Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: Matt_Cohn on March 12, 2022, 02:43:40 PM
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Not at the Stadium Course at Sawgrass, obviously, or at many others. But I’ve played a couple of Pete Dye courses that look like they were designed in an afternoon. The Valley at Sawgrass…never heard much great about that. Maybe “inconsistent quality” is a possible description. Or were there just wildly differing goals, budgets, etc.?
I’m happy to be wrong; I’m not really trying to make this argument. But I’m wondering about it.
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Matt If you have specific instances please mention them. Take a stance and back it up, but the statement is throwing the anchor in a negative light. I think it is a function of land and budget. One less than good piece of land for the routing of Dye's I've played is Ruffled Feathers in Lemont, Ill. as the routing I believe was limited and not a big fan of it at all. He certainly had a pretty good budget as it was originally private then went public. Maybe another is the Dunes Course at La Quinta Resort. Very limited routing there going through drainage ravines.
So would he have been better off declining those jobs for his reputation perhaps, but it is a paycheck and he did the best he could I reckon.
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The ones that came to mind are La Quinta Dunes, the non-mountain holes on the Mountain Course, the resort course at Mission Hills a few miles away, and ASU Karsten.
Others I’ve played are Carmel Valley Ranch, Oak Tree National, one at Oak Tree CC, and PGA West Stadium.
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Certainly agree on the Dunes Course.
PGA West Stadium I think is a phenomenal test, very unnecessary difficulty manufactured although I totally respect it for what it is. Really enjoyed playing there when I was a much better golfer.
Carmel Valley Ranch is limited by it's real estate routing as well. I guess architects that route courses through real estate developments are working with one arm tied behind their backs and a theme.
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For the life of me, I don’t understand the motivation of starting a thread, the sole motivation of which is to trash one of the 10 greatest architects of all time who died relatively recently. Discussing the positives and negatives of a particular design is interesting and informative. This is not.
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What if the reason I avoided Pete Dye courses in my youth was more than just a reaction to my ego and skill level?
All this “napkin” talk doesn’t help.
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Should those of of who don’t recall everywhere we have played be excluded from the conversation? Growing up just south of Indy it feels like I have played 50 Dye courses. Probably closer to 10 but it’s impossible to know. As distasteful as it may sound Pete has to be held responsible for the work his family did before his death. That’s how a family business works in the real world.
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Mr. Dye built a lot of courses. Inevitably he spent more time on some than on others. From my own observations, though:
* Some of his "mailed in" courses aren't really his. Kearney Hill is an example - it's well-known in its area, and golfers like that they're "playing a Pete Dye course." It features Dye hallmarks like angles we'd all recognize, bulkheads, and railroad ties. And it's a damn good course, and an amazing value. But it's not world class. Also... it's almost surely mostly PB's work. Dye seems to have given his associates a lot of freedom, and lent his name to projects he supported the success of even when he wasn't doing all the work himself, and the results are often damn good courses that boosted careers, but maybe not Pete's career. And I imagine that's something he was more proud of than upset by.
* I actually think, rather than "mailing it in," that Dye was more prone to getting in too deep. He tried some pretty wild stuff, and some of it gets pretty polarizing. I know a lot of golfers scratch their heads at some of the stuff going on at French Lick, for example. But it's hard to question the effort, willingness to experiment, and audacity of the work. A 90 year old man actively pushing boundaries on that level is pretty cool to me, even if it gets a little too far out in left field sometimes. The Irish Course is another example. It might just be a 5/10, but it takes too many risks to call it "mailed in" for me.
* I think it's fair to note that Dye was a bit of a "template architect." He used certain themes repeatedly. But I've never played a Dye that didn't drain, or that constantly struggled with conditioning, or with a detached routing. We get pretty hung up strategic design around here, and sometimes he probably overused some of the same principles on that front. But his courses almost always get the fundamentals right, in my experience. The engineering of a "golfable" work of architecture is pretty much always the outcome, even when given a site with major drawbacks on that front. Like a swamp. Or an abandoned military site. Or a beautiful seaside locale with very little soil.
