Did Pete Dye mail it in sometimes?

[Jeff Schley]

WWho actually knows other than his family/company about  which projects he didn't spend much/any time at. hat if Pete Dye had done what Jack Nicklaus did, which is to create the Jack Nicklaus Signature courses to differentiate the ones he worked on all himself from the company as a whole. Don't the JN signature courses also require JN to approve changes as well?  If PD had a signature line maybe that would differentiate the list.

[Tim Gavrich]

The most recent episode of Derek Duncan's "Feed the Ball" podcast included Tim Liddy, who explained that once Dye found an architectural "vocabulary" that resonated with him, he stuck with it over the course of the rest of his career. That made a lot of sense to me.


I think it can be tempting to interpret a combination of aesthetic consistency of his courses + perceived not-greatness of them as "mailing it in" but I think it was more about him being comfortable being himself and declining/refusing to compromise on his artistic style.


It seems today's most prominent architects are either still finding their own vocabularies, or they are ideologically opposed to the idea of having and pursuing a vocabulary in quite the same way. I think that's a sound approach, too, because ultimately the content of the golf course is more important. I've always found the content of Dye's courses to be very good to excellent, so the aesthetic consistency doesn't bother me.

[Joel_Stewart]

The most recent episode of Derek Duncan's "Feed the Ball" podcast included Tim Liddy, who explained that once Dye found an architectural "vocabulary" that resonated with him, he stuck with it over the course of the rest of his career. That made a lot of sense to me.

Call me skeptical but I think Pete took his fame and this style of the big stadium courses and rode it to the bank on the back of Landmark land, Herb Kohler and others.


It just doesn't make sense that his arguably two best courses were built in 1966 and 1969 yet he went after these big money projects going forward. 
[size=78%]   [/size]

[Matt Kardash]

The most recent episode of Derek Duncan's "Feed the Ball" podcast included Tim Liddy, who explained that once Dye found an architectural "vocabulary" that resonated with him, he stuck with it over the course of the rest of his career. That made a lot of sense to me.

Call me skeptical but I think Pete took his fame and this style of the big stadium courses and rode it to the bank on the back of Landmark land, Herb Kohler and others.


It just doesn't make sense that his arguably two best courses were built in 1966 and 1969 yet he went after these big money projects going forward. 
[size=78%]   [/size]

You can argue that most of his best courses were actually built in the 80s in one way or another
TPC
Long Cove
Honors
Blackwolf
Pete Dye (finished in 90s but mostly built in the 80s)
PGA West
Old Marsh
Firethorn
Austin
Kiawah (started late 80s)
I don't know about you but that is not a bad decade by any means. I would also venture to guess that the above courses are also the courses that got the most personal attention from Dye. He outsourced a lot of others to his son's in the 80s. I don't think Dye has many courses that rate a 5 or less that he gave his full attention to.

[Anthony_Nysse]

The most recent episode of Derek Duncan's "Feed the Ball" podcast included Tim Liddy, who explained that once Dye found an architectural "vocabulary" that resonated with him, he stuck with it over the course of the rest of his career. That made a lot of sense to me.

Call me skeptical but I think Pete took his fame and this style of the big stadium courses and rode it to the bank on the back of Landmark land, Herb Kohler and others.


It just doesn't make sense that his arguably two best courses were built in 1966 and 1969 yet he went after these big money projects going forward. 
[size=78%]   [/size]

You can argue that most of his best courses were actually built in the 80s in one way or another
TPC
Long Cove
Honors
Blackwolf
Pete Dye (finished in 90s but mostly built in the 80s)
PGA West
Old Marsh
Firethorn
Austin
Kiawah (started late 80s)
I don't know about you but that is not a bad decade by any means. I would also venture to guess that the above courses are also the courses that got the most personal attention from Dye. He outsourced a lot of others to his son's in the 80s. I don't think Dye has many courses that rate a 5 or less that he gave his full attention to.

His best overall work was in the 1980's no doubt.

