Born the son of Paul Francis (“Pink”) and Elizabeth Dye in 1925, Pete more than likely inherited his work ethic from his father who was, at various times, a politician, bar owner, insurance agent and postmaster in his hometown of Urbana in Champaign County, Ohio.

Three years before Pete was born, Pink designed and built a 6-hole course on sixty acres of farmland belonging to his wife’s family and when he got older, his son Paul (who was known as P.D. which eventually lapsed into Pete) would help out with routine maintenance while he was still a young boy.

Dye attended the Asheville School in North Carolina with his brother Andy before entering the US Army aged 18, enlisting with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg. World War II ended while he was still in training, allowing him to relocate to Florida and enrol at Rollins College where he met his wife, 

Alice was a good player who would become a great one (winning nine Indiana Women’s Amateur titles, eleven Indianapolis City Championships and a couple of US Senior Women’s Amateur Championships) and her competitive female perspective certainly played a big part in Pete’s design decisions down the years.

Pete’s golfing prowess was also rather impressive, captaining the college golf team in his youth before going on to qualify for the US Open in 1957. He won the Indiana State Amateur the following year, took part in The Amateur Championship in 1963 and participated in five US Amateurs.

, into the world after moving to Alice’s hometown of Indianapolis in Indiana, where they were both gainfully employed in insurance – Alice with Connecticut Mutual and Pete as a salesman for his father’s firm, Northwestern Mutual.

Nonetheless, Pete still hankered after a career in the world of golf. As greens committee chairman at the Country Club of Indianapolis, he used the club’s grounds to experiment with the turf, pesticide and fungicide topics that he was studying in classes at the Purdue University School of Agronomy.

In 1963, Alice joined Pete when he played in The Amateur at the St Andrews Old Course (which he termed “a goat ranch” after his first round, incidentally) and they visited more than thirty courses during what turned out to be a very productive study trip – indeed, pot bunkers, wooden bulkheads and diminutive greens would become trademark design features for the Dyes in times to come.

After producing ten courses and revising around a dozen others, the course at Crooked Stick in Carmel, Indiana, was heavily influenced by what the Dyes had seen in Great Britain the previous year. It was this layout that really put them on the golfing map when it opened to critical acclaim.

TPC Sawgrass at Ponte Vedra, Harbour Town on Hilton Head Island (in collaboration with 

) and The Golf Club in New Albany, Ohio soon followed, with Teeth of the Dog at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic attracting much attention on the world stage. Dozens of others have since appeared across thirty seven US states and more than twenty different countries.

Of course, they’re not all Pete Dye designs because sons Perry and P.B. work in the family business, as did his late brother Andy and his children Andy, Matt (also now deceased) and Cynthia.

A number of prominent architects worked for Pete Dye down the years, people like Dan Blankenship, 

, and without a doubt each and every one of them are better at their craft for having worked with the old master.

As one commentator writes: “Pete’s courses will live on for generations, challenging, intriguing, befuddling, exasperating, and delighting golfers long after he himself is gone. But those who’ve known, worked with, and befriended the man throughout his career are quick to point out that Pete Dye is as unique as the course’s he’s produced.”

After a long battle with dementia, Pete died in January 2020 but his golf course legacies will live on. Indeed, the design baton was passed on to the next Dye generations a while before his passing.


 : “During our initial trip to Scotland, Alice and I found out that most of the time the designer of the great Scottish courses was also involved in the building. This reinforced our feeling that it was difficult for a contractor to take a set of plans and implement the vision that we had for the details of the course.

We knew the only way to build the specific type of greens, fairways, tees and hazards we had in mind was for us to be intimately involved in the construction of our courses. That way, we would always have the opportunity to improvise and change things while shaping was in progress.

The new direction I intended to take would incorporate many of the design features Alice and I collected during our exploratory trip to Scotland. Not all would prove successful, but my new understanding of the use of small greens, wide fairways, contrasting grass mixes, pot bunkers, railroad ties and blind holes would affect all our future designs.”

has this to say about the architect: “Pete Dye continued to design golf courses well into his early nineties. His body of work exceeds ninety designs, which represents a smaller output than his contemporaries. Two main reasons account for this anomaly: Dye’s on-site presence throughout the construction of a project; and his passion to personally shape golf course features, utilizing various forms of construction equipment.”

Secrets of the Great Golf Course Architects

 by Michael Patrick Shiels: “Pete and I were members of the Country Club of Indianapolis and, as greens chairman, Pete finally killed most of the fairway grasses. He decided what he really wanted to do was build golf courses.”

