer and a sand layer, plus the mix layer.

"And then, on top of that, made sure that Gil signed off on all of the contours for the greens."

Pinehurst Resort currently is home to 10 full-sized layouts, including the famed No. 2 that has hosted several U.S. Opens in recent decades and the new No. 10 designed by Tom Doak that opened last year. It was announced that architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw will build the new No. 11 course for the resort.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Pinehurst No. 4 golf course is back with all new greens