Ride a golf cart, not horses anymore, at Longleaf Golf & Country Club in Southern Pines, North Carolina

SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. -- Longleaf Golf & Country Club is one of those golf courses everybody drives by heading to the more heralded resort courses of the Sandhills.

The 6,600-yard, par-71 Longleaf sometimes gets lost in the shuffle sandwiched between the Mid Pines Golf Club/Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club complex and Pinehurst Resort & Country Club. The holes along Midland Road look a bit pedestrian, but hidden inside the white fences at Longleaf is a dynamite back nine.

In 1988, architect Dan Maples carefully preserved some original features on the site of one of the Village of Pinehurst's former horse training estates while designing Longleaf across 170 acres. He kept some white fences, rail posts and hedgerows as a tribute to the old Starland Farms and to spice up several holes on the flatter front nine.

Starting at no. 10, Longleaf gets an adrenaline boost from some great rolling terrain. The back-to-back par 3s -- the tough 200-yard 12th hole and the downhill 181-yard 13th hole -- are nice. The 517-yard 14th hole, a U-shaped par 5, bends around a thick grove of trees, requiring three shots to reach the green. The third par 3 on the back nine highlights the round. It's all carry over the only water hazard on the golf course at the 178-yard 15th hole.

Local golfer Matt Scott considers Longleaf Golf & Country Club a great value.

"I love that it's playable," he said. "You don't lose too many balls.