From Mrs. Dye, presented at the Pete Dye Cup:
Alice Dye’s speech at the 2017 Pete Dye Cup -
Thank you all for coming, it’s great to see our professional friends again.
Pete’s here and loves to say hello—sign autographs—take a selfie with him so come on by. He is almost 92 and fine physically, takes long walks, and still plays some golf. He loves to kiss the girls—my friends call him the Kissing Bandit.
His latest projects include:
o a course in Baltimore with our son P.B.
o one at a game preserve outside Jacksonville Florida
o a course in Canada
o a fifth course for Kohler
o and 18 fabulous putting holes made of cement that duplicates some of his famous holes for the Indianapolis Children’s Museum.
I want to tell you about the Pete you never knew—The United States was fighting World War II, Pete dropped out of school as soon as he was 18 to join the 82nd Airborne Infantry. He was trained to invade Japan by air from Korea. Harry Truman’s decision probably saved his life.
After his honorable discharge and released from military discipline, Pete came to Rollins college full of golf and mischief. He completed a bunch of crazy antics including bringing the firehose on full force to his fraternity meeting— On a dare he jumped from a railroad bridge to the top of a freight train boxcar and rode to Tampa from Orlando. Classes were only attended if they didn’t interfere with his tee time.
The money he earned cleaning the breakfast tables and the GI bill financed his golf. He captained the Rollins College Golf Team. After three years and still a freshman Rollins suggested he try another school. So he tried a year at Stetson Law School. Then responsibility hit and he spent a year trying to help his father with his insurance agency.
Finally after his summer golf tournaments were over in the dead of winter he came to Indianapolis to propose. I knew I wanted to marry him from the first time I met him.
Pete joined Connecticut Mutual and spent days playing golf and tournaments and nights at the Indiana Medical Center selling insurance to doctors. Pete became the youngest member of the prestigious Million Dollar Round table. He served on the Western Golf Association and several USGA committees. He won the Indianapolis District and the Indiana State Championship.
We were members of the Country Club of Indianapolis and the Dutch Elm disease had wiped out most of the trees and Pete began replacing them with trees from our family farm. Then he began replacing bridges, then bunkers and then new fairways. He was building the fever to build his own golf course.
He put his very successful insurance career on hold and for two years tried to get someone to hire him to build their golf course. Finally he got a construction contractor to ask him to build nine holes on the south side of Indianapolis. He knew very little about bulldozers and how to move dirt but somehow he got it done.
He dared to build the first 9 USGA greens and irrigated with untested plastic pipe which was so new that it did not even have proper connectors.
He grew the bent grass for the greens in our front yard. He built those nine holes really by himself. Winter came and he was back in the insurance office.
Several small courses, a second 18 holes for the University of Michigan, then a trip to 33 golf courses in Scotland followed and Pete was ready to build his dream course—Crooked Stick.
This is his golf course.
He feels it doesn’t belong to
The members
The board
The superintendent
It’s HIS course.
It is his love.
He gathered the land.
Laid out the holes on our dining room table with strips of paper.
He was here almost every day physically building it—
He brought a crew of farmers from south Indianapolis to do the construction. They lived in a house and barn where Jim Irsay’s house is to the left of #5.
He brought in railroad ties and used them everywhere.
He got his friend from GUEPEL construction to loan him equipment and the large depression on the right of #12 fairway gave him the dirt to do the tees and contouring. We called it Guepel’s Gulch.
He brought in the boxcar bridge on #17
He copied Oakmont’s church pew bunker on #11
Used University of Michigan’s horseshoe green on #15
Used #5 of the Maxinkuckee Country Club with the drop off behind on #12.
Built #6 around the tree which went down this summer but it guarded the green and #7 tee for 50 years.
#9 was modified while Pete was away for a day. I decided it was too short and moved it 80 yards to the left into the wooden glen where it has always been difficult to grow grass. The stream came later when we planted corn in the field behind #14 and the runoff formed the creek that cuts across #9.
Pete and our two young sons were here running all the equipment from tractors down to shovels and rakes.
Pete knew the challenges good players want but Pete kept it also playable for others.
When you play Crooked Stick, Pete is beside you--- begging you to hit driver on his wide fairways because he knows that club gets you in the most trouble.
He makes you drive one way and opens the green in the opposite direction. He hollowed out earth in front of the greens and elevated the driving area to look down on the target.
His Crooked Stick greens talk to you.
"About 15 years ago, Golf magazine celebrated the '100 Heroes of Golf' at a black-tie dinner in New York. Everyone was there: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Patty Berg, Johnny Miller, Lee Trevino, Kathy Whitworth and Ben Hogan. "Pete was included, and all the '100 Heroes' were seated up on the stage. Below, the room was packed with press, families and golfing personnel.
"Ben Hogan was the first to speak and he stood there in front of the other Heroes, and facing the vast audience-- he said, 'I love golf!'
"Here in our home on Crooked Stick, Pete and I wake up to see the mowers, sand rakes and crews preparing the course. Our dining room table is covered with Crooked Stick maps and budgets.
"In the evening, we see many of you finishing the 18th hole. At night when we go to bed and it's all dark outside, we see the lights of the clubhouse.
"Pete and I love Crooked Stick."
We hope you do too.