Little Red Book of Golf Course Architecture

: "I owe my whole career to Pete and Alice Dye and their sons, Perry and P.B. They allowed me to watch and learn and they never held anything back. But it's more than that. Pete's enthusiasm for the work of golf course construction is the same example I try to set for everyone around me, and his battle of wits with great players was a master class in design."

 writes: “What Pete Dye has done for the game of golf is something for which we should all be thankful. He changed the way we think about golf course design, and how design works…Because of the attention that Pete Dye-designed courses have brought to the game, there are lots of people who are now able to make a living at golf course design. Me included.”

 mentions one of Dye’s early designs: “I’ll always have special memories of Harbour Town, on the southern tip of Hilton Head, where I was fortunate to be the inaugural champion at what was then known as the Heritage Classic… It was one of the most interesting of his designs and one I’ve enjoyed very much… I wish there were more courses like Harbour Town, which has never relied on length as a deterrent to scoring.”

 was also fulsome in his praise for Dye’s work: “The most amazing thing I have witnessed about Pete is his ability to create a golf course without a set of plans. He loves to see his courses evolve as the construction progresses, which allows his genius to resonate across the entire property… It’s as if he’s painting a masterpiece without having any directions to follow.”

 commented when Pete passed away in 2020: “He and Alice had made such an amazing team in life and golf. I would say that Pete Dye was one of the most influential golf architects in the history of the profession. Pete was the only golf architect that changed the face of golf twice, first with Harbour Town, an old-world design with characteristics totally opposite to contemporary golf architecture then in vogue. Then, he and Alice redirected golf architecture again with the creation of TPC Sawgrass, a course that would dictate the direction and style of golf architecture around the world for the next two decades. Personally, I can say Pete Dye was one of the most influential people in my life.”

Forrest Richardson also paid tribute to Pete after he died: “I remember distinctly reading an article and seeing pictures of what he did at the Golf Club in Ohio, and I was mesmerized by what he had done. When I started playing golf courses, I felt that every hole looked the same, but when I saw Pete’s work, I realized 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 energizes the golfer.”

Bobby Weed, a former associate of Pete Dye, had this to say on his demise: “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 golf courses ever since. I can hardly approve a feature without feeling Pete’s influence. How many designers could that be said about?As much as a legacy as his courses will be, the impact he had on those fortunate to work with him may be more enduring.”

 also paid his respects on Pete’s passing: “Pete inspired us all to think outside the box. He really enjoyed making the best players in the world struggle. I told him to his face that I had played holes of his where – in the same hole – I thought he was an absolute genius and a lunatic! What I admired most about Pete is that he didn’t really have much of an ego; he was just as happy working on a golf course in a housing development as he was on a big tournament site, as long as the client didn’t restrict his creativity.”

Bury Me In A Pot Bunker: Golf through the Eyes of the Game’s Most Challenging Course Designer (

: Discover how Golf can bring Love, Humor and Success into your Life (2004) by Alice Dye with Mark Shaw.

Dye Golf Courses: Fifty Years of Visionary Design

 (2008) by Joel Zuckerman contains appreciations from three of the greatest golfers turned architects who have ever lived.

World Golf Hall of Fame – Class of 2008: Pete Dye has designed more than 100 courses in North America, the Dominican Republic, Israel, and Switzerland. “Golf is not a fair game, so why build a course fair?”

Pete Dye

Pete Dye captained the college team in his youth before going on to qualify for the US Open in 1957. He won the Indiana State Amateur, took part in The Amateur in 1963 and played in five US Amateurs.

 met in the late 1940s when they were both studying at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. They then married and moved to Indianapolis, Alice’s home city, where their two sons, 

 and Paul Burke (PB as he’s known), were born.

Pete eventually left a very profitable job in insurance to pursue his vocation in golf course design and Alice followed him into their chosen profession as soon as the children became older. It wasn’t too long before both sons also became involved in what then became a family business.

“P.B. Dye attended the University of Tampa (Fla.) for several years, but his career choice was always golf course design. As the younger son of golf architect Pete and Alice Dye, he learned more about the subject at home and working on various family projects than he did at any school.

Resembling his father in voice and mannerisms and his mother in physical appearance, P.B. Dye developed a golf game, and creativity in course design, that rivalled both of them.

Some of his earliest collaborations with his father attracted immediate national attention. Long Cove Club on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina was named one of America’s 100 Greatest Courses only two years after it opened. Their creation of The Honors course, near Chattanooga, Tennessee was named the Best New Private course of 1984.”

All told, PB was involved in fourteen projects in eight American states during the 1980s and all of these – except for the private layout at The Links on Fisher Island in Florida in 1989 – were co-designed with his father Pete Dye.

During the following decade, he extended his design reach into Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin, completing a total of twenty-one commissions across the country, only four of which were built in partnership with his father.

Into the new millennium and PB’s work in the domestic market all but came to a halt. He fashioned courses at Iron Valley in Lebanon, Pennsylvania and Button Hole Golf & Learning Center in Providence, Rhode Island in 2000 then he created the layout at Harbour Links in Liberty, Indiana the following year, but that was about it.

Instead, PB ventured outside the United States for the first time since the late 1980s – when he had set out the Barbaroux course with his father in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France – and he headed off to Europe again, this time setting out an 18-hole course at the Parco di Roma Golf & Country Club in the Italian capital in the year 2000.

He also created the La Cana layout at Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic the same year, and he would return to that Caribbean country another three times between 2008 and 2010 to work on other projects.

