Tobacco Road Golf Club

13th on Golf Digest's 2025-'26 ranking of the Best Golf Courses in North Carolina and labelled "Public" — the highest-placed course on that list that a traveller with no membership and no lodging booking can play, the nine Private entries and three Pinehurst entries above it having been walked past. Mike Strantz laid it out on a worked-out sand quarry; the operator dates it to 1998, Golf Digest to 1999. 18 holes, 6,557 yards, slope 145. Its booking page states "Tee times can be booked as a guest," and its booking engine returned public inventory to an unauthenticated caller under a rate plan named "Public 18 Holes." No green fee is published: the rates page gives a method, "Displayed rates are reflected in real time pricing," not a price. 442 Tobacco Road, Sanford, NC 27332, (919) 775-1940. Closed for aerification June 29-July 7, 2026.