He might've been a little more of an engineer and psychologist than starving artist. That might look like mailing it in to laymen like us who notice the art before the engineering, especially if you'd rather feel fun than fear on your next shot, but I think there are a lot of details he pretty much always got right.
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For the life of me, I don’t understand the motivation of starting a thread, the sole motivation of which is to trash one of the 10 greatest architects of all time who died relatively recently. Discussing the positives and negatives of a particular design is interesting and informative. This is not.
So we can discuss particular golf courses, but not patterns to an architect’s work as a whole? Interesting. The motivation of starting this thread is that, for a top-10 architect of all time, some of his courses are pretty lame. I want to know why.
Perhaps you can help to answer my question rather than getting mad at me for asking it. Did he continue to take low-budget, low-potential projects throughout his career, something a guy like Fazio wouldn’t do? Was he a hit-or-miss architect? Did lose interest sometimes? Do you think there’s a quality to the courses that I’m not seeing? You tell me.
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Matt, what you've said in this thread so far adds up to:
- Pete Dye mailed it in at courses.
- Names of three courses on your Bad Pete List
Cool premise. But you haven't made a case. Hot takes are fun if defended compellingly. But if you're just here to repeat a scorching thesis, well, others have already refuted it, I think. I probably should've just +1'd Jeff and JakaB myself, but I'm rooting for you to tap your inner Skip Bayless and go all in.
Just speaking as a dude who's gone full Bayless before. It's the reason my Twitter avatar is Lenny Wilkens lol.
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I wonder if the perception is that because Pete templatized nearly everything and imposed it on the sites he worked on, even including how he routed courses, that he mailed it in? I don't know if its true or not, but I think its an interesting question.
But he wouldn't be the first to criticized for it. Jim Engh certainly uses templates a ton and safe to say won't be winning any popularity contests here. But I've played several of his courses and absolutely loved them, I think they are a ton of fun.
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Matt, what you've said in this thread so far adds up to:
- Pete Dye mailed it in at courses.
- Names of three courses on your Bad Pete List
Cool premise. But you haven't made a case. Hot takes are fun if defended compellingly. But if you're just here to repeat a scorching thesis, well, others have already refuted it, I think. I probably should've just +1'd Jeff and JakaB myself, but I'm rooting for you to tap your inner Skip Bayless and go all in.
Just speaking as a dude who's gone full Bayless before. It's the reason my Twitter avatar is Lenny Wilkens lol.
Again I'm not really trying to make a case, and I'm 20x a Rick Bayless fan compared to Skip! I'm asking a question, albeit with a provocative title that made you look. Plenty of people have gotten shit on this website for talking about courses they haven't played, so I'm not doing that. I'm talking about the 8 PD courses I've played, which include 2 generally excellent ones (PGA West and Oak Tree National), 2.5 that are fine (Oak Tree CC, Carmel Valley Ranch, mountain holes at LQ-Mountain), and 3.5 that are quite blah (flat holes at LQ-Mountain, LQ Dunes, Westin Mission Hills, ASU Karsten). I would say that for a top-10 all-time architect, 25% generally excellent and 44% "blah" is not great.
By comparison, I can think of 10 Fazio courses I've played (Grand Del Mar, Vintage-Desert, Pelican Hill x2, Karsten Creek, Grayhawk, Preserve, Primm Valley x2, Conway Farms) and maybe 1.5 or "blah" if I were trying to be mean.
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8) errrr, Matt,
I think your sample size is a little low, per https://www.dyedesigns.com/portfolio-2/
I think you need to get out to more Dye courses...
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I’ve played some forty of his courses, many that had just opened. There are some courses that I don’t particularly like or enjoy but I never heard anyone complain that he hadn’t spent much time on the course. After playing one of his new courses years ago that I thought was less than stellar, I asked the pro what the owner wanted. What I had played was exactly the orders given to Pete. All architects have some mandate they more or less try to follow. That said I do tire of some of his templates, especially a dogleg left cape hole on 18.
