Holy Crap, Are EIGHT Alums of Long Cove GC Project Really Practicing GCAs Today?

[Mark Bourgeois]

Who are they, and is this some kind of record?

1. Pete Dye (does he count?)
2. Tom Doak
3.
4.
5.

[John_Conley]

Yes they are.  Don't know if it is a record.

[Garland Bayley]

Who are they, and is this some kind of record?

1. Pete Dye (does he count?)
2. Tom Doak
3. P.B. Dye
4.
5.

[Garland Bayley]

Who are they, and is this some kind of record?

1. Pete Dye (does he count?)
2. Tom Doak
3. P.B. Dye
4. Bobby Weed
5.

[Chuck Brown]

I'd like to hear, from Tom or another member of the Long Cove Alumni Association, what they think of it today.  Has the course weathered the years, and the sourrounding competition and development and, oh yes, the weather, pretty well?  Is it a club that any/all of them would like to belong to?

[Ron Farris]

1 Pete Dye
2 P.B. Dye
3 Alice Dye
4 Bobby Weed
5 Tom Doak
6 Scott Pool
7 Dave Savic
8 myself

These are the people that I know who have actually completed design work and worked on the crew at Long Cove.  The nucleus of the crew were turf students.  I started about 2 weeks prior to Tom Doak.  Scott Pool was my roomate in college (Lake City) and Bobby Weed was the project manager at the time, and a Lake City alumni...........to the best of my knowledge. 
Man, those were the days!!!

[Mark Bourgeois]

Man that is some list, Ron.  Lemme go back and edit the thread title...

Any takeaways for us from that experience?  That you can remember, I mean?

Mark

PS Just went back and reread Doak's review (self-review) of the course in TCG and this passage is captivating, in an "accessibility of architecture" kind of way:

"...Pete kept telling us we had to keep it soft because of the older clientele who would be playing the course, but its quality of design has attracted a much more sophisticated audience."

He gave it an 8.

[Ron Farris]

This is a photo of PB Dye toward the end of the day at Long Cove.  Most of my pictures are nearly destroyed from a flood, but I remember the day that PB came in at the end of a hot day.  We were dog tire from drainage installation, bunker raking, stick picking, etc. and PB was so excited about his rough shaping of hole #5.  He wanted us all to go back out and had rake the bunkers he had just built with his dozer.  Sure it was sandy soil, but we had already had a full day.  Hole 5 is the short par 4 where the green is visible from the tee, but not the landing area.  Yes a great little hole, but no reason to make a 14 hour day into a 15 hour day!

That was in the early 1980's.  Doak has more stories as he has a better memory! 

Tom impressed the heck out of the crew with a world class slide show in the maintenance facility at another course on night.  I thought it was going to be pictures of beautiful bikini clad women, but it turned out to be photos of the top golf courses in the world --- pictures he had taken.  That really opened my eyes as to how far behind the curve I was in the world.  Heck, I was just a kid from the Sand Hills of Nebraska who prided himself on being a good raker.   

[Garland Bayley]

I considered adding Alice to the list, but since Mark had Pete questionable, I deferred until we knew Pete was to be on the list. I gleaned the names I added from Bury Me in a Pot Bunker

[Mark Bourgeois]

Hey, Garland, I didn't mean that Pete wasn't practicing today, I just wasn't clear on Tom Doak's description in TCG of whether he meant GCAs to be or GCAs present and future.

Ron with those eyebrows PB Dye looks like the oompah-loompah of GCAs.  That's an interesting story re slideshow.  Hanging on the wall of the men's room -- seriously, are you kidding me?! -- at PB Dye GC in MD you will find this picture of Rye's 7th hole:





Don't ask about taking pictures inside the bathroom!

Mark

[Ron Farris]

I just looked at my on-the-job intership report from Long Cove 1981.
Amazingly I walked right to this on my book shelf.


Pete Dye - Architect
PB Dye- Lead Shaper       
Bobby Weed - Project Manager, Supt.
Kent Stierer - Asst. Supt
Construction Crew:
Danny Wessinger
Steve Kelly
Stuart Trenda
Scott Pool
Mike Cooper
John Fake
Tom Doak
David Hollings
David Savic

There were numerous others involved in this project - I was quite lucky in that it afforded me some very nice life long friends!

[Garland Bayley]

Hey, Garland, I didn't mean that Pete wasn't practicing today, I just wasn't clear on Tom Doak's description in TCG of whether he meant GCAs to be or GCAs present and future.
...

That's what I assumed you meant, and that is why I held off on adding Alice to the list.

[Ron Farris]

Reading back thru my notes from 81 I see that Darwin Stoffel was also on the crew.  Apologies. 

It is interesting to see the number of comments about making it more flat for better pin placements on greens.  Remember, LC was built after Sawgrass.  Also some reference about having to move a tee as it was on somebody's lot.  {like that is the first time that has occurred}

Holy Crap, Back to the number of Alums practicing golf course design -  ?  
There have been other threads about Pete and the spawning of golf related people.  I am too lazy to search for them.
His inspiration runs far beyond aspiring designers and all the way to the trench diggers and stick picker upper people.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Apparently people who pride themselves on being good rakers, too.

[Tom_Doak]

Ron:

I had forgotten about Killer Kelly and John Fake.

You, on the other hand, omitted P.B.'s buddy Steve Lucciola, who was called the "five minute man" because no matter what you told him to do, he would say "I'll be done with that in FIVE minutes."  I worked with him again and with Keith Sparkman when we were rebuilding Piping Rock.

It was a great crew.  On top of the 14-hour days, we had a team in a softball league that summer.  Man I wish I still had that kind of energy.

[Chip Gaskins]

wow, this thread is exactly why i love this site!  nice work remembering all this you old guys 

[Ron Farris]

Tom D.

Wow, I totally forgot about Steve L.
I feel really bad about that.  He was yet another aspect of that crew that made it special to be part of Long Cove.

Keith Sparkman and I were roommates in Austin during the construction of Austin CC with Rod Whitman and Pete.  Sparky was by far the most patient person I have ever met in my life.  He, John Reidinger and myself lived in the porch of the old ranch house up until they had the bulldozer knock it down and built the award winning clubhouse. 

We felt, well, almost insulted that we then had to move out and go pay rent.

If you have a contact number for Keith, please email me.  I would love to reconnect.

Tom, I have a picture of you at Long Cove where you have that baseball cap and longish hair.