(FORTUNE Small Business) – There are a lot of places to play golf. For some, the venue is an upscale country club. For folks like me, it's usually a public course or any number of midlevel resorts that vary only by the number of bad pancake joints surrounding them. And most of the time that's good enough. But one of the great things about this sport is that you can play it in some of the same places the pros do. Golf is unusual in that regard. If you're a recreational basketball player, chances are you'll never hold your weekly game at the Staples Center in L.A. or in Madison Square Garden. I promise you won't ever get to play flag football on Green Bay's Lambeau Field.

However, this year's U.S. Open, arguably the most prestigious of the PGA's four major tournaments, was played on the Black Course at Bethpage State Park on Long Island, which is open to the public. Until about a month before the event, you and your pals could have gotten on for $31 each. Similarly, the Advil Western Open is played in suburban Chicago on the Dubsdread (No. 4) course. Then there's legendary Pebble Beach in Northern California. It's expensive, to be sure (see "Public Access," page 95). But unlike at most pro tour locales, the good folks at Pebble Beach are happy to take your money and let you hack away, regardless of ability.

Some golfers would argue that the pro courses aren't worth the cash or the crowded play (friends have complained of six-hour rounds at Bethpage). But as one of my golfing companions put it, "If I'm only going to play a few rounds a year, I'm going to make them memorable ones." To that end, we decided to take a road trip to Pinehurst Resort, located in the sandhills region of North Carolina.

Pinehurst is one of the oldest golf resorts in the country and a mecca for serious golfers around the world. It offers eight separate 18-hole courses, of which the most notable is No. 2, built back in 1907 by the famous Donald Ross. Ross, a transplanted Scot who apprenticed at St. Andrews in Scotland and is perhaps the top golf-course architect ever, designed some 400 courses in the U.S. But Pinehurst No. 2 is his jewel and his most storied. He never saw some of the others he drew up, working remotely from topographic maps, but he lived off the third fairway at Pinehurst's No. 2 for 22 years, making tweaks and adjustments constantly during that time.

Ross designed the greens at No. 2 to be notoriously unforgiving--they're elevated and steeply domed, so that any less-than-perfect approach shot is almost certain to roll off. Among his challenges was getting turf to grow in the sandy soil of North Carolina, and reportedly he shipped in railcars of fish parts and even bat guano as fertilizer. Along with a lot of other tournaments, No. 2 has hosted the U.S. Open--men's, women's, and seniors'--including the late Payne Stewart's dramatic victory in 1999. That was his last win before dying in a plane crash, and it's commemorated with a statue and a special flag on the 18th hole. Every Sunday, year-round, the pin on the 18th is placed in the spot where Stewart drained his victorious putt.

For all its history, playing at Pinehurst is more reasonable than you'd think. Greens fees can cost up to $310 for old No. 2 during peak months, but rounds become more affordable as part of a package. (Contact the resort for details: 800-487-4653 or pinehurstresort.com.) If you live within a few hours' flight--the main airports are Raleigh-Durham; Charlotte, S.C.; and Fayetteville, N.C.--a three-day package is probably about right. Typically, that lets you play all the golf you can fit in (usually a max of 36 holes per day for fanatical golfers; 18 to 27 holes for folks like me), plus breakfast and dinner, all for about $1,200 during the summer months. Lesser packages, allowing you a single 18-hole round each day, go for as little as $900. Regardless, when you book, make sure the packages include at least one round on the No. 2 course.

Entering Pinehurst itself is a little like going back in time. The old Carolina Hotel, a massive 19th-century building on the main grounds, still stands tall and is perfectly restored. The only hints of modernity are the newer villas adjacent to the Carolina, but even they seem to blend in with the scenery. Everyone in our foursome was anxious to play No. 2, but you should really try one of the resort's other seven courses first, not only to warm up but also to get a feel for the greens. Sure, you can read about them or watch tournaments on TV (the U.S. Open comes back to Pinehurst in 2005), but until you actually putt on the greens, you won't realize how different they are from your local county course--extremely fast, extremely tough to read, and extremely unforgiving.