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Matt,
My only objection would be using the snarky "mail it in" phrase instead of your alternative of "Maybe “inconsistent quality” as a possible description.
Of course of his hundreds of projects, there were wildly differing:
- Site quality
- Budgets
- Owner's goals, including later owners whose instructions were "I want it unique, as long as it looks just like the last three courses you did."
- Owners he got along with. Difficult owners or project reps can dimish project quality for ego reasons.
- Like every other architect who had more than one project at a time, different associates directing from his general principles, and different people building it.
- He could only be on site nearly full time up to TPC Sawgrass, rarely afterward. Also, he got older like the rest of us.
- According to his late son Perry, Pete did end up with 21 template holes, just enough, he thought, so he wasn't using all 18 every time out.
I actually wonder about the different associates. For any architect who gets to be a success, I wonder if they accept that their final product is 90% as good as their best, or could fool 90%+ of golfers that it was their style and design?
In the end, it is not so unnerving that not every design is a top ten, unless you only have 9 or less designs to your credit. :D So many factors go into making a design great, including ongoing maintenance, that you would never have every course rated a perfect 10 on the Doak scale, no matter how good the architect.
Speaking of ongoing maintenance, in watching the TPC, it seems to me it is one instance of great maintenance diminishing a great design.....it just looks too clean and neet to be a Pete Dye course.
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Thank you Jeff. “Mail it in” is a pretty nasty term, implying to me, at least, and almost dishonest lack of effort. Just discuss Pete’s work; don’t challenge his integrity.
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In fairness though, in the latter part of his career, when he had his son's or associates, like Tim Liddy, design his courses based on perhaps 1 site visit, isn't that the definition of mailing it in? I am not hating, he mostly starting doing this when he was retirement age for everyone else. I think in the last 25 years of his career he got more choosy on the projects he decided to invest his time on.
This video is the definition of "mailing it in". I am not even sure he ever even stepped foot in Israel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soZEIsShImQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soZEIsShImQ)
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The definition is, "To perform a given task, duty, or activity with little or no attention, effort, or interest; to do something perfunctorily."
If you put a system in place, have trained people in your philosophy and style, and then let them perform the work in your name (again, as nearly every architect has....did Frank Lloyd Wright personally supervise every square inch of every building that came from his firm? Ross? Doak? Henry Ford? Steve Jobs?) did you mail it in?
Architecture is more than art. I am not even sure Andy Warhol or other artists even make every brush stroke. Certainly not in something as big as the Sistine Chapel way back when.....If something is a big project, chances are there is some system in place to get it done.
Not to mention, this was Isreal. Sometimes in foreign countries, they want their own crews to build stuff for political reasons. The few shots of that golf course (if it was that golf course) didn't seem to have the same detail as Pete's best, but then again, over there, it is possible he didn't have as much control over it for that reason or pure distance. The few things I got built oversees sure didn't look much like my best work here.
Just random thoughts.
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So we can discuss particular golf courses, but not patterns to an architect’s work as a whole? Interesting. The motivation of starting this thread is that, for a top-10 architect of all time, some of his courses are pretty lame. I want to know why.
Of the 400+ courses Donald Ross designed, renovated or reworked in his lifetime there are arguably a number of duds and forgettable tracks. In fact, the vast majority aren't in the conversation of Top 200 in U.S. Does that make him a less competent or accomplished architect? No! Not every project an esteemed architect takes on is going to be the next Pine Valley. Everyone has done work they're not overly proud of or courses they wish they had a redo on. There are projects some wish they wouldn't have taken on at all as a result of having to make compromises that worked against them doing their best work. Dye wasn't immune from this. No architect is. However, many of the reasons for this don't necessarily fall on the shoulders of said architect. There are a lot of factors that come into play, i.e. land limitations, topography, budget, the developers (sometimes ever changing) demands, clubs demands/expectations, etc. Thus, the term "mailing it in" isn't a fair assessment of why certain Pete Dye courses never caught on or weren't emblematic of the architects best work. Few, if any of us, would know the dynamics involved that led to a particular course falling short of the mark or failing to live up to expectations.
