Here is the Pete Dye I know

[Tim Liddy]

http://www.golfdigest.com/magazine/2008/12/diaz_petedye

[TEPaul]

"Pros absolutely hate this shot. Yep, you've got to know what they hate."


That particular remark is just so Pete Dye but it also happens to be one of the basic architectural themes he has practiced and stood by through almost his entire career as a golf architect.

The other thing that is remarkably consistent is what Jaimie Diaz said following that quote---eg "Pete Dye chuckles when he says it."

I've seen him make that remark over the years a number of times in various ways and he really does always chuckle. Dye has just the right kind of sense of humor for golf course architecture the way he did it.

[Joel Zuckerman]

Speaking of chuckling, did many of you catch Pete's stand-up routine, which doubled as his Induction Speech, at the Hall-of-Fame festivities the other night?  The camera kept cutting to Finchem, Norman and Alice Dye laughing at his remarks.  My favorite line was:  "The commissioner has had me back to Sawgrass 5 times.  You think we'd have 90 holes by now, but it's still just 18."  He's priceless..

[Jeff Spittel]

Pete is priceless. I loved his anecdote about Harbortown that ended with a tour player referring to Pete with the phrase "there goes an early morning drunk for ya."

[Jeff_Mingay]

Joel,

His line about people from Crooked Stick showing up at the induction ceremony was great, too. He said something about being shocked that so many people from Crooked Stick were there, because they never talk to him when he's home!

Funny.

This is a very prophetic line from the Diaz article as well: "I have to deal with the game as it's going to be, not what it used to be or what I'd like it to be," (Dye) says.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I recall Jim Colbert telling me about serving on the players committee to rebuild the greens the first few times at TPC.  At one point, Colbert was aghast that they rebuilt 24 greens - all 18 once and then 6 of them again!

At the first rebuilding, and mimicking Pete's style, he told Pete that "he put a big hump in the middle of the first green, which makes it hard to get close to virtually any pin, and then you liked that so much you did it 17 more times!"

TPC is a good case study for the gca idea of building a course to stop the pros, vs. the pro idea of building a course to fit their shots.

And, its good to hear Pete coming up with some new stories. He has about 7 staples that get repeated in almost every speech.  Since I sat at the head table when he won the Ross award, Alice gave me his hand written notes for his speech which read about like this:

Bill Diddel irrigation story,
Pee in the bushes story,
first course crossed the creek far too much story,
Alices underwear in my suitcase when stopped at customs story

etc.  He did change the order up during the speech, though!

[Joel Zuckerman]

Jeff,

It' not surprising Pete uses the same stories over the years----the amount of times he's been interviewed and re-interviewed.  When I did the Dye Book, I found that the best source of Dye Tales were others talking about Pete, as opposed to Pete talking about himself.  The BEST anecdotes came from the developers.  I'll share one very cute one with the gang, courtesy of Joe Webster, who was instrumental at Long Cove Club, and currently owns the Dye Preserve in Jupiter, FL:

"In the mid 80s, Pete was just finishing up Long Cove Club on Hilton Head Island, which was a project of mine.  I came down with an extremely serious spinal infection, and was in intensive care in the hospital.  My wife Mary was sitting with me, the phone rang, and it was Pete.  She was so touched that Pete called me, especially when he insisted she pass the phone into the oxygen tent.
I weakly put the phone to my ear, and Pete said, “don’t you dare die, you sonofabitch!  You’re the only person alive that knows you owe me $350,000!  A guy who owed me a ton of dough died just last week, and I can’t afford to get stiffed again!”  I said, “If I survive this thing, I’m gonna kill you.”  Mary could tell by the expression on my face it wasn’t the sympathy call she originally thought."

[TEPaul]

The Dye story I like so much (which apparently has been confirmed by him) because it probably is such a "watershed" thing in American golf architecture, is around that time just before Harbor Town Dye was driving past something like another RTJ course and all of a sudden---BOOM a lightbulb went off in his head and he realized that something very different needed to happen and should happen in American golf course architecture. Apparently Harbor Town was the result.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

The way I have heard Pete tell the story is that he looked at a lot of courses when starting up, including a lot of Jones because he was the top dog.  He didn't want to do the same kind of thing and of course went to Scotland for ideas.  At another time, he did narrow the story down to starting Harbor Town and wanting to do something different than the other courses, including the Jones courses in the region.

I was incoming President of ASGCA in 1995 in Scotland, and used my rank to make sure my associates got to play with Pete at least once, for the experience, with me accompanying as well.  When we reached the 18th at Prestwick, Pete said that straight ditch along the fw gave him the ephiphany to use straight lines to counter the roundness of RTJ shaping.  And thus was born the Pete Dye fw strip bunker......

