be a paratrooper, serving in the U.S. Army’s
82nd Airborne Infantry. However, once
World War II ended, Dye was stationed in
North Carolina, where he became a
greenskeeper at the Fort Bragg Golf
Course.
After his discharge, Dye enrolled at
Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., where
he met Alice O’Neal, an outstanding
amateur golfer whom he married in early
1950. They moved to her hometown,
Indianapolis. There, Dye sold insurance
and was very successful. All the while, he
played golf so well that he bested Jack
Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer at the 1957
U.S. Open, and then captured the 1958
at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor,
which opened three years later.
The 2004 PGA Distinguished Service
Award recipient, Dye’s work life was
forever altered during a 1963 visit to
Scotland. He toured renowned courses St.
Andrews, Muirfield, Prestwick, Carnoustie
and Royal Dornoch, noting their use of pot
bunkers, wooden bulkheads, undulating
fair ways and postage-stamp greens, and
decided to incorporate them into his own
future layouts. Dye’s golf course architect
business progressed when he returned
home. His first great course, Crooked
Stick Golf Club (site of the 1991 PGA
Championship) in Carmel, Ind., opened in
“Pete builds courses that really don’t give you a break
mentally – that’s his biggest course characteristic – and the
Straits is that kind of course.”
—Dirk Willis, PGA Manager of Golf Operations and Director of Golf
Indiana State Amateur Championship.
By his mid-30s, Dye decided on golf
course design as a living, after taking turf
sessions at Purdue University in West
Lafayette, Ind. Alice partnered in the new
venture and now, nearly
50 years later, is
still known as the “First Lady” of golf
course architecture in the U.S. The Dyes’
first design was the nine-hole El Dorado
course near Indianapolis, which is now part
of Royal Oak Country Club. Their first
18-hole course – nearby Heather Hills –
came in 1962, and was since renamed
Maple Creek Country Club. Also that year,
Dye designed Radrick Farms Golf Course
• Crooked Stick Golf Club, Carmel,
Ind. (1964)
• Teeth of the Dog, Casa de Campo,
Dominican Republic (1971)
• Oak Tree Golf Club, Edmond, Okla.
(1974)
• TPC at Sawgrass, Ponte Vedra, Fla.
(1980)
• The Honors Golf Club, Ooltewah,
Tenn. (1983)
• PGA West Stadium Course, La
Quinta, Calif. (1986)
• Atlanta National Golf Club,
Alpharetta, Ga. (1987, with son P.B.)
• Westin Mission Hills Resort & Spa,
South Course in Ranch Mirage, Calif.
(1988)
• The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island,
S.C. (1991)
• Pete Dye Golf Club, Clarksburg,
W.Va. (1994)
• Paiute Golf Club Resort, Snow
Mountain (1995), Sun Mountain
(1996) and Wolf (2001) Courses,
Las Vegas
• Dye Course at PGA Golf Club in
Port St. Lucie, Fla. (2007)
• The Pete Dye Course, French Lick
(Ind.) Resort (2009)
Other notable Dye designs
78 THE OFFICIAL PROGRAM OF THE 2010 PGA CHAMPIONSHIP
1964. Using the Scottish courses as
models, Dye transformed flat cornfields
into wide fair ways and fair landing areas.
He added demanding approaches, replete
with railroad ties, strip bunkers, sand and
grass pot bunkers, mounds and blind shots.
Another key milestone in Dye’s career
occurred in 1967, when he designed The
Golf Club near Columbus, Ohio. Dye
asked for input from Nicklaus, a local who
had begun a storied golf career of his own.
The pair soon co-designed Harbour Town
Golf Links on Hilton Head Island, S.C.
Nicklaus credits Dye with paramount
influence on his own approach to course
design. And he’s not alone: 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 have all worked for Dye at some
point in their development as leading golf
course architects.
This year the spotlight is on the Straits
course, which opened in 1998 and bears all
of Dye’s fingerprints. “Pete builds courses
that really don’t give you a break mentally –
that’s his biggest course characteristic – and
the Straits is that kind of course,” says Dirk
Willis, manager of golf operations at
Destination Kohler and PGA director of
golf at Whistling Straits. “The player is
