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Pete Dye

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Pete Dye
Born (1925-12-29) December 29, 1925 (age 98)
Urbana, Ohio
NationalityAmerican United States
Alma materRollins College
OccupationGolf course designer
SpouseAlice Dye
ChildrenPerry & P.B. (Paul Burke)
Parent(s)Elizabeth and Paul "Pink" Dye
AwardsWorld Golf Hall of Fame
PGA Tour Lifetime Achievement Award
Old Tom Morris Award
Doctor of Landscape Architecture
ASGCA Donald Ross Award

Paul B. "Pete" Dye (born December 29, 1925) is a world-renowned golf course designer and a member of a famous family of course designers.[1] He is married to fellow designer and former amateur champion Alice Dye.

Early life

Pete Dye was born in Urbana, Ohio. A few years before Pete's birth, his father, "Pink" Dye, got hooked on golf and built a nine-hole course on family land in Champaign County.[2] Pete worked and played that course while growing up. He won the Ohio State High School Golf Championship and medaled in the Ohio State Amateur Golf Championship[3] before he went into the Army in 1944. He attended United States Army Airborne School at Fort Benning in Georgia to be a paratrooper, but World War II ended before he was sent overseas. He was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina where he served the rest of his hitch as greenskeeper on the base golf course. Pete Dye explained,

"I played the golf course at Pinehurst No. 2 for six solid months, and I got to know Mr. Donald Ross...(who) had built the Fort Bragg golf course. He would come over and watch us play golf, and most of the time the captain and colonel hauled me over there. They didn't know who Mr. Ross was, but the other fellow walking with him was JC Penney, and they all knew him."[1]

After his discharge, he became a student at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida where he met his wife, the former Alice Holliday O'Neal. They were married in early 1950, and their marriage produced two sons, Perry and P.B. (Paul Burke). They moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, Alice's hometown, and Pete began selling insurance.[1] Within a few years, he distinguished himself as a million dollar salesman. At the same time, he was a successful amateur golfer. Dye was runner-up in 1954 and 1955 at the Indiana State Amateur Championship, which he won in 1958. He also played in a number of USGA Amateurs. His score at the 1957 U.S. Open was better than Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.[3]

Design career

Dye made the decision to become a golf course designer in his mid-30s. Alice supported his career change and became partner in the new venture. In 1961, the couple visited and talked to noted golf architect Bill Diddle, who lived nearby. He warned them about the economic uncertainty of the profession, but they persisted.[3]

The first design from Pete and his wife was the nine-hole El Dorado course south of Indianapolis, which crossed a creek thirteen times. Those nine holes are now incorporated into the Royal Oak course at Dye’s Walk Country Club.[4][5]

Their first 18-hole course was created during 1962 in Indianapolis and was named Heather Hills. It is now known as Maple Creek Golf & Country Club.

Dye designed the Radrick Farms Golf Course for the University of Michigan in 1962, but the course did not open until 1965.[6] At the time, he was using the design style of Trent Jones, but after seeing the work of Alister MacKenzie, who designed the 1931 Michigan course, Dye decided to incorporate features from two greens into his next project.[1]

Dye visited Scotland in 1963, and made a thorough study of the classic courses. The Scottish use of pot bunkers, bulkheads constructed of wood, and diminutive greens influenced his subsequent designs.[3]

His first well-known course was Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana, begun in 1964. It later hosted the 1991 PGA Championship, won by John Daly.

In 1967, he designed The Golf Club near Columbus, Ohio, where he solicited input from a young Jack Nicklaus, a Columbus resident. The two would work together to design the acclaimed Harbour Town Golf Links, opened in 1969, the site of an annual PGA Tour event ever since.[7] Nicklaus credits Dye with significant influence on his own approach to golf course design.[8]

Dye is considered to be one of the most influential course architects in the world. His designs are known for distinctive features, including small greens and the use of railroad ties to hold bunkers. His design for the Brickyard Crossing golf course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway utilized the dismantled outer retaining wall from the race track. He is known for designing the "world's most terrifying tee shot". Known as the "Island Green", it is the 17th hole at TPC at Sawgrass located in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.[9] Dye's designs have been credited with returning short & medium length par fours to golf. Many of the best young golf architects have "pushed dirt" for Pete, including Bill Coore, Tom Doak, John Harbottle, Butch Laporte, Tim Liddy, Scott Poole, David Postlewaite, Lee Schmidt, Keith Sparkman, Jim Urbina, Bobby Weed, Rod Whitman and Abe Wilson.[10][1]

Honors

Dye received the 2003 Old Tom Morris Award from the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, their highest honor. In 2005, he became the sixth recipient of the PGA Tour Lifetime Achievement Award. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in November, 2008 in the Lifetime Achievement category.[11] The American Society of Golf Course Architects bestowed the Donald Ross Award on Dye in 1995.[12] Dye was named Architect of the Year by Golf World magazine, awarded a Doctor of Landscape Architecture degree from Purdue University, received Indiana's Sagamore of the Wabash award and was honored as Family of the Year by the National Golf Foundation.[1]

Courses designed

The following is a (partial) list of courses that Pete Dye either designed alone or co-designed:

Public

Private

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "When Pete Dye Speaks, People Listen." Florida Golf Magazine, Winter 2009
  2. ^ "Urbana Country Club" Urbana Country Club website
  3. ^ a b c d "Pete Dye" Dye Designs website
  4. ^ "The Fort Golf Course-Colorful Past, Celebrated Architect Make The Fort a Must Play" Golfers Guide, Indiana
  5. ^ "Royal Oak" Golf Now website
  6. ^ "Welcome to Radrick Farms Golf Course" University of Michigan website, Radrick Farms
  7. ^ The Golf Course, by Geoffrey Cornish and Ronald Whitten, 1981.
  8. ^ Jack Nicklaus: My Story, by Jack Nicklaus.
  9. ^ Water world
  10. ^ "Feature Interview with Pete Dye" Golf Club Atlas, December 2000
  11. ^ Dye to be inducted into World Golf Hall of Fame
  12. ^ "Pete Dye, ASGCA Elected to World Golf Hall of Fame" ASGCA News

Further reading

  • Bury Me In A Pot Bunker, The Biography of Pete Dye with Mark William Shaw, ISBN 0-8092-2681-2 published by McGraw-Hill, March 1999

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