Pete Dye and Logic v. Minimalism

[Jason Topp]

I'm starting a thread and then abandoning it because I get on an airplane in a few hours, but thought this might be an interesting topic for discussion.

Many Dye courses seem almost mathematical to me, at least at his courses from the 80's onward that are justly famous. 

The Ocean Course, PGA West and TPC Sawgrass all have

- a bunch a draw/fade or fade/draw holes
- Par 5, 3, 4 finish
- Island green or other dramatic par 3 17th
- short par 4 around the 4th hole (and possibly 13 - I cannot remember)
- par fives presenting interesting aggressive/conservative decisions
- 22-1/2 degree angles creating strategic interest for many holes


The photos of Teeth of the Dog also appear very logical to me - the most obvious aspect being the routing with a loop including holes with water on the left on the front and holes including water on the right on the back.

Whistling Straits seems to have different concepts at play but still seems to reflect a specific logical approach.

I think these are terrific logical concepts except for the fact they run directly contrary to the idea of letting nature dictate the best available course.  Thus - courses of this type always leave me a bit cold even though I find each individual hole presents an interesting and fun challenge.

[Tom_Doak]

Jason:

A good formula is still a formula, and eventually, if you see it too often, you'll grow tried of it.  But, we here are the exception -- most people only play their own Pete Dye course, they don't go around playing a bunch of them, so the repetition of the formula really doesn't matter to them.

[Carl Rogers]

Doesn't the 'figure 8' routing become a familiar Dye theme?

[Matthew Petersen]

The "lay of the land" argument is hard to make in the case of courses like Sawgrass and PGA West which were built out of flat nothingness.

WS and Kiawah both have that figure 8 style to the routing, and I have read where Dye likes to do this, but I can't immediately think of too many of his other layouts that use that routing. I think it's a nice way to solve a problem on a certain kind of property, but he's hardly clinging to it as a crutch.

[Anthony Gray]

Doesn't the 'figure 8' routing become a familiar Dye theme?

  I think it is the routing of choice for water side courses.

  Anthony

[Tom_Doak]

Doesn't the 'figure 8' routing become a familiar Dye theme?

  I think it is the routing of choice for water side courses.

  Anthony

Anthony:

It is the routing of CLICHE for waterfront courses -- 9th and 18th finishing on the water, in opposite directions.

What's the best course that actually does that, though?  Compared to Pebble Beach and Pacific Dunes and Teeth of the Dog, which really don't?

[Matt Kardash]

Doesn't the 'figure 8' routing become a familiar Dye theme?

  I think it is the routing of choice for water side courses.

  Anthony

Anthony:

It is the routing of CLICHE for waterfront courses -- 9th and 18th finishing on the water, in opposite directions.

What's the best course that actually does that, though?  Compared to Pebble Beach and Pacific Dunes and Teeth of the Dog, which really don't?

Kiawah? And I get the feeling people on this board like Kiawah more than Teeth of the Dog. However, you might say Kiawah isn't as good as the 3 courses you mentioned, however that has more to do with the land the course was build on, not the routing.

Also, I am just playing devils advocate, and am not trying to say you are wrong. Maybe I'm saying that sometimes a cliche can work?

[Matt Kardash]

Here's some pics I saw online today of a new Dye course. TPC San Antonio. The par 3 8th looks like Seth Raynor to me.
http://www.golftexas.com/departments/photo-galleries/tpc-san-antonio-att-canyons-course-11280.htm

[Tom_Doak]

matt:

Of course, sometimes a cliche can work.  It probably wouldn't become a cliche, otherwise.

That formula probably works better for Kiawah than for the other courses I mentioned because it was very flat to start with and there is nothing on the ground that clashes with the formula.  Normally, there probably would be.

Still, I don't like the formula of saving the most dramatic land for #9 and #18 ... especially for #9.  Often it seems that you are saddled with a fairly mundane series of starting holes to save the crescendos for #9 and then for the back nine, and by then, I've decided I don't love the course.  Kiawah is also different in that respect -- holes 2, 3 and 4 are actually built on some of the best property there, even though they are a bit further from the beach.

