Pete Dye and NGLA

[Michael Chadwick]

This is very much an undeveloped idea, but one that I'd like to hear from others. When I viewed the most recent installation of Golf Digest's flyover series on National Golf Links of America (https://www.golfdigest.com/video/every-hole-at/every-hole-at-national-golf-links-of-america), the first thought I had, surprisingly, was that seeing these holes from above made me feel like I could better understand and situate Pete Dye's work. Thin, long bands of sand on NGLA 3, 5, 13, etc. are akin to what's at Sawgrass and elsewhere. NGLA's collection of circular, crater-like bunkers polka dotting sod, or conversely, islands of turf within expansive bunkers, are shared with The Ocean Course, parts of PGA West, etc.


I won't make any comparisons to green surfaces, and my own exposure to both architects remains limited (or in Macdonald's case, nonexistent), but there are aerial similarities--influences?--that I for one hadn't previously considered between Macdonald and Dye (fairway width notwithstanding!).


Whereas before NGLA's video I may have mistakenly attributed Dye to being someone of a lone wolf architecturally, operating in a vacuum more than most, NGLA's construction and design style has me reconsidering. Maybe I'm off the mark here, but NGLA at least seems to me as a key example that can help contextualize the design continuum in which Dye participated.


What say you?       

[mike_malone]

I agree. There is a bold approach to features.

[John Challenger]

I made a quick scan of Pete's book, "Bury Me in a Pot Bunker," and couldn't find anything on NGLA and there isn't an index at the back. NGLA may be mentioned somewhere. Like MacDonald, Pete and Alice went over to Scotland early on in their careers. What he learned became the foundation for his architectural design philosophy. He says, "Alice and I studied and photographed as we played and began a library of ideas and concepts for future course designs...that would substantially influence the design of every single golf course we would build in the future. Maybe some of Pete's design ideas came from the some of the exact same British Isles courses that CB utilized.

It would be interesting to see if he writes somewhere about those ribbon bunkers. In the chapter on TPC Sawgrass, he mentioned that Deane Beman loved Harbour Town and wanted a course along those lines.

In the chapter on Harbour Town, there doesn't seem to be any mention of another course or architect that informed his ideas. Actually, he mentions one architect: Robert Trent Jones. "In an ironic way, my design concepts at Harbour Town were influenced by the architecture of Robert Trent Jones, in that I took Mr. Jones' ideas and headed in the opposite direction...My decision to head in the opposite direction from Robert Trent Jones was intended to show no disrespect for him or his great collection of course designs...I simply wanted to establish my individual identity by building courses with design features unlike those seen on other modern American courses."

[Ian Andrew]

Michael,

My first instinct was to say correlation is not causation.
But I realized that wasn't fair.

It lead to a good question for me : Does a secondary influence link the first one ... ?
So perhaps can I suggest a good journey through Andy and the Fried Egg and see where you get to...

Andy has a wonderful profile here: https://thefriedegg.com/langford-moreau-profile/

He has drone footage of Lawsonia Links here: https://thefriedegg.com/lawsonia-links-review/

*This is Andy Johnston's drone image from The Fried Egg*

[Brian Finn]

While NGLA may not be specifically cited in his book, it is pretty well known that Camargo was one of Pete Dye’s favorite courses, and I believe (we would need Tom Doak to help clarify the connections) he discussed the MacDonald and Raynor influence on his work. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

There is also the story that Pete was playing a LM course and said he thought it was Raynor, which suggests he was familiar with the CBM/Raynor style, and of course, there is no reason to think he wouldn't. 


When I was designing the Colbert Hills Golf Course, it was originally going to be part of the TPC network, although that didn't happen.  However, the PGA Tour did have some ideas on design, one of which was that any sand bordering water should be solid, not a string of bunkers, because if you are doing a save bunker before water, they felt it ought to treat any shot heading that way consistently.  Of course, I had broken them up to save sand, because budget is a thing.


That was well after the original TPC, so it is more than possible that they learned that from Pete, rather than dictated or suggested that to Pete.


I played Prestwick with Pete in 1995 (or 2005 I forget) and when we got to 18, he told me that the long, straight ditch along the 18th was his inspiration for the long straight lines as an alternative to look to RTJ's curving lines, used by most of us to look more natural.

[Tim Gavrich]

The angled, risk-reward tee shots all over NGLA really stand out to me in that video. And for what it's worth, I think Dye's strong preference for oblique-angled tee shots - over rough, sand or water - is key to his genius as well. Also, even on the flatter Dye courses I've played - thinking particularly of PGA Golf Club and Dye Preserve here in Florida - he shows a willingness to make bold fairway contours, even if it means having a lot of catch basins.

[Tim_Weiman]

I made a quick scan of Pete's book, "Bury Me in a Pot Bunker," and couldn't find anything on NGLA and there isn't an index at the back. NGLA may be mentioned somewhere. Like MacDonald, Pete and Alice went over to Scotland early on in their careers. What he learned became the foundation for his architectural design philosophy. He says, "Alice and I studied and photographed as we played and began a library of ideas and concepts for future course designs...that would substantially influence the design of every single golf course we would build in the future. Maybe some of Pete's design ideas came from the some of the exact same British Isles courses that CB utilized.

It would be interesting to see if he writes somewhere about those ribbon bunkers. In the chapter on TPC Sawgrass, he mentioned that Deane Beman loved Harbour Town and wanted a course along those lines.

In the chapter on Harbour Town, there doesn't seem to be any mention of another course or architect that informed his ideas. Actually, he mentions one architect: Robert Trent Jones. "In an ironic way, my design concepts at Harbour Town were influenced by the architecture of Robert Trent Jones, in that I took Mr. Jones' ideas and headed in the opposite direction...My decision to head in the opposite direction from Robert Trent Jones was intended to show no disrespect for him or his great collection of course designs...I simply wanted to establish my individual identity by building courses with design features unlike those seen on other modern American courses."

John,


Thanks for the information in this post. I have to admit I always assumed Pete Dye was influenced by Macdonald and Raynor. As Brian Finn suggests, it would be nice to hear from Tom Doak on this subject.

[Tom_Doak]

Pete talked about his influences in his own book, Bury Me In a Pot Bunker, and also with the author of the Crooked Stick club history.  He mentions a lot of influences in those two books that he never really talked about to me, directly.


But Mrs. Dye grew up on a Langford course [Maxinkuckee] and Pete grew up on his dad's nine holes in Urbana that also has some sharp slopes and strong gentle diagonals.  It's one of the things the two of them had in common.


Camargo was the Macdonald / Raynor course Pete talked about most -- historically it has been a qualifier site for the US Open and Amateur, which Pete would have played in several times -- but he also talked about seeing Shoreacres and Chicago Golf Club early on.  I know he had been to NGLA but maybe not that early in his career . . . I took P.B. there for the first time when we were working on Piping Rock in 1985, and P.B. expressed surprise that his dad had not talked more about National.


He did tell me the story at Long Cove about Harbour Town being the anti-Jones course, because he drove past the RTJ course at Palmetto Dunes every day on the way to work.

[Michael Chadwick]

Appreciate the contextual contributions. No doubt L&M would appear between Macdonald/Raynor and the Dyes on an architectural "tree" of influence. So NGLA isn't an obvious connection. Maybe Chicago Golf is a better originator, especially when passed through L&M's work on to the Dyes. There not only is a noticeable visual lineage to bunkering shapes, geometrical edging, depth of fall offs and sod walls, etc. among them all, but also a shared enthusiasm for creating designs that were only achievable with the modern construction equipment they each had in their respective times.