[Jeff Schley]

The most recent episode of Derek Duncan's "Feed the Ball" podcast included Tim Liddy, who explained that once Dye found an architectural "vocabulary" that resonated with him, he stuck with it over the course of the rest of his career. That made a lot of sense to me.

Call me skeptical but I think Pete took his fame and this style of the big stadium courses and rode it to the bank on the back of Landmark land, Herb Kohler and others.


It just doesn't make sense that his arguably two best courses were built in 1966 and 1969 yet he went after these big money projects going forward. 
[size=78%]   [/size]

You can argue that most of his best courses were actually built in the 80s in one way or another
TPC
Long Cove
Honors
Blackwolf
Pete Dye (finished in 90s but mostly built in the 80s)
PGA West
Old Marsh
Firethorn
Austin
Kiawah (started late 80s)
I don't know about you but that is not a bad decade by any means. I would also venture to guess that the above courses are also the courses that got the most personal attention from Dye. He outsourced a lot of others to his son's in the 80s. I don't think Dye has many courses that rate a 5 or less that he gave his full attention to.

His best overall work was in the 1980's no doubt.

As the economy was growing as well, good timing. The 70's was such a down time in many things, not the least of which was golf course design. By far the worst decade I think for new courses being developed.

[cary lichtenstein]

I know that Pete Dye had a number of bull doze shapers, like Mike Stantz who moved alot of the dirt for him and went on to be excellent architects in their own right. I enjoyed playing each and everyone of his courses as they required alot of imaginative shot making around the greens

[Richard Hetzel]

So which Ross courses are duds and forgettable?


Bogey

Miami Shores GC IN Troy Ohio.

[Tom_Doak]

Mackenzie mailed in a lot of his work???

Seems like that is never discussed.  He spent 3 months in Australia yet consulted on 9 courses.  It's a rumor in the Bay Area that he spent very little time if any at Green Hills.  That course was built by Jack Fleming.


Regarding Dye, of course he mailed it in. I played golf with Perry and Ann Dye at the Mountain course at La Quinta and Perry took credit for most of the work.

So much misinformation on this thread, it's hard to know where to start.  [Cary's post two places above mine is a good start, actually ... Mike Strantz worked for Tom Fazio, not for Pete Dye.]  I leave for two months and the site goes to hell.  Who runs this site anyway?


Joel's posts are off the mark, too.


Dr. MacKenzie went to Australia for six weeks and consulted on NINETEEN designs in that time.  He didn't mail anything there; he just didn't promise to get back on another steamship, and the clients didn't want to pay for that anyway.  So, he went, he spent two or three days per course working on his plans, and he handed them to a construction supervisor who saw them built.  [He spent much more than a couple of days with the construction supervisors who were to build Royal Melbourne, and they wound up overseeing a lot of the rest of his work.]   MacKenzie did not boast about his work in Australia because he never saw them done, and in some cases, the work wasn't even completed until after his death seven years later!


Pete Dye, well, he did it every which way over his very long career.  I am not sure he was any better in the 1980's than in the 70's or 60's, he just had more opportunities.  For Joel to say he went for the money is a joke . . . Pete never did anything for the money, he just liked to work.  His design fee for the TPC at Sawgrass was $80,000, and he must have spent two years of his life there all told with the renovations and going back to the tournament.  Perry Dye saying he built the Mountain course at LaQuinta was just a typical bald-faced lie . . . Lee Schmidt supervised most of the work for Landmark in Palm Springs, and I am pretty sure [not positive] that included the Mountain course, but I am dead sure Perry didn't build it.


Ah well, back to mailing in my latest design in New Zealand . . . where I've spent the last two months, unplugged from GCA.

[Tim Liddy]

Thanks Tom.

[Ken Moum]

As usual Doak comes through with reason and facts.


BTW Tom, does anyone know how much of Pete there is at Red Mountain Ranch,  vs. how much of Perry.


I play there and no one seems to know.