This story is excerpted with permission from “Pinehurst Stories: A Celebration of Great Golf and Good Times” by Lee Pace.

Ben Crenshaw settles into a chair in the grillroom of Barton Creek Resort and Conference Center in the hills outside Austin, Texas, one bright December morning. Having breakfast at a nearby table is Darrell Royal, the former football coach at the University of Texas.

Waiting in the wings is a photographer who later that morning will photograph Crenshaw on the site of a new golf course that he and partner Bill Coore have built.

Crenshaw takes a bite of banana nut bread, washes it down with a swig of coffee and nods out the window, past Tom Fazio’s golf course to the distance, where his course is growing in toward an April grand opening.

“There’s no question, there’s some of Donald Ross and Pinehurst No. 2 out there,” he says. “Around the greens, we’ll keep it really shaved close, top-dressed and aerated much like the green itself. The approach is the heart of a hole in most cases, and it’s where you can deal with most classes of golfers. That’s where the approach goes wrong in many courses today. There’s no way in. You’ve got to fly the ball right to the pin. If you don’t, you’ve had it. That’s totally different from what the game is intended to be.”

Crenshaw has been talking for some 30 minutes now about what’s right with golf-course architecture and what’s wrong (at least in his opinion).

For example: “Everyone knows that Pinehurst No. 2 is an extremely testing golf course, but it’s there for the average player,” Crenshaw says. “I’ll say this, too. There are examples of architecture today that, no question, test the professional golfer and then they say they can be played by the average golfer, but that’s not necessarily the case. While it’s the aim and objective, and should be, the goal’s not reached every time. Ross never once did not have the average player in mind. The easiest thing in the world to do is build a tough golf course. You go into another dimension when you do and truly make it playable and accommodating for the average player.”

And this: “I think this instance of all or nothing on so many golf courses is totally wrong. First of all, golf was never meant to be a death or glory situation on every hole. It hasn’t been that way for 100 years. A golfer cannot be continually punished if he’s having an off day. He cannot be battered into submission on every hole. That’s why St. Andrews is so great. You can make a lot of bogeys, but it’s hard to make a double. At the same time, you have to play excellent golf to make a birdie. That’s what Pinehurst is all about.”

In case you’ve not noticed, Ben Crenshaw is a devout fan of No. 2 and its architect, Donald Ross. He appreciates the course’s quiet demeanor coupled with its ability to snap like a rattlesnake if you play mindless approach shots or chip with boxing gloves.

“Pinehurst could be, may be, the very best chipping course in the whole world,” he says. “You have the ability and the opportunity to hit any club you wish, from a putter to a five-iron. You’re allowed more choices. Because of the very small subtleties and the crowns on the greens and the little hollows and little-bitty swales that lie off of it, sometimes you get to a shot and it becomes a problem which shot to hit. That is the brilliance behind the making of those little undulations. The maintenance around he greens is important, because if the ground was not allowed to stay close, you lose the effect. The grass should be fairly well mowed around the greens to reveal those undulations. The great golf writer, Bernard Darwin, once said that long grass makes for bad golf courses. I think that’s right.

“The idea of missing a green on so many courses today and hauling out a sand wedge is a mindless proposition. There’s absolutely no choice involved. Therefore it is a dull pattern, quite frankly, very dull. At Pinehurst you’ve got a lot of choices. But it takes time to learn which shots to play. The more you play No. 2, the more you learn about it.”

Crenshaw’s first experiences on No. 2 vouch for that opinion. He came to Pinehurst in November, 1973, for the old World Open with shiny blond hair that covered his ears, a gaudy reputation as the “next, next Jack Nicklaus,” three NCAA championship trophies and a bank account that bulged with more than $30,000.

Ben Crenshaw won the first pro golf tournament he ever played in. His second was at Pinehurst, and he almost won that, too. Battling high winds, Crenshaw fashioned a 64 in the sixth round of the 1973 World Open that is among the best ever registered on No. 2.

Donald Ross and his Sandhills masterpiece have been special to Crenshaw ever since.

Crenshaw won just weeks before at the San Antonio-Texas Open. He’d visited Pinehurst before, to play in the Southern Amateur at the Country Club of North Carolina, but he’d never played No. 2.

Already a student of the game and a strict traditionalist, the 21-year-old from Austin foamed at the mouth to learn more about this gem he’d read and heard so much about.

“I always wanted to play in the North and South, but we had final exams at the University of Texas every year when that was played,” he says. “I played in the Southern Amateur in ‘71 but never got to play No. 2 until the World Open.”

The World Open was Pinehurst’s first foray into professional golf since Richard Tufts discontinued the North and South Open 21 years earlier. And what a return it was. The tournament was a 144-hole marathon that offered the largest purse ever for a golf tournament ($500,000, with $100,000 going to the winner) despite a modicum of controversy.

Jack Nicklaus didn’t enter since he had previously planned to go elk hunting with Tom Weiskopf (known at the time as “the next Jack Nicklaus”), and Lee Trevino said he “couldn’t stay anywhere two weeks in a row, not even home.” Johnny Miller, the reigning U.S. Open champion, entered but withdrew because of illness. All of which left Arnold Palmer to remark, “It seems there’s $100,000 just sitting there that nobody wants,” and the wags in the press room to dub it the End of the World Open and the World Open and Shut.

