Dye To Serve As Co-Chairman At Senior Open
November 13, 2008By Erica Goodman, USGA
For a true artist, a masterpiece is a fluid work of brilliance. Another sliver of sculpture chipped away here, a few additional brushstrokes added there - all to match the artist's ever-changing vision. Fittingly, the legendary designs of golf course architect Pete Dye are no exception.
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| The challenging 11th hole at Crooked Stick features unforgiving bunkers leading up to the hole. (USGA Museum) |
When at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind., the 82-year-old Dye is rarely seen near his modest home off the 18th fairway. More often than not, he can be spotted walking the course, scattered sketches in hand. Forty-four years after breaking ground on a layout that hosted the 2007 U.S. Women's Amateur and will host the
2009 U.S. Senior Open , Dye charts new improvements to his design and is followed faithfully by his white German Shepard, Sixty. Indeed, an artist's work is never quite complete and his passion never fades.
On Nov. 10,
Dye became the fifth course architect to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame , joining the ranks of legendary Robert Trent Jones Sr., C.B. Macdonald, Alister MacKenzie and Donald Ross. And yet Dye, arguably the most influential golf course architect of the past half century, would be the last to admit he is a master of his craft. He simply describes his work as "digging up other people's property."
A native of Urbana, Ohio, Dye served in the United States Army during World War II before moving to Indianapolis in 1950 with his new bride and fellow Rollins College graduate, Alice O'Neal. Early on, his success in the life-insurance business was duly matched by his talent as an amateur golfer. As he rose to become the youngest lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table, he also pursued his golf career, playing in five U.S. Amateurs, the 1957 U.S. Open and winning the 1958 Indiana State Amateur.
Dye's future, however, was destined for a different path: golf course design. It was in his blood. Itching to have a local course, his father, Paul, designed and constructed the nine-hole Urbana Country Club in 1922. As a youth, Dye helped maintain his father's course. "When I arrived in the world, I first remember just going out there with him," he said. "He gave me a job, and I got a hose and you watered the greens with just a garden hose."
While stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Dye worked as the greenskeeper at the base's course and frequently ventured to nearby Pinehurst No. 2. It was there that he befriended fellow Hall of Fame member Ross.
Upon moving to Indiana, he attended turf sessions at Purdue University and served as the Greens Chairman at the Country Club of Indianapolis, the latter of which suffered through his agronomy and architecture experiments.
"I managed somehow or another to kill all the grass there," joked Dye. "I didn't really have trouble at [Fort Bragg] because they had sand greens."
Yet these early trials did not stop him from pursuing his passion. Thirty-three years after his father's project, Dye left insurance sales behind to venture full-time into golf course design, a career choice that forever changed the landscape of the game.
In the early 1960s, Dye, in partnership with his wife, began with projects near his Indianapolis home: a nine-hole course just south of the city called El Dorado and the 18-hole Heather Hills to the east. Construction was true to his continued style - hands-on, in the trenches, and actively involved in each step of the process. But it was a trip to Scotland in 1963 that left a profound impact on Dye's future courses, including his signature use of railroad ties instead of stacked sod, a design feature he saw while walking Prestwick.
That year, he qualified for the British Amateur and he and his wife took advantage of the opportunity to play many of the classic Scottish links courses. Many of the features he saw - small greens, pot bunkers, undulating fairways and wooden bulkheads - would inspire his future designs.
His next project would be as unassuming as the architect himself. Located in the northwest suburbs of Indianapolis, Crooked Stick was designed simply as a golf club. The club has no swimming pools, tennis courts or other amenities associated with a "country" club. Everything was created for a true golf experience.
By 1965, the limited-membership club was close to ratification as the Golf Club of Indianapolis when Dye and his then-business partner, Bill Wick, were inspired during a walk on the unfinished course. In an appeal to the club members to approve a different name for their emerging course, Wick explained:
'There was a crooked man, Who had a crooked stick.'It was just such a stick that we picked up one day while walking through a field on the site of our golf course: gnarled, knobby and crooked. As we absently swung it at a stone, it occurred to us that the game of golf must have had its informal beginnings just that way, more than eight centuries ago: with a boy and a shepherd's crook and a stone and the smell of the open field. With a response of more than two to one, the members voted in favor of "Crooked Stick."
Crooked Stick Golf Club would be the earliest of Dye's designs to serve as a site for a major golf championship, hosting the U.S. Junior Amateur in 1982. Other major events soon followed. The 2009 Senior Open will be the sixth USGA event held at the club.
"It's been a great club," said Dye, who will serve as the Honorary Chairman for the Senior Open, assisting with the promotion of the championship. "We've lived there and that's kind of where we got started.
Hailed as the father of modern golf course architecture, Dye and his wife have designed more than 100 courses throughout the world, many of which have held major championships, Ryder Cups, and PGA Tour events. His artistic eye has created such masterpieces as Whistling Straits (2007 U.S. Senior Open), the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island (1991 Ryder Cup), and the Stadium Course at Sawgrass (1994 U.S. Amateur and annual home to the Players Championship), to name a few. The list of designers he has mentored is just as notable, including Tom Doak, Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman, who introduced Dye at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
"I got my love for golf course design from Pete," said Norman, "and I got my love for golf course design by the attitude and the approach he took me down."
Like his courses, which lend for new discoveries each time they are played, Dye continually reveals layers of style and humility. With the lights dimmed and the induction complete, Dye plans to rescind from the spotlight, returning to his canvasses, sketches and Sixty, to focus on his next masterpiece.
Erica Goodman is based in Colorado Springs, Colo. Her work has previously appeared on usga.org. E-mail her with questions or comments at egoodman@usga.org.