It's an impossible and unrealistic ask to expect every architects work to be worthy of a Top 100 ranking. The best any architect can hope to do is design and construct the best possible course within the confines and limitations of the land they have to work with, the expectations of the developer/owner(s) and the budget they have to work with. Unless an architect has an open checkbook given to them, there will be compromises made that work against what a course could have or should have been, which frequently isn't the architects fault. So, without being given more specifics on the Dye courses you feel fall short of his best work, it's impossible to comment on why this may be, let alone those here agreeing with your assessment of the Dye courses that don't measure up to his more noteworthy courses.
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So which Ross courses are duds and forgettable?
Bogey
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So which Ross courses are duds and forgettable?
Bogey
He can't remember ;)
Niall
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To my knowledge I've never played a Pete Dye course so have nothing to add as to the question raised in the OP however I think it a valid question to ask as it addresses the architects work and design methods, and if we can't address that on here then where can we ? As to the phrase itself, I wonder if it only becomes insulting if you happened to know/knew the architect personally ? I can't imagine anyone getting too hot under the collar if the same question was asked in the same way of one of the ODG's.
Niall
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Im a huge Pete Dye fan, so I write this cautiously.
Having worked at both Long Cove Club & Old Marsh Golf Club, there is a certain look, a certain feel to a course where Pete spent a lot of time on. I beg to wonder if Pete ever turned work down, as he had many associates & sons around him ready to handle jobs. Hampton Hall comes to mind as a course with Pete's name on it, yet there are many parts to HH that don't have that polished, Pete Dye look to them.
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To my knowledge I've never played a Pete Dye course so have nothing to add as to the question raised in the OP however I think it a valid question to ask as it addresses the architects work and design methods, and if we can't address that on here then where can we ? As to the phrase itself, I wonder if it only becomes insulting if you happened to know/knew the architect personally ? I can't imagine anyone getting too hot under the collar if the same question was asked in the same way of one of the ODG's.
Niall
I agree--seemed like a reasonable question from someone who wanted an answer (no agenda nor malicious subtext).
And Jeff Brauer (a real live GCA) provided some possible explanations.
Isn't that the way it's supposed to work here?
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Of the 400+ courses Donald Ross designed, renovated or reworked in his lifetime there are arguably a number of duds and forgettable tracks. In fact, the vast majority aren't in the conversation of Top 200 in U.S.
This has nothing to do with architecture and everything to do with mathematics :)
It's an impossible and unrealistic ask to expect every architects work to be worthy of a Top 100 ranking.
Especially if he designed more than 400 courses!
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So which Ross courses are duds and forgettable?
Bogey
In Michigan alone I'd say Warren Valley, Monroe Golf and Country Club, Chandler Park and Rogell (NLE). One could argue he didn't have great tracks of land to work with at those locations, but the courses aren't anywhere near the caliber of work done at OHCC, Franklin Hills and Barton Hills. The Bobby Jones Golf Course in Sarasota is definitely not indicative of Ross best work, but who's to say how much of what Ross did there is even left? That said, I played it once and would never go back. Compared to Sara Bay there's a night and day difference. Then again, one is public and the other private. In any event I wouldn't rate any of these courses above a Doak 4.
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Of the 400+ courses Donald Ross designed, renovated or reworked in his lifetime there are arguably a number of duds and forgettable tracks. In fact, the vast majority aren't in the conversation of Top 200 in U.S.
This has nothing to do with architecture and everything to do with mathematics :)
It's an impossible and unrealistic ask to expect every architects work to be worthy of a Top 100 ranking.
Especially if he designed more than 400 courses!
Agreed! That said, I don't care what type of design or creative profession you're in. Not everything you do is going to be representative of your best work. Not every Beatles song was a no. 1 hit despite how talented the four members were. There are a number of less than memorable songs scattered throughout their catalog. Not everything the great impressionists did back in the day became masterpieces. That's just the law of averages at work. Every human being is susceptible to this because we are imperfect.
