Golf Course Architecture - Issue 60, April 2020

57 studying landscape architecture, Pete was building the Pete Dye Golf Club. The father of a classmate of mine was building it for him, and I wanted to get into golf architecture, so I asked my friend if I could go meet her father. I drove down to the course, and I met Pete. Pete was very generous with his time and allowed me to follow him round all day, teaching me things. Next thing I know, I’m interning with his son Perry. That chance meeting with Pete Dye opened so many doors for me. Perry used to have these manuals for courses that his father had designed, which explained the strategy of the holes; what was the best line to play. You could see how closely Pete maintained classic strategic principles. Now, his architecture may have looked completely different, but the principles that underpinned it were the same.” Like Nagle, Forrest Richardson encountered Pete before becoming an active golf architect. “I remember distinctly reading an article and seeing pictures of what he did at the Golf Club in Ohio, and I was mesmerised by what he had done,” he said. “When I started playing golf courses, I felt that every hole looked the same, but when I saw Pete’s work, I realised they didn’t have to be like that. At Long Cove, for example, you come to a hole and it doesn’t look anything like the ones that came before it, and that energises the golfer. I first met him when I was doing some work – not golf design – for Disney, doing logos and signage for a resort, and Pete was doing one of the golf courses there. One day I went into the site office and Pete was there, and the project manager introduced me. He immediately broke off what he was doing and said, ‘So where are you from?’ I said Arizona, and he immediately stopped and turned to the agronomic guy and the construction guy and said, ‘He’ll tell you we don’t need any peat moss in the greens. Last thing they put in the greens in Arizona is peat moss. Isn’t that right?’ to which I replied, well yes actually it is, Mr Dye. And he said ‘Well, what did I tell you?’ to the other guys.” Bobby Weed said: “I first met Pete in the 1970s at Amelia Island Plantation. That was the start of a 45-year relationship. We built Long Cove together in 1981, and I’ve been building Photo: GettyImages/Jacqueline Duvoisin Pete Dye in 1990, on the construction site for what would become one of his most celebrated designs, the Ocean course at Kiawah Island