“Pete Dye Golf Courses” – Joel Zuckerman Reviewed By Bob Fagan
What do we get when one of golf’s most enthusiastic and talented communicators focuses upon modern golf’s most visionary golf course architect? Well, it’s either going to be a terrific addition to your library or a big disappointment. As soon as I heard of the title, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. A hit it is!
“Pete Dye Golf Courses – Fifty Years of Visionary Design” by Joel Zuckerman is an absolute must get, must-read by any golf architecture aficionado. As a fellow architectural critic who has played nearly all of the Dye golf courses through 2000 and knowing much of the Dye lore, I was anxious as to what Joel Zuckerman would write. The only thing I can say is that if I could have told the stories only half as well as Joel, I would have been very pleased with myself.
Zuckerman selects seventy-five Dye courses and parlays each into not only an architectural review, but a revealing story and biographical sketch of the irascible, tireless, charming, enigmatic Pete Dye and his accomplished wife, Alice (both graduates of my alma mater, Rollins College). The courses are presented in the timeline that they were created, enabling one to witness the Dye evolution.
Both Pete and Alice Dye were and still are remarkable players, mentors, parents, aunts and uncles, children of comfort, but hardly materialistic, totally down-to-earth, friends of golf, and I could go on. Zuckerman weaves their personalities into the stories behind each course so that by the time you finish, you feel as if you have already met them as well as appreciate why the courses are special. Golf-wise, the important thing is that Zuckerman actually visited and played all of the featured layouts and gets each story “right.” He adds fresh photographs, and insightful contributions from fellow course collaborators Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman, as well as Arnold Palmer, with interesting insights from equally interesting architects such as Tom Doak and Bobby Weed, and touring professionals turned-architects like Jerry Pate, Brad Faxon, and Gary Koch, and others.
How were Zuckerman’s course inclusions? With so many wonderful courses to choose from, I have little disagreement with the inclusions, and the following borders on “nitpicking”. My only true disappointment was the omission of Loblolly Pines, a private club course in South Florida. A collaboration with son, P.B., it is an amazing design, far better, more exciting, and bolder than I had anticipated – one of Dye’s truly most underrated layouts and in my opinion, quietly one of the best courses in Florida. I was also a bit surprised of how little attention was paid the La Quinta Mountain Course –once also considered a desert Dye masterpiece! It would have also been interesting to learn more about his late brother, Roy, perhaps via their work at Waterwood National in Texas. Or how about the hugely challenging Medalist Golf Club design with Greg Norman? In a somewhat optional, but nonetheless interesting section on the “Next Generation” of sons, nieces, and nephews, son Perry got only one solo course featured despite being a somewhat prolific designer in his own right. Not having Perry’s Boone Valley in Augusta, Missouri is a definite oversight as this is a truly remarkable design – a wonderfully premier golf course that has hosted significant events!
Why should you be interested in the architecture and golf courses of Pete Dye? There are more than a few reasons. First, from the late forties into the mid-sixties with the exception of perhaps Robert Trent Jones, Dick Wilson, and precious few others, golf course design had become rather mundane and repetitious. Pete Dye changed all that with a throwback to the minimalism of the British Isle classics. More than simply railroad ties and pot bunkers, his strategic, heroic style infused life into the game, and he produced many layouts in which important championships have and will far into the future be contested - he built remarkable layouts. Having played America’s Top 200, the lineup of: Long Cove, The Golf Club, the Honors, the Pete Dye Golf Club, Harbour Town, TPC Sawgrass, PGA West Stadium, any of the Whistling Straits/Blackwolf Run layouts, and, of course, Casa de Campo are among my all-time favorites. Whew!
Pete Dye is the modern equivalent of Donald Ross, Alister Mackenzie, and A.W. Tillinghast all rolled into one. Finally, witness the next generation of leading golf course architects. People like Tom Doak, Bill Coore, Bobby Weed, Brian Curley, Lee Schmidt, John Harbottle, Rod Whitman as well as Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman and others all cut their teeth with Pete (and Alice) Dye. Amazingly all this is done with a staff of two ladies, one helping in Indiana, and another in Florida!
I consider myself very fortunate to have lived in an era when golf was popular and a time when Pete Dye was building golf courses. It is icing on the cake to have a storyteller like Joel Zuckerman remind me of that and to tie it all together in such an interesting, informative manner. For the few courses that I have not played, after reading “Pete Dye Golf Courses,” I almost feel like I have played them, and definitely like I want to. You will too!
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