Dye only charged a $1 after I asked him if he'd do the town a favor and do a course for us. We did end up paying his associate, Tim Liddy, a decent if sub-market rate for his work. For the record, Pete made 7 site visits, including a crucial decisive visit mid-way through construction in 2002. And he retained oversight and control over all routings, though it was Liddy, who made 40+ visits and is doing another one Aug. 2-3 to look at bunkers, who did all of the everyday field work for the project. I just served as his chauffeu.
I have all of those routing plans in my garage. We spent the first three years of the project (1995-98) chasing a routing and approval for an entirely different site on the other side of town amidst a different MDC reservoir. The early routings on the site we ended up with included 4-5 holes along the reservoir, but those gradually got beaten back to one (our 14th) by the DEP. Permitting required separate approvals by the US Army Corps of Engineers, the CT state DEP and, an agency whose doggedness and persistence ended up costing us here and there, the town's own inland and wetlands commission. Anyone who thinks that, just because the town was the applicant its own committees would cut it slack, is mistaken.
For the record the course absorbed 8 years of planning/development before opening, as well as $11.3 million, 3 completely different electoral bond referenda, and what I would literally estimate to be 250 meetings.
I now do a 40-minute PowerPoint presentation on 'Lessons from a Municipal Golf Project" that I take around to superintendent groups and municipalities. The first lesson of the the project I try to convey is "Don't Do it."