Those images historically capture the pulse of Pinehurst, a golf-centric enclave built in the late 1890s by Boston soda baron James Walker Tufts, who had the good fortune — or intuition — of running into Donald Ross at Oakley Country Club in Watertown, Mass., the young Scottish pro’s first US design. Tufts convinced Ross, in 1901, to come work in Pinehurst, where the resort offered some 6,000 acres and was just embracing a new outdoor pursuit called golf.

The rest, as they say, is history. Ross’s imprint is felt throughout Pinehurst, nowhere stronger than at the resort’s No. 2 course, which remains his signature design among the more than 400 he is credited with worldwide. Up until his death in 1948, Ross tinkered frequently with No. 2, living for years in a tidy house just off the third fairway. The pictures of the course when it switched its greens from sand to bermuda grass in the mid-1930s are from No. 2’s golden age, when Ross had his gem looking and playing exactly as he always had intended.

Over time, as owners, expectations, and golf technology changed, that distinctive look became harder to recognize. But now, thanks to those Tufts Archives pictures and the impressive restoration work of Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore, Pinehurst No. 2 once again resembles the rough, rustic supercourse that has been luring tourists to the Sandhills for more than a century.

It simply needed someone who was willing to scrape away the surface.

“This course was always here, it was just in a different form,’’ Crenshaw said. “We tried our best to uncover it.’’

Closed five months while the bulk of the work was being completed, No. 2 reopened last month to rave reviews, as much for its daring makeover as anything else. In order to look ahead — No. 2 will host the 2014 US Open and US Women’s Open in consecutive weeks — Crenshaw, Coore, and Pinehurst officials needed to look back, and convince themselves that returning the course to its roots was the right decision.

It wasn’t easy.

“A lot of us view No. 2 as Donald Ross’s masterpiece, and it’s like messing with the Mona Lisa,’’ said Bob Dedman Jr., who owns the resort (the Tufts family ran Pinehurst until 1970). “There were trepidations initially about what should be done, and should we undertake this? We were all nervous.’’

Crenshaw and Coore — whose work includes the well-received Old Sandwich Golf Club in Plymouth, Mass., which opened in 2004 — sought to bring back the aesthetics of No. 2 from the mid-1930s, when the course featured sandy waste areas and fairway/rough lines that weren’t nearly as defined.

Using images from the Tufts Archives, which also included in-depth aerial photographs, they were able to see and understand Ross’s vision. Implementing it, however, would be radical and risky. Rarely has a championship venue undergone such a drastic visual alteration.

A year ago, No. 2 had more than 1,150 irrigation sprinklers, a standard number for a resort course whose clientele expects rich, lush tees, fairways, and greens, likely surrounded by thicker, greener rough. Crenshaw and Coore, using original course maps and irrigation charts, reduced the number of usable sprinkler heads to 450, all down the center of each hole, which means that more than half the area that used to receive water now won’t.

That’s by design, because there isn’t as much grass on the course. More than 30 acres of sod have been stripped, replaced by sand, pine needles, and hardpan — the elements found here — with 100,000 new wiregrass plants sprinkled throughout the course.

There is no more rough on No. 2, with all of the grass being mowed at fairway height. The fairways have been widened considerably and now play at their original width, but it’s pretty simple: Any ball that isn’t in the fairway can be found either in a defined bunker (there are still plenty of those) or in a waste area. Over time, without as much water, expect the color to trend toward a more natural brown.

Visually, it might not be the easiest sell to golfers accustomed to clear definition and meticulous conditioning. But No. 2 was never meant to play that way.

“We understand not everybody’s going to embrace it, and that’s fine,’’ Crenshaw said. “But I know one thing. The majority of people who have ever been to Pinehurst, or played Donald Ross golf courses, really like his work. Because it’s timeless.’’

The restoration has left the treacherous turtleback green complexes — No. 2’s calling card — largely untouched, at least in shape and size. Two greens (Nos. 15 and 17) were slightly altered to resemble their original state, bringing more hole locations into play. All of the putting surfaces were lowered and resodded, however, using a more Poa annua-resistant bentgrass.

By bringing the greens down less than 2 inches, and building greenside bunkers up to their initial heights, the intimidating look of No. 2’s upside-down-saucer putting surfaces sitting high on a platter, surrounded by run-off chipping areas, has been softened. The greens are also currently running slower than Pinehurst officials would like, leaving the course playing, dare we say, easier than before. It’s still a resort course, after all, one that happens to occasionally host national championships.

The project was done with the assistance and input of — but not at the request of — the US Golf Association, which brought the US Open to No. 2 in 1999 and 2005, and the US Amateur in 2008, and will for the first time conduct the men’s and women’s Opens at the same site in back-to-back weeks three years from now.

“The USGA has been incredibly kind and generous to us. They’ve been great partners,’’ Dedman said. “We’re excited to have them back. I think this course will show incredibly well.’’

Eight new tee boxes have been built, which can add nearly 300 yards to the championship tee yardage. But that won’t be the course story line in 2014. The layout that Payne Stewart conquered in 1999, and Michael Campbell survived six years later, might technically be the same, but it bears little resemblance to what’s there now. That’s a positive, especially to golf purists and Ross devotees.

A treasure that was shaped by two men with Massachusetts ties finally has been rediscovered. More than 100 years in the making, Pinehurst No. 2 never has looked better.

Ross, it’s safe to say, would be proud.

Michael Whitmer can be reached at mwhitmer@globe.com