Kelly Miller had no idea what he was getting into when he married one of Peggy Kirk Bell’s daughters and moved to Southern Pines in 1982.
“The Bell family and Pine Needles kept me in the game of golf,” Miller says. “I wanted to get into business of some kind, I wasn’t sure what.”
Miller grew up in Indiana and attended the University of Alabama to play golf, and there he met Peggy Ann Bell, the middle child of Peggy and Warren “Bullet” Bell, the owners since 1953 of the Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club that featured a 1928 Ross course. Since the Bells’ oldest daughter, Bonnie, was traveling the country with her husband, Pat McGowan, on the PGA Tour, and son Kirk was just entering college, it fell to Kelly and Peggy Ann to follow in the footsteps of Peggy and Bullet in running the golf course and lodge. The timing was made further prescient by the fact that Bullet was diagnosed with cancer in early 1984 that passed away that May.
“I was an early riser—I’d get here at six in the morning and then Peggy Ann took the night shift,” Miller says. “She would work from three to 11 or whatever it took. We tried to do the same things Peg and Bullet had done for so many years—mingle with the guests, make sure they felt welcome and had a great experience.”
Kelly eventually became general manager and along with his mother-in-law led the family and resort to taking their spot in the Sandhills and Pinehurst-area explosion of the 1990s. In 1991, Pine Needles was awarded the U.S. Women’s Open for 1996 (and it would further host the event in 2001 and 2007 with a fourth coming in 2022). The family partnered with three individuals in buying the Mid Pines Inn & Golf Club across Midland Road in 1994. Miller struck a deal in 2012 with an eager and creative golf course construction worker and aspiring architect named Kyle Franz to renovate the 1921 Mid Pines course, and that project was roundly applauded by the golf world in 2013, leading Franz to supervise similar work at Pine Needles over the following years.
“It’s been quite a ride,” Miller says. “I’ve been here 40 years now, so it’s pretty amazing. We’ve been hosting these championships now for 25 years. Time goes quickly. But it really did start with the 1991 and ’92 Tour Championships at Pinehurst No. 2. That spawned the ’94 Senior Open, the ’99 U.S. Open and everything that’s come since. It’s hard to imagine.