Be sure to play Pine Needles and its challenging greens on your next Pinehurst golf vacation.

While much of the spotlight during this week's U.S. Women's Open will be focused on 12-year-old Alexis Thompson, the youngest person to ever qualify for the event, the Donald Ross-designed Pine Needles golf course venue deserves top billing, too, and should be on the agenda of your next Pinehurst golf vacation.

Of course, if it's your first Pinehurst golf vacation, the resort's No.2 and No.8 courses will probably be your priority, but if that's where all of your Pinehurst play begins and ends, you'll be missing out on some very good golf and a plenty of fun. In fact, on Golf Odyssey's recent review of the area, we devoted all our research to venues beyond the Pinehurst Resort and our experience was thoroughly enjoyable.

Pine Needles was the standout, partially due to a renovation by architect John Fought. A short while ago, using old blueprints and aerial photographs, Fought returned nearby Pine Needles' greens and bunkers to their original configurations. Now, there are more contours to the greens and pronounced mounding at the edges of the sand traps. He added length to the course as well; now Pine Needles can play a bit more than 7,000 yards.

Since Pine Needles only real flaw was its weak par fives, the most notable change was the conversion of the par five 14th hole into a 454-yard par four, and the formerly par-four 15th to a 530-yard par five.

Thanks to Donald Ross' original, wide fairways, you can belt a driver with confidence on many holes such as these. Trees, wiregrass, bunkers and the restored greens are what present the real obstacles to par. The greens, in particular, are full of subtle breaks and demand a confident stroke, even on short putts. It will be interesting to see (ESPN today from 2-6pm; Saturday and Sunday on NBC from 3-6pm) how they're handled by the U.S. Women's Open participants, no matter what their age.

One thing's for certain: they'll provide you will plenty of highlights on your next Pinehurst golf vacation.

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