Dye Hard -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 3/1/2003
Last Visited: 3/1/2003
Pete and Alice met in college in 1946.
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Alice, who competed against the best women players of her time and beyond, won the Indiana women's amateur title nine times, was a member of the 1970 Curtis Cup team and in the late 1970s won back-to-back USGA Senior Amateur championships.
The Dyes would move to Florida in the late 1960s before returning to Indianapolis in 1993 to live there in the summer and to winter in Delray Beach, Fla. Along the way they raised two sons, Perry and P.B., more or less in their own image.Both are in the designing and building business -- Perry out of Denver and P.B. in Wellington, Fla.
The player's perspective
It was their prowess as players that eventually led Pete and Alice into golf course development, and it shaped their architectural style for years to come.
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The first Dye design, so to speak, was El Dorado Golf Club, a nine-hole project Pete and Alice were talked into doing by two Indianapolis contractors in 1959.
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"Much like those legendary designers, Alice and I would design a course based on the thoughts, images and memories of the many great courses we had played across the United States," Dye wrote.
Living and working with style
Dye's emergence as a "throwback" designer was etched in stone when he and Alice embarked on an extended trip to Scotland in 1963.There they played and pondered many of the game's great old venues.Five historic layouts were most influential -- Turnberry, Carnoustie, Royal Dornoch and a couple of Old Tom Morris' old stomping grounds, Prestwick and the Old Course at St. Andrews.
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First of all, Pete and Alice have eschewed the high-profile, corporate design scene throughout their careers.
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While Alice may occasionally draw up some basic plans for a property, Pete prefers to walk the site and "eyeball" the holes.
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-- Alice Dye
There have been many others with "the look," most recently Blackwolf Run and Whistling Straits off Lake Michigan near Kohler, Wis., but The Stick and Harbour Town were as unforgettable as they were innovative.
Pete and Alice have always called Crooked Stick their "first-born."
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"The world changes, I guess," says Dye, who softened the look a bit and changed to a more American-style rough to accommodate the professional stars.
Since then, Crooked Stick has also hosted a number of USGA events, including the '93 U.S. Women's Open, and will be the site of the 2005 Solheim Cup matches.
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Popularity on the PGA Tour wasn't among the characteristics of some of Dye's later projects, most notably the stadium courses at the TPC at Sawgrass and PGA West.
The TPC was the dream of the PGA Tour commissioner at the time, Deane Beman, to be the home of the "Fifth Major," the Players Championship.When it opened in 1982 it was a mix of Dye bringing his finesse/strategic design to a new level of visual, risk/reward intimidation and Beman's new tournament concept of stadium golf.It was controversy at its best and might have ruined the careers of lesser men.
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While PGA West remains one of the most difficult layouts in the world today, Dye modified Sawgrass not long after the hullabaloo in '82, and players' equipment technology has taken care of many other hard edges.
Showdown from the tips
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For the most part over the years, they have been t hose players who, as Dye says, play real golf -- professionals and scratch or low-handicap amateurs.And for good reason.
If you've got five superintendents, you've got four different opinions and one who agrees with the other four.It's the way the business is.
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Alice has participated in at least half of his 120 projects.
He has done a number of courses with his sons, Perry and P.B., and also his brother, Roy (now deceased).
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Both Pete and Alice are former presidents of the association, and Fullmer notes that in the last several years Pete has assumed the role as ASGCA's elder statesman.
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Friends of Pete and Alice Dye often half-jokingly wonder what Pete would do without Alice.
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"Alice has won more than 40 tournaments in her career," he says."She's played with Babe Zaharias, Mickey Wright, Beth Daniel -- all the great women players from different eras -- and then, on the other hand, she'll go out every Tuesday morning at Crooked Stick and play with three gals who can't break 100.Now that's special.
"She lends a perspective to our projects that acknowledges the good player and also the high-handicap player.I've always sat down and listened to her perspective.It's been good; it's why our courses can be played by anyone."
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Alice has long been known in golf architecture circles as a tireless proponent of the well-planned integration of forward tees in course designs to accommodate golfers of all skill levels.
She sides with Pete that a course should play most difficult for the better player and often has admonished him for not being tough enough.And, she also supports her husband's efforts to produce designs that accommodate maintenance.
"Pete is very, very cognizant of maintenance, mainly because he's out there with a rake and shovel and doing a lot of manual work on a project himself, such as shaping greens," Alice says."I think that makes him understand maintenance and the superintendent's role.It's also why we always try to have a superintendent on-site when we start a project.They're so educated and trained now, it can't be any other way."
Lessons of a lifetime
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"It's communication," says Alice."What we always did -- and still do -- was talk about things, talk about the holes, talk about ideas, talk about strategy, length, tee positions and angles, things like that.It's a way of working together, and I don't always have to be there (on-site).
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Although Alice continues to play a little competitive golf at age 75, some of her most important work in the game in recent years has come off the course.
Besides being the first woman to be elected to the ASGCA and serving as its president, she has been a recipient of the Golf Course Builders Association's Don A. Rossi Humanitarian Award, served on the USGA handicap committee, the advisory board of the LPGA, and was the first woman board member of the PGA of America.
In the last few years, Alice has been instrumental in the development of a new program that helps both struggling assistant professionals and the growth of the game.
The assistant pros are hired to teach college golf classes.Alice got it started at Purdue a few years ago and it has enjoyed steady success, with 14 schools (as of October) currently participating.
Alice's key move was securing the support of the PGA, which in turn got the program added to the charities that benefit from the U.S. Ryder Cup team's compensation.
"It's a win-win," she says."Not only are new people introduced to the game, but it's great for the schools and a great thing for the young pros to have on their resume.The important thing now is to continue to show progress in order to achieve more funding sources to prolong the program."
More to do, more to come
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