[Carl Rogers]

An inland example of the figure 8 would be The Pete Dye Course at Virginia Tech (Radford VA).  It is course is an extensive re-do of an Ault-Clark course.  Given the sliver of kind of flattish propoerty between the New River and steep hills, I am not sure how many other options would exist.

Stunning views at a bend of the New River ...played it once, not expensive ... very long mean penal course ... VT wanted that kind of course for its golf team.

[Joel Zuckerman]

I've enjoyed (endured??) more Dye GC's than most anyone, I wouid imagine, (other than Pete himself!)  probaly 60 or so, all told.

I have found them to be a very varied lot in terms of routing, location, sensibility (housing-driven vs. total seclusion) and numerous other factors.

[Peter Pallotta]

And I am the anti Joel -- having played NO (as in zero) Pete Dye courses.  Jason - I think I understand what you are describing; but from where I sit I would pay a goodly sum to ensure that each time I teed it up at a course I hadn't played before I could be certain of getting:

 - a bunch a draw/fade or fade/draw holes
-  short par 4 around the 4th hole (and possibly 13 - I cannot remember)
- par fives presenting interesting aggressive/conservative decisions, and
- 22-1/2 degree angles creating strategic interest for many holes

And if they threw in a 5-3-4 finish and an island green, I wouldn't mind that either.

Peter

[Brian Ross]

Carl, I'm glad you mentioned the River Course.  I was about to until I saw your comment.  It's our spring break, so I plan to play it at some point next week, probably Mon. or Tues., and plan to do a detailed course tour of it in the next week or two. 

An inland example of the figure 8 would be The Pete Dye Course at Virginia Tech (Radford VA).  It is course is an extensive re-do of an Ault-Clark course.  Given the sliver of kind of flattish propoerty between the New River and steep hills, I am not sure how many other options would exist.

Stunning views at a bend of the New River ...played it once, not expensive ... very long mean penal course ... VT wanted that kind of course for its golf team.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jason,

Interesting topic. It begs questions like whether you design for the land or the golfer, if a 22.5 degree dogleg hole that is a good test in Maryland is a good test in Texas (perhaps the question is if its a good test in continuously stronger wind, crosswind with, or against, etc.) and the like.

It also highlights that nearly any design has a focus.  If Pete is intent on creating high scores for good players, then the areas around his greens are typically pretty manufactured to create difficult stances and lies, whereas a minimalist might accept a fairly mundane, unbuilt green surround, which might yield a more natural look but also be a bit easier for good players (and average ones....hooray!)

Most holes can do a few things well, but not all things well.  I guess the key is putting them where they make sense.  As you can tell, I am not sure Pete Dye toughness on a course that will never hold a tournament is that great an idea.  However, TPC SA shown above doesn't look as if Pete is in the same mode as he was back in the TPC Jacksonville days.

[Matt Vandelac]

Mr. Brauer:  Your basing architectural tendencies on a course built over 30 years ago?  To quote Seth Meyer...really...REALLY??  For anyone with the goal to be the best they can in any business you need to learn from a master.  In golf course design, Pete Dye is about as good as it gets.  He's evolved more than anyone I know and his work today doesn't resemble what he did a year or 30 years ago.  You need to get out more.  Although I have not studied all his work to comment on whether it meets any definition of cliche, I'd be surprised.  Ask him sometime about design philophy relative to challenging players from the pro tee and avoiding penalizing the bogey player.  He can speak volumes.  Tom D: you should tread a little lighter.   

[Jeff_Brauer]

Matt,

I don't get your point. I write that his current work (TPC San Antonio) "doesn't look as if Pete is in the same mode as he was back in the TPC Jacksonville days" and you lambast me by pointing out that "his work today doesn't resemble what he did a year or 30 years ago."  Why the anger when we agree?

