Indiana native Pete Dye never thought golf was meant to be fair, inspiring him to build courses that were visually intimidating. The island green at the TPC Sawgrass. More bunkers than could be counted at Whistling Straits.
Dye, among the forefront of modern golf architecture, died Thursday morning at age 94. His company, Dye Design, posted the news on its Twitter account. Dye had been suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Dye — often with his wife, Alice, with whom he lived for years in Carmel — designed more than 20 courses in Indiana, including Crooked Stick Golf Club, Brickyard Crossing, The Fort Golf Resort at Fort Harrison State Park, Woodland Country Club and The Pete Course at French Lick Resort.
The first course he ever designed is located in Greenwood. Now known as Dye’s Walk, it originally opened as El Dorado Country Club, a nine-hole layout, in 1961.
His golf courses have held four major championships, most recently at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, which will host the Ryder Cup this year. He also had several courses on the PGA Tour, mostly notably the TPC Sawgrass, where the Stadium Course has held The Players Championship since 1982.
Alice Dye died last February at 91. She famously suggested to her husband as they were clearing out a swamp at Sawgrass, “Why not just make an island green?”
“He was an icon when it comes to golf course design,” said Brandt Snedeker, who won at the Dye-designed Harbourtown Golf Links in Hilton Head, South Carolina. “He was a guy who really made you uncomfortable the whole round. And he did it visually. He’d always make you think.
“He’s one of those guys that you respected him because he built some great golf courses,” Snedeker said with a smile. “But in the midst of playing them, you hated his guts.”
His courses were often described as “Dye-abolical” because of the penalties they could inflict with a bad shot. But they were memorable, and often difficult. Among them was Blackwolf Run, where Se Ri Pak won her first U.S. Women’s Open in 1998 at 6-over par.
The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis honored Pete and Alice Dye with a mini-golf course that replicates holes from a number of the couple’s courses throughout the country. The Pete and Alice Dye Golf Experience is part of the museum’s Sports Legends Experience.
Dye was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2008.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan called him “one of the most important course architects of this or any generation.”
