Our second Feature Interview with Joel Zuckerman is posted and this one is on his recently released book entitled Pete Dye Golf Courses – Fifty Years of Visionary Design.
With nearly 100 courses profiled, all with huge color up-to-date photos, this book captures what Dye has meant to golf course architecture. At the very start, Joel quotes Dye as saying that, ‘I find the greatest satisfaction in believing that I have somehow contributed in making the game I love a more exciting one to play.’
Clearly he is one of the few men who can honestly make that claim. Importantly, he was capable of greatness, as witnessed at The Ocean Course at Kiawah, The Golf Club, Casa de Campo, Harbour Town, The River Course at Blackwolf Run, Whistling Straits, The Honors Course, TPC at Sawgrass, Pete Dye GC and Long Cove. That’s ten
courses by one modern architect that routinely get plenty of support for inclusion in the world top 100 by GOLF Magazine. Plain and simple, that’s awesome.
Joel takes you on a tour of these fabled courses. Just as importantly though, he also introduces you to some of the lesser known gems. His profiles of the River Course at VA Tech and the Dye Club at Barefoot make me want to see those close-by courses, not to mention Urbana CC by ‘Pink’ Dye.
Beyond Dye’s in the field work, his reach and impact on other modern architects is second to none and his ability to inspire others is explored within the Feature Interview. In short, what more could the man have accomplished? What a fantastic life! Becoming the most famous architect of the last half of the twentieth century isn’t all bad.
Of course, he took some chances along the way and like any artist, some of those chances didn’t come off as well as others. I have played Crooked Stick in 1986, 1996 and 2006 and each decade it has diminished in my eyes. It went from being a unique low profile design like The Golf Club to trying needlessly to keep up with modern gimmicks (an island tee in Indiana, please
). In addition, given Dye’s sparkling resume, you would think you wish he won every project possible. Yet, who here wishes Youngscap had stuck with him after Firethorn (a fine course) at Sand Hills? Not I. Of course, that’s not very fair as it is hard to picture anyone improving on what eventually emerged at Sand Hills. Yet, in looking at my personal top ten list of his courses above, half were built on land with little topo, which is pretty amazing in its own right. Which leads to a question: is it fair to say that he was better at creating something from nothing than perhaps following the lead of natural landforms?
Either way, he is a genius and we are lucky that Joel’s book captures so much of what makes him so special.
Cheers,
P.S. Should you be interested in buying the book Pete Dye Golf Courses, there is a special offer direct from Joel to GolfClubAtlas readers at the end of the Feature Interview.