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Chandler Park is a Ross?
Sven
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I'm a big Pete Dye fan, of the man and his courses. One that seemed like a "mail-in" (whatever that means) was Old Quarry in Curacao. It's certainly pretty and seaside, but the details for playability just weren't there in many places. Add an island where golf is not part of the culture, and the sketchy detailing creeps into the areas that should be easier to maintain.
To be honest, it's not terrible...and the fact that I have to grasp at the Curacao straw probably means 95% of his designs are well done.
For symmetry, the "worst" Ross course I ever played was Fairview in Fort Wayne, IN...now called Donald Ross Golf Club, owned by Indiana Tech. He did only 9 there, and I thought I had his nine pegged but the more interesting one was the 9 done in the 70s. It's not offensive, just not dynamic at all. The price is great for any type of golf too...$20 to walk 18!
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Given everyone's love of rankings to a minute degree, no architect could get by with equally thought of courses. In no time, for any gca, one course would creep to number 1, etc. ??? And, some courses would have to drop to 46(in my case) or 400 in the case of Ross. Human nature.
And just to add to my previous post about how those relative duds might come to be, in my professional experience, design contracts can vary, which is a bit different than having a difficult owner or owner's rep. I would guess my two least best courses would be Cross Timbers in Azle, TX and Eagle Bend in Lawrence, KS. In both cases, they were designed for one of those (then more common) companies that promised small towns they could get a public course without using city money by issuing revenue (vs general) bonds.
However, they had to beat a budget, so they were both underfunded and my contract was with them. They had their in house builder who felt free to make changes on behalf of his boss to meet budget, but also, he was a frustrated designer. The contract called for only a minimum of site visits. To my eye, it shows.
On the other hand, I did one design build for Landscapes Unlimited, and they had similar contract clauses, but more respect for the architect. That course, not 50 miles from Lawrence is usually ranked the top public course in KS. I am sure someone who plays both regularly could wonder how the same guy designed both.
And now you know the rest of the story.......except that I will say, I used to joke that I had designed the 1, 2, 3, and last ranked public courses in KS. Eagle Bend has continually spent to basically put back in what was left out by the original budget, and then some, and it now has a much better reputation.
Something to ponder when considering what goes in a "restoration" of your favorite course. It may not have met the original gca's vision, and almost certainly, left out some things that need to be put in, whether part of the original design or not. In other words, as long as golf architecture exists in a time-space continuum there is always hope it can get better.
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Thank you Jeff. “Mail it in” is a pretty nasty term, implying to me, at least, and almost dishonest lack of effort. Just discuss Pete’s work; don’t challenge his integrity.
How is "Mail it in" a nasty term in this case?
Didn't guys like James Braid route course by stake, leaving the construction to locals? Doesn't Donald Ross have courses in which he primarily designed only on paper, handing over his routing to guys like McGovern and Cobb to handled the construction and shaping?
If the practice has been historically common and accepted in golf course architecture, why in this case does it imply dishonesty?
Has it not been a practice for a client and architect to negotiate factors like how frequently the "named architect" would visit the site? More visits, more $$$. Isn't that why guys like Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and now Tiger Woods employ multiple senior architects to manage the day to day of the work while they oversaw the project at a distance?
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Chandler Park is a Ross?
Sven
There's ongoing debate as to the architect behind Chandler, but there's a vocal contingent that feel its a Ross.
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Thank you Jeff. “Mail it in” is a pretty nasty term, implying to me, at least, and almost dishonest lack of effort. Just discuss Pete’s work; don’t challenge his integrity.
How is "Mail it in" a nasty term in this case?
Didn't guys like James Braid route course by stake, leaving the construction to locals? Doesn't Donald Ross have courses in which he primarily designed only on paper, handing over his routing to guys like McGovern and Cobb to handled the construction and shaping?