For the record, I have played too many Dye courses to count and have had the pleasure of talking to both Pete and Alice on over two dozen occaisions on their design philosophies, often at depth, including the idea of not penalizing the average player.  In one funny instance, I got a nice lesson on that from Alice, and pointed out that they put a very deep fw bunker about 50 yards out from their ladies tee, which seems a little counter productive to her emphasis on forward tees.  In another, I played Prestwick with Pete specifically to learn from him what features he was looking at, because he said the straight creek/burn on 18 was what got him started on the straight lines vs gentle curves of RTJ.

To answer your second question, I tend to agree with Tom Doak. There was a period when his courses had many predictable features.  When I popped open the photos of his San Antonio course, I thought to myself, "it doesn't look like Pete Dye" a sign that he at one time was getting predictable, and is now changing, almost, as he tells me, for the sake of change.  Things like long strip bunkers were once almost universally a staple of the Pete Dye "brand."  Most owners probably wanted him to build them their version of TPC Jacksonville, and he is just recently being asked to produce something more original.

But, like JN and some other top designers who made their name with tough courses, it seems he realized just how hard his courses were for the average guy and is changing his style to something softer.  I suspect it also has something to do with him slowing down and letting associates and sons do more of the work in many cases.

Have I been out enough for someone who has yet studied his courses enough to comment?

[Tom_Doak]

Matt [with capital M] V:

Tread a little lighter?  What did I say that was so insulting?

Pete had a formula for what he considered the ideal course, which included things like no cross-hazards to punish the weaker player.  He laid out a lot of it in a book published by Sports Illustrated in the 1970's, and he laid it out for me when I was working on the original plan for PGA West in 1983, and it hadn't changed much then.  He didn't use it all the time, but he pretty easily fell back on it when he didn't have much else to work with, which gave his courses back in the 1970's and 1980's a similar quality.  Plus, as Jeff mentions, a lot of times the clients asked him specifically for some of those features.  I'm pretty sure it was the client who asked Pete to build a pond along the left side of the 18th at Bulle Rock, even though they had to staple an artificial pond to the side of a hill in order to do it.

The last new Pete Dye course I've seen is probably Whistling Straits, so I do not claim to be entirely up to date on his work, but I would be surprised if you tell me he has really changed that formula a lot -- that he didn't have a 5-3-4 or 3-5-4 finish most of the time, or that he had stopped building "S" shaped holes with those soft curving doglegs.  You didn't actually provide specifics of any courses where he'd gone away from those patterns.  It's not the only thing he can do, for damned sure; I agree with you that he is the most creative architect who ever walked the planet.  But it's certainly a strong tendency.

When I spoke of the cliche of having #9 and #18 finish with water on opposite sides, I didn't only mean that to be a cliche for Pete Dye.  Nicklaus has done it more than Pete has, but like many other facets of his work, he borrowed something that had been successful for Pete.

[Matt Vandelac]

Tom and Jeff:
Thanks for your feed back and I apologize for getting too defensive.  After some retrospect, I can't disagree with you about Pete's interest in that type of finish.  At the end of the day it's interesting to see how his work get labeled (I wonder how many times the ideas/solutions were copied at an owner's insistance but that's another topic) and he continues to evolve - and have 5-3-4 or 3-5-4 be a constant.  From my experience this sequence did rear it's head and logic had 3-4-4 staring us in the face but it didn't happen.  3-5-4 won.  But after giving it some thought while blowing snow for hopefully the last time, I'd think he's ok with the trend.  Jeff, sorry about jumping to conclusions.  I was hasty responding to your post of which I can see where you're coming from.   

[Jeff_Brauer]

Matt,

No problems.  As to the 5-3-4 finish, Ross wrote the same thing and no one would critique him for it, eh?  I think Pete also got the reverse bends from Ross at Pinehurst, so he comes by his forumlas honestly (as my father used to say about my flaws inherited from him)

I also think a few gca's actually added to that forumla, trying to finish with (in no particular order, depending on the land) a short 4, 3, 5, and long 4 to assure the most variety at the end.  I like Tom's comments about having decided by that time whether or not he likes the course, so maybe all that is a waste. 

Maybe there should be some kind of formula for starting a course?