No. 4, lush and newly renovated by Tom Fazio (who was responsible for the recent changes to Augusta National, home of the Masters), is probably the next most famous course at the resort, but our group played No. 5. It's among the easiest at Pinehurst. The first thing you notice when you show up to play is the service. It is the best and most efficient I've ever experienced. The centralized check-in--for all eight courses--was fast, and the staff polite and efficient. Within minutes we had signed up and were back out on the practice range, where you can hit balls off actual grass--no AstroTurf or plastic mats. Not only were there no delays to our start time, but we actually teed off a few minutes early.

As for No. 5 itself, the course was not, as one of our foursome pointed out, all that memorable: no distinctive holes, but it's well maintained and a perfect warm-up.

No. 2 was a different story. Right before setting out, we gathered at the clubhouse porch, which has a close view of golfers finishing up the 18th hole. There we sat on rocking chairs and watched golfers struggling with the speed and undulations of the Donald Ross greens. If they were really lucky, a normal two-putt would be a three-putt. Sometimes it was more like a five- or six-putt. We were encouraged by the serious lack of PGA-level mastery, and headed out to the tee.

All of the courses at Pinehurst still use caddies, and of course we all got one. (You can rent carts, but they're restricted to paved paths on No. 2, which makes them almost more trouble than they're worth.) We were also surprised by how plain the famous course looks. It's a throwback--no gimmicks, no waterfalls or obstacle-course bunkers. There's very little water to avoid, and it's not even very long. More than anything else, No. 2 is fair. Ross designed it to reward conservative play, so if you hit the ball straight, you'll be fine for the first few shots of each hole. One member of our foursome, FSB photo director Jay Tarrant, describes it as a "100-yard-in course," meaning the approach shots are where No. 2 starts to get interesting. Bold attempts to hit up onto the greens in regulation will often roll long--especially for the average golfer. (The greens are decent-sized, 6,000 square feet or so, but the playable area is usually a fraction of that.) Yet if you stay safe, aiming short and rolling your ball up onto the green from in front, you'll generally be okay.

In 1999, Payne Stewart adopted a conservative strategy to help defeat Phil Mickelson for the Open title. On the 18th, Stewart's drive landed in the rough. But instead of trying to send his approach shot over two traps and onto the green, he laid up short, hitting a wedge onto the green and draining a 15-foot putt for the win.

Once you're on the greens, with their undulating curves, the caddies' assistance becomes indispensable. Many of them have been working at Pinehurst for years--one, Bobby Hill, since 1955--so they know the bend of every blade of grass. On one hole I stared down at a 15-foot putt, and the caddie advised me to aim for a leaf that was about five feet wide of the cup. It seemed like too much correction, but I did what he said. My ball rolled over the leaf, then took a banana-shaped turn and almost dropped in. It actually looked as though I knew what I was doing.

But the thing I found most enjoyable about working with the caddies was their running commentary about what PGA players did on specific holes during the 1999 Open. In one case, I was at the bottom of a green-side trough near the eighth hole (par-5 for mortals but a par-4 for PGA players). The eighth is known as the John Daly hole, because on the final round in 1999, Daly wound up in the spot where I happened to be. He tried to putt up onto the green, but the ball rolled back down on him. He tried to putt up again; the ball rolled back down, and Daly got so enraged that he hit the ball while it was still moving. He eventually carded an 11 for the hole and an 83 for the day, and vowed that he'd never play the U.S. Open again.

The highlight of my round was that I managed to make the shot that Daly couldn't, chipping up fairly close to the hole on my first attempt. (Granted, I wasn't under tournament-level pressure, and the greens were significantly slower for my round.)

Did No. 2 live up to the hype? No argument from me. As one person in our group pointed out, the course is probably best appreciated by playing it more than once. It's not going to take your breath away with spectacular views, like Pebble Beach. Instead its charms are less obvious, like the changing light as the day goes on, or the sight of Donald Ross' house on the third, or the walk up the 18th hole as people sit on the gallery porches, watching you follow in Payne Stewart's footsteps. If you ask the golf experts, they'll tell you that No. 2 is one of the best courses in the world. Agreed.