PB’s also produced one-off designs in Mexico (at the Playa Paraiso Golf Club near Cancun in 2005), Brazil (at the Iberostar Praia do Forte Resort and Golf, Mata de Sao in 2008) and Curacao (with the Old Quarry course at the Santa Barbara Plantation in 2010).

In 2018, PB worked for the last time with his father, who now suffered from poor health. The Links at Perry Cabin in St Michael’s, Maryland was a total rebuild of an old course that Pete had originally designed with his brother Roy back in the 1960s and it’s rather fitting that PB should play a part in the final layout of a man who enjoyed a remarkable career in golf.

Courtesy of the American Society of Golf Course Architects:

“A free spirit who does not wear wrist watches or look at calendars... Following his family's example, P.B. has been ‘moving dirt’ for as long as he can remember. He was atop a bulldozer at age 9 learning the art of shaping golf courses at Crooked Stick in Carmel, Indiana, and at age 16, P.B. helped his dad at Teeth of the Dog in Dominican Republic.

P.B. embraces ‘The Dye Way’ – a personal commitment to ‘roll up your sleeves’ hard work and quality. He has no office, staff, or overhead, and he often lives on job sites, designing and building courses himself.

A survivor of both colon and rectal cancer, P.B.'s acclaimed designs include the P.B. Dye Golf Club in Maryland, The Honors Course in Tennessee, Fisher Island in Florida, and the Legends Club Moorland Course in South Carolina.”

“PB Dye took his first golf lesson and fell in love with the game about the same time most kids were barely out of rubber pants. That was back in 1959 when PB was four years old.

PB has an identity all his own, but like his father’s creations, his courses often include railroad ties, pot bunkers, and island greens. Like his dad, PB is a hands on designer, leaving his imprint on every blade of grass on a course. What separates PB from other architects is his ability to climb on a bulldozer and shape a golf hole from tee to green.

PB’s personal favorite course is the Urbana Country Club. His grandfather, ‘Pink’ Dye, started the original nine in 1922 on farm ground owned by his wife’s family. PB’s grandmother, ‘Ma’ Dye, asked him to build the second nine, seventy years later. At that point, it became a personal mission, a real grass roots project.”

“When my younger son P.B. was in his early twenties, he was just a step away from being good enough to compete on the professional golf tour. P.B. was swinging a club when he was five, outdriving me by the time he was fifteen.

P.B. was for all practical purposes born on a bulldozer, and he might be the most innovative operator of a small dozer I’ve ever seen. His ability to sculpt three-dimensional shapes is exceptional, and his work at Long Cove produced some of the finest mounding ever created.

Being a good player and having visited Scotland and played in The Amateur gave P.B. many visual ideas. Shot values are crucial to him and my second-born is a hands-on designer whose favourite pastime is sitting square on a bulldozer and moving earth.

P.B. has done fine work on his own since he formed his own company P.B. Dye Inc. in the mid-1980s. His designs at Loblolly Pines, Palm Beach Polo Club, Harbour Ridge and the exquisite nine holes on Fisher’s Island where they played the Merrill Lynch Senior Shoot-Out in 1993, are very innovative Florida courses.

Debordieu, Prestwick and The Legends are as good as anything that can be found in South Carolina, and P.B.s’ series of Gauntlet public courses along the Eastern Seaboard are first rate. In 1993, P.B. added nine holes to my dad’s initial nine at the Urbana Country Club (and will) blend in perfectly with my father’s work.

We never dreamed our sons would become golf course architects, even though they had been exposed to construction from their youth. When both showed interest, we divided the country: P.B. could design courses east of the Mississippi and Perry took the western half.”

P. B. Dye

P.B. Dye is a free spirit who doesn't wear a watch or look at calendars. He took his first golf lesson in 1959 and fell in love with the game as a four-year-old when most kids were barely out of diapers.

South Carolina

Pete Dye is more acclaimed for his designs located on the coast of South Carolina, but he and his son P.B. Dye trekked inland to create Windermere Country Club, north of Columbia.

As is often the case with a Dye creation, there are multiple holes that will draw significant attention. Frequently at Windermere, No. 13 is the hole that attracts the attention. A 200-yard par three with a wide “boomerang” of green, even three putts will be difficult for those who land on the opposite side of the putting surface.

Other holes deserve some consideration as well, including No. 10 that, at 510 yards, seems like a very reachable par five. Finding the green in two will mean an exact approach shot, as anyone who veers right of this perched putting surface will find themselves down a steep embankment to the right, in a bunker that makes getting up in one seem as unlikely as the two-putt at No. 13.

P.B. often displays a level of deference to his father but perhaps he got loose long enough to lead at No. 14, a 310-yard par four pockmarked with pot bunkers throughout its fairway. Pete is known for his distaste of drivable par fours, which makes us think P.B. was in charge here.

The Windermere Club

Sage Valley

North America

A Pete and P. B. Dye semi-private course that opened for play in 1989, the 18-hole layout at The Windermere Club is more than capable of serving up an engaging round of golf.