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

I heard the story from Pete about Harbour Town and Palmetto Dunes ... while we were working on Long Cove, which is practically across the street from Palmetto Dunes.  Of course, The Golf Club had all its railroad-tie stuff three years before Harbour Town, but it had bigger greens and was a lot longer.

Also, when we were working on the plans for PGA West, Pete said to me:

"You know some of those guys [i.e. Tour pros].  Ask them what makes them uncomfortable, and try to put some of that into the plan."

[TEPaul]

Mr Jeffrey Brauer, Sir:

That famous trip to Scotland that Pete and Alice took---when did that happen? What I do know about it is apparently why they went. I know because maybe a year or so ago I was doing some research on the etymology and emanation of the so-called "waste bunker" and always understanding it probably had something to do with Pete Dye I called them up and got Alice and we had a helluva conversation. She told me why they went to Scotland on that famous trip as well as the history of the Waste Bunker. She also told me about her role at Sawgrass and the replacement of all those railroad ties except hers and that she had to admit that Pete was a total idiot in not using treated lumber like she did.

I can't remember if I ever told the story on here of one of the dinner parties at my parent's house and why some of us basically never laughed harder at Pete. But I will if you want.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom,

So what did the Tour Pros tell you made them uncomfortable?

As I started to type, I knew I had heard it about HT, but at the same time, knew, as TePaul says, that the Scotland trip was a little earlier (1963 if I recall) and other courses already had the Scottish influence.  So, Pete probably enhanced the story a bit, or had some refinements to his ideas specifically about green size and course length at HT.  No big whup, the essentials are still true.

Mr. Paul,

Please see above for the answers to one of your questions.  I believe I recall the dinner party story from you.  The first time anyone hears Pete speak, its hilarious.  It takes many listenings to notice the repitition.  And, some of the stories are funny even the next ten times you hear them.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Also, when we were working on the plans for PGA West, Pete said to me:

"You know some of those guys [i.e. Tour pros].  Ask them what makes them uncomfortable, and try to put some of that into the plan."

That's classic, Tom! Great story... but, did you end up asking any Tour pros this question?

[TEPaul]

You know, this whole idea of making tour pros or I guess any golfer uncomfortable via architecture somehow is frankly a potentially enormous and important discussion subject. The thing is with Pete Dye it's not exactly incidental, it really is pretty fundamental in his thinking and what he did in his career.

It seems like Pete Dye was never a coddler of the weaknesses of golfers in what he did. Quite the opposite in fact, particularly pyschologically but actually as well.

Was that one of the secrets of his reputation and his success? I would have to say there's no question about it.

[Joel Zuckerman]

  the Scotland trip was a little earlier (1963 if I recall)

I am quite sure you are right---they went over so Pete could play in the British Amateur, and used that first-ever overseas jaunt to study many Scottish classics..

[PCCraig]

Reading Joel's book a couple of weeks ago made watching Mr. Dye's speech very enjoyable. It was the first time I had heard many of the stories you guys have already heard.

[TEPaul]

Mr. Jeffrey:

I don't know when Pete and Alice made that famous trip abroad. What I asked her was why they went and she said Mr. Richard Tufts of Pinehurst told them to go.

I don't know whether this is a well-known Pete Dye story but a couple of years ago Pete was playing in the Pine Valley Senior member/guest and he brought Alice. They asked him at the dinner to get up and speak and so he talked about a number of things including when he met Alice. You know Pete was a damn fine player but arguably Alice was better. Back then apparently Pete did some greenkeeping and he said he burnt up something like his first two courses. He knew about Alice but maybe she didn't know that much about him and so Pete said when someone tried to introduce them, Alice said; "Isn't that the guy who just burnt up a couple of golf courses? Why would I want to meet that idiot?"

[Jeff_Brauer]

You know, this whole idea of making tour pros or I guess any golfer uncomfortable via architecture somehow is frankly a potentially enormous and important discussion subject.

I agree. New thread so as not to hijack this one?

[TEPaul]

Is that a question? If so you have a choice, Mr. Jeffrey, a new thread on that subject or just shoot the hijacker on this thread right now before a hijacking.

I used to have a Dutch girlfriend who called a hijacking a hitchhiking. When I asked her what she thought a guy on the road with his thumb out was, you should have seen the look she gave me. What a gal that one was. One time she told me that English was some kind of great language because even though she spoke seven other languages not a single one of them had a word in it anywhere near as good as F...K was.