This Week's Golf Real Estate Moves: April 28, 2026

The PGA Tour returns to the Blue Monster this week for the Cadillac Championship at Trump National Doral, the first time the Tour has held a signature event on the iconic Miami course since the WGC departed for Mexico City in 2016. While the best players in the world settle into Doral's 800-acre resort, we're featuring three golf estates that span from the Sandhills of North Carolina to the lakes of South Florida to the Lowcountry coast of South Carolina. The first is a 1919 Pinehurst landmark that gave America miniature golf and still has the original holes on its front lawn. The second is a modernized waterfront estate inside the gates of Doral Estates with lake and golf course views of Trump National's championship layout. And the third sits directly on the 11th hole of Pete Dye's Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, one of the most demanding and visually stunning courses ever built. Three properties, three completely different expressions of what it means to live where golf is the organizing principle of the neighborhood. Make sure you're subscribed to Best Clubhouse to keep in the loop on the best in luxury golf real estate each week.

12 E Barrett Road, Pinehurst, NC 28374 ("Thistle Dhu") — $3,250,000 USD

In 1919, an English-born shipping magnate named James Wells Barber finished building his second Pinehurst estate and turned to his wife with two words that would name the property, launch an American pastime, and eventually become a footnote in every history of the game: "This'll do."

The estate was christened Thistle Dhu, and on its grounds, Barber and course designer Edward H. Wiswell built the first 18-hole miniature golf course in the United States. Not a carnival attraction with windmills and clown faces. A legitimate putting course with named holes like "Sandy Hook" and "Bunker Hill," some requiring a niblick off the tee, difficult enough that one golfer reportedly failed a single hole twenty-two times in a tournament. Glenna Collett, one of the greatest players of her era, called it "a lovely course." Popular Science Monthly ran a feature on the property in August 1919. A few of the original holes still survive on the front lawn today.

More than a century later, Thistle Dhu is for sale at $3,250,000 and it remains one of the most storied private residences in American golf. The estate spans 10,405 square feet across seven bedrooms and ten bathrooms on 1.19 acres in Olde Town Pinehurst, a golf cart ride from Pinehurst Village and the Pinehurst Resort and Spa. The home was extensively renovated beginning in 2015, a project that preserved historical finishes while modernizing the interior. The result is a house that reads both ways: original heart pine floors, copper-and-glass solarium ceiling, and crown molding from 1919 share space with a home theater, a gym, a sauna, a game room, and a speakeasy. Six suites, each with private baths. The front entrance opens into a dramatic anteroom with a broken tile floor, a relic of the original construction. The grounds are manicured but retain the mature plantings and informal scale of an early-twentieth-century Sandhills estate.

For the golfer, Pinehurst needs no introduction. The resort operates nine courses, headlined by Pinehurst No. 2, which hosted the 2024 U.S. Open and U.S. Women's Open simultaneously and has been the site of more single golf championships than any course in America. The resort's own putting course, opened in 2012, was named "Thistle Dhu" in tribute to the Barber estate. A transferable Pinehurst Country Club membership is available with the purchase, and the Village itself offers the kind of walkable, golf-centric small-town life that most planned communities try and fail to replicate. For anyone who follows our coverage of America's most storied clubhouses, Pinehurst's Donald Ross-designed Clubhouse is worth the trip alone. Thistle Dhu is not just a property. It is a piece of the origin story. Listed by The Bryant Group Real Estate.

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4844 NW 94th Doral Pl, Doral, FL 33178 (Doral Estates) — $4,600,000 USD

The PGA Tour hasn't held a signature event at Doral since the WGC-Cadillac Championship left for Mexico City after the 2016 season. This week it comes back. And inside the gates of Doral Estates, the only residential community with direct golf cart access to Trump National Doral's championship courses, one of the neighborhood's most substantial homes is on the market. 4844 NW 94th Doral Pl is a waterfront estate spanning approximately 7,000 square feet on a quarter-acre lot with lake frontage and direct views of Trump National's golf courses from multiple rooms. Built in 1980 and comprehensively remodeled in 2014, the home features five bedrooms and five-and-a-half bathrooms across a layout designed for scale entertaining. The main dining room seats fifteen. The kitchen is outfitted with custom cabinetry, Sub-Zero wine storage, Thermador cooking appliances, and a Miele coffee system. Impact windows run throughout the house, with floor-to-ceiling glass in the foyer and family room framing uninterrupted views of the lake and fairways behind the property.