If the practice has been historically common and accepted in golf course architecture, why in this case does it imply dishonesty?
Has it not been a practice for a client and architect to negotiate factors like how frequently the "named architect" would visit the site? More visits, more $$$. Isn't that why guys like Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and now Tiger Woods employ multiple senior architects to manage the day to day of the work while they oversaw the project at a distance?
There are some who would call name pros an exercise in dishonesty. Not JN and AP, and a few others who built firms that can actually design courses. But, others who would slap their name on a project for a cool fee, and as you say, negotiate to visit once or a few times for photo ops. I think I represented the few I worked with well, but a few have used many different backing architects and don't seem to care exactly what the final product looks like.
That is, however, a subject for another day. And, in common parlance now....not 100+ years ago, let's face it, "Mail it in" is a pretty snarky phrase.
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And, in common parlance now....not 100+ years ago, let's face it, "Mail it in" is a pretty snarky phrase.
When others have taken offense to the term because he's "one of the 10 greatest architects of all time", you can't just look at today, you have to look at 100 years ago as well. The question the OP proposed could be considered applicable for a wide range of architects over the past 100+ years, not just Dye. Especially consider at time architects have quite literally mailed plans to a site for construction with little to no actual contact.
While I do not believe Dye ever did that, I also believe that like many architects today he spent more time on site a certain courses and less time on site at others, relying on those around him to handle certain tasks that he would have otherwise undertaken himself.
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Ben,
Your second pp is spot on. Your last two sentences in the first pp are fine. The 1st sentence in the first pp is a defensive stretch of logic. The OP was specifically about Pete, not the last 100 years. At least, I see it as a stretch of the OP's premise.
That said, it is a surprise to me that even considering just Pete's career, it now covers about 60 of the last 100 years. In the first 20 of those, however, we generally assume Pete and Alice were pretty hands on. Later, maybe the last 20 years, he might not have been. Time does fly.
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Ben,
Your second pp is spot on. Your last two sentences in the first pp are fine. The 1st sentence in the first pp is a defensive stretch of logic. The OP was specifically about Pete, not the last 100 years. At least, I see it as a stretch of the OP's premise.
That said, it is a surprise to me that even considering just Pete's career, it now covers about 60 of the last 100 years. In the first 20 of those, however, we generally assume Pete and Alice were pretty hands on. Later, maybe the last 20 years, he might not have been. Time does fly.
Jeff,
You are correct. I was not attempting to stretch the premise of the OP's opening question. Rather I was responding to the collection of poster who rejected the premise of the question due to the fact that Dye was such a revered architect and they did not like the phrasing. The moniker of top 10 greatest and the time span of 100+ years were not originally my words, but do help to frame Dye's career within the confines of the industries history.
As you acknowledged, the the scale of an architects participation is both sliding and has historically significant. Which just goes to reaffirm the validity of the original question. What each of us have to decide is what level of effort/time is required from an architect for their participation to be viewed as significant or insignificant.
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Back to the OP's original question.
For Dye is there a correlation between the courses in which a lot of dirt was required to be moved being some of his best and courses where little dirt being moves were some of his worse? While that could easily be a greater question about project budget, when almost complete manufactured places like Whistling Straits, Sawgrass, and Kiawah are on the top of his list it does beg the question.
The biggest head scratcher I've played of his is Atlanta National. But there I have to wonder if Pete's name was only used to sell memberships and PB was the sole designer. That is a course that feels like it could have used another set of eyes questioning if the routing really made sense.
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Of the 400+ courses Donald Ross designed, renovated or reworked in his lifetime there are arguably a number of duds and forgettable tracks. In fact, the vast majority aren't in the conversation of Top 200 in U.S.
This has nothing to do with architecture and everything to do with mathematics :)
It's an impossible and unrealistic ask to expect every architects work to be worthy of a Top 100 ranking.
Especially if he designed more than 400 courses!