The money was put up by Diamondhead Corp., which had owned Pinehurst for nearly three years, and it was seen in some quarters as an investment in additional real estate sales, a charge Diamondhead President Bill Maurer vigorously denied to the press. “We tried to do something different and worthwhile for golf, and nobody cared,” he said. “I’ll argue with anybody who says we did it strictly to sell land. We’re selling all the land and condominiums that it’s prudent to sell.”

Bing Crosby, Fred MacMurray, James Garner and Stan Musial were among those who played in the Joe DiMaggio World Celebrity Pro-Am. Then Palmer, Gary Player, Miller Barber, Billy Casper, Bruce Crampton, Lanny Wadkins, Sam Snead and Gene Littler were among those who teed off on Thursday, Nov. 8. So did Tom Watson, who knew how to shoot good scores but hadn’t learned how to win. And so did Crenshaw, who won his tour playing card in October at the Dunes Club at Myrtle Beach, won the first tournament he entered and moved on to Pinehurst. He and Allen Miller settled into the home of Peter Tufts just a wedge shot away on Cherokee Road from the second green at No. 2 for a memorable two weeks.

“I remember all the talk at the time about Ben being the next superstar,” says Tufts. “But it hadn’t gone to his head. He was very polite, just one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. He wasn’t too all-knowing or carried away with himself.”

Crenshaw survived the Sunday cut after 72 holes but found himself 18 shots behind Watson after Wednesday’s fifth round. Watson had just moved into the lead with a nine-under-par 62, tying the course record set in the opening round by Gibby Gilbert, and there were 24 players between Crenshaw and Watson. “I’m out of it,” Crenshaw said.

But Crenshaw was learning more and more about No. 2’s nuances each day‹by sunlight on the course itself and during the evenings by listening to Tufts’ fascinating tales of Donald Ross and how the Hogans and Demarets used to play No. 2. Thursday dawned bright and clear and with a hard wind blowing from the north. The conditions took a toll on most of the field. Watson skied to a 76. Crenshaw’s approach shots were true all day, and he finished with a seven-under 64 (nine birdies and two bogeys). That vaulted him into second place with Barber and Jerry Heard. Given the conditions, that 64 might be the best competitive round ever played on No. 2.

“The 64 by Crenshaw today was better than the 62 I shot yesterday,” Watson said. “The wind today was much worse. It made play much harder and it dried up the greens. Yesterday on some tough holes, like five, six and 11, you could drive right into the green without much worry.”

Crenshaw, obviously, was pleased. “I think this is the best competitive round I’ve ever played,” he said.

Watson shot another 76 in the seventh round on Friday, inching backward to the field, and Crenshaw shot a 73 to move within three of the lead. Entering Saturday’s final 18, Watson was at 499, two-over-par, with Bobby Mitchell and Miller Barber at 501 and Crenshaw at 502. With a victory, Crenshaw would be two-for-two in pro tournaments and would have to make good on his promise to young Rick Tufts to buy the 14-year-old a motorcycle if he won.

Watson and Mitchell both faded early in the final round, leaving the baby-faced Crenshaw to battle the 42-year-old Barber, who remained up by one after the turn. Both birdied the par-five 10th with 15-foot putts and then followed soon with bogeys (Crenshaw on 11 and Barber on 12). Both birdied 14, leaving Crenshaw still one behind as they teed up on the par-five 16th, a hole Crenshaw felt he needed to birdie. He gave his drive a little extra moxie but wound up in jail when he yanked it 70 yards left of the fairway, in the woods between the base of the practice range and the 17th green. He bogeyed, fell two behind and that ended it. Barber collected the $100,000 with a 69-570 total and Crenshaw won $44,175 for his 71-573.

“It wasn’t inexperience,” Crenshaw said. “I know how to win tournaments. And I wasn’t feeling any pressure. I was just trying to hit the ball 500 yards.”

Seventeen years later, Crenshaw has won 15 tournaments, including the 1984 Masters, and $4.5 million dollars. If he’s played better than that 64, he’s not sure when.

“To this day, that’s one of the best rounds of golf I’ve ever played,” he says. “It was really gusty wind, and I squeezed everything possible out of that round. The key was that I was pin-high with my approaches all day. I’ll never forget that round.”

His experiences on No. 2 and respect for the layout endure to the extent that he chose his business partner in part because both share Ross’s classic design philosophy over the penal approach. Bill Coore is a native of Thomasville, N.C., and played Pinehurst often growing up. His work on Pete Dye’s course-building crews took him to Texas in the 1970s. When Crenshaw saw Coore’s design of Rockport Country Club, the match was made.

“I liked what I saw,” Crenshaw says. “I could see the strategic design philosophy. We’ve talked about No. 2 so much. We’ve talked about every hole. And I’ve got to say, courses 1 and 3 are wonderful golf courses, too. They have some marvelous holes, little holes only 320 to 380 yards.

“I just don’t think people understand how good those holes are. They’re filled with interest. They’re shorter, but there’s plenty of character to them. But No. 2 is like the ideal.”