For the golfer, Trump National Doral is one of the most recognized resort golf properties in the country. The Blue Monster, originally designed by Dick Wilson and Robert von Hagge and later renovated by Gil Hanse, has hosted the Doral Open (1962-2006), the WGC-Cadillac Championship (2007-2016), and multiple LIV Golf events. The PGA Tour's return this week marks a new chapter for the course that launched professional tournament golf in South Florida more than sixty years ago. The resort operates four championship courses in total, along with 643 hotel accommodations, a 48,000-square-foot spa, and the Rick Smith Golf Performance Center. Doral Estates residents enjoy gated, 24-hour security and the rare ability to drive a golf cart from their driveway to the first tee. Trump National Doral has also been selected to host the 2026 G20 Miami summit. For readers tracking our clubhouse coverage, Doral's members-only clubhouse anchors the resort with Champions Bar & Grill, BLT Prime, and one of the largest golf shops in the country. Listed by Elite International Realty.

23 Ocean Course, Kiawah Island, SC 29455 — $8,000,000 USD

There are 2,500 acres on Kiawah Island, ten miles of Atlantic beach, and five championship golf courses. But only a handful of homesites sit directly on Pete Dye's Ocean Course, and when one comes available, it tends to define the market. 23 Ocean Course is positioned along the 11th hole of the layout that hosted the 1991 Ryder Cup, the 2012 PGA Championship, and the 2021 PGA Championship, widely regarded as one of the most visually dramatic and strategically demanding courses in the world. The property includes an in-deck pool and outdoor living areas oriented toward the course, with the kind of privacy and setback that makes a difference when thousands of spectators walk these fairways during major championships. Every tee box on the Ocean Course offers a view of the Atlantic, and from this property, the Lowcountry marsh, dune grass, and ocean horizon all frame the setting.

For the golfer, Kiawah Island is a five-course destination anchored by the Ocean Course and supported by Osprey Point, Turtle Point, Cougar Point, and Oak Point. The Kiawah Island Club operates two additional private courses, Cassique and the River Course, for members seeking a more intimate experience. The Sanctuary Hotel is a five-star oceanfront property with dining and spa facilities. Membership in the Kiawah Island Club is available to homeowners and includes access to the Beach Club, Sasanqua Spa, fitness, dining, and a social calendar that functions as the connective tissue of island life. Kiawah's architectural standards enforce a cedar shake, metal roof, and copper-detail aesthetic that gives the island a cohesive visual identity unlike any other resort community in the Southeast. For those following our weekly clubhouse coverage, the Ocean Course Clubhouse sits at the eastern tip of the island overlooking the Atlantic, a building whose scale and setting rival anything on the PGA Tour circuit. Listed by Kiawah Island Real Estate.

From the Sandhills to the Blue Monster to the Ocean Course

This week's three listings span from the pine-lined streets of Olde Town Pinehurst to the lakefront fairways of Trump National Doral to the windswept dunes of Kiawah's Ocean Course, and they represent three completely different propositions for the golfer looking to live inside the game. Thistle Dhu at 12 E Barrett Road is a piece of American golf history you can sleep in, a 1919 estate where miniature golf was born and Pinehurst No. 2 is a golf cart ride away. 4844 NW 94th Doral Pl puts you inside the gates of Doral Estates with direct access to the Blue Monster in the same week the PGA Tour returns to the course that hosted professional tournament golf in Miami for more than half a century. And 23 Ocean Course on Kiawah Island delivers what may be the most coveted address in Lowcountry golf: a home on Pete Dye's masterpiece, where three major championships have already been played and more are coming. If you missed last week's Golf Real Estate Moves featuring Kapalua on Maui, Spanish Peaks in Big Sky, and Admirals Cove in Jupiter, it's well worth a read. And for a deeper look at the buildings behind the game, our recent TPC Sawgrass Clubhouse tour and Merion Golf Club each tell a story about what makes a clubhouse endure. Tune in next week for more in luxury golf real estate, and contact your realtor to turn one of these dream golf course homes into your reality.

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