If he designed 401 courses, his worst course would be outside the top 400. What a bum. ;)
I remember when I first got to Pittsburgh, going to a course called Montour Heights to set it up for a college tournament. As I got rain d the course I knew I recognized a number of features. I called my boss and asked, “Is this a Pete Dye course?” He said the it was both a Pete and PB design, but if you asked either of them, they would probably tell you the other one did it. The main issue was that it was way too hilly to allow a good course to be built.
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Chandler Park is a Ross?
Sven
There's ongoing debate as to the architect behind Chandler, but there's a vocal contingent that feel its a Ross.
It's not.
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Back to the OP's original question.
For Dye is there a correlation between the courses in which a lot of dirt was required to be moved being some of his best and courses where little dirt being moves were some of his worse? While that could easily be a greater question about project budget, when almost complete manufactured places like Whistling Straits, Sawgrass, and Kiawah are on the top of his list it does beg the question.
The biggest head scratcher I've played of his is Atlanta National. But there I have to wonder if Pete's name was only used to sell memberships and PB was the sole designer. That is a course that feels like it could have used another set of eyes questioning if the routing really made sense.
Interesting question. Many think Dye had a larger share of manufactured courses on dead flat sites (i.e., TPC Sawgrass, Harbor Town) but he did many courses on rolling ground. I am not the expert having played some, but certainly not all Dye courses. That said, it does seem later in his career, even his gently rolling sites got the full Dye treatment. Here in Dallas, his Stonebridge Ranch was on pretty nice ground, but still had the mounding, lateral lakes with strip bunkers, etc. I think Whistling Straits did have some gentle rolling ground, which was maybe generally used in the routing, but then he superimposed his faux dunes on top.
I was building a course in Atlanta near the time of Atlanta National, and do believe they told me PB was the main architect there. It had a few of what I considered to be wildly experimental holes that weren't great, but couldn't say who was behind that.
Overall, I think we might characterize Pete's later style as a copy of his style developed at TPC, because (probably) that is what developers wanted out of him?
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Jeff,
I shaped for Pete at Stonebridge Ranch. Rod Whitman was the project manager there. I still remember to this day arriving on site and my first job was leveling teeing grounds. Rod drove by and saw me working on the tees and laughed, ( like what are you doing get on a dozer) said meet him on #18. Told me to grab the Dozer in the fairway and to meet Pete and him up by the green.
The first thing Pete said to me, Jimmy get on that dozer and push the dirt around, gave a few quick ideas which I remembered from previous jobs and told me he would be back, Rod checked in on me and made a few more suggestions and then told me to go over to hole #9.
I recognized that layout with two finishing holes wrapped around a large lake, (Pete's template holes) and got busy shaping that green in as well. In typical Pete Dye fashion, adjust a little here move that over a bit there and then wait for Alice to chime in. Sent me down to 17 green next, I was so comfortable with the jargon that Pete used that if anyone else had heard the conversation they would wonder if we were speaking a foreign language.
Pretty good piece of land especially down along the creek area on the North end of the property. So long ago yet seems like yesterday.
Thanks for the memories.
Someone needs to define Mailing It In.
# of Days on site - Results - Routing only- what is the definition of Mailing it In ??? ??
Mackenzie mailed in a lot of his work???
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Pete Dye might've been the mentor to more of today's highly regarded designers than anyone. Some may not like his work but I don't think that happens if you "mail it in".
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Jeff defined “mail it in” very well. It is an unkind term implying intentional lack of effort. For anyone hired to perform a service - lawyer, doctor, architect etc. - it is an insult. And although my contact with Pete was minuscule compared to many here, I am confident the answer to the question posed is NO.
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Or perhaps he gave all those wonderful architects who once worked for him the greatest gift of all. A chance to learn how to fail. At his expense.
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Jeff,
I shaped for Pete at Stonebridge Ranch. Rod Whitman was the project manager there. I still remember to this day arriving on site and my first job was leveling teeing grounds. Rod drove by and saw me working on the tees and laughed, ( like what are you doing get on a dozer) said meet him on #18. Told me to grab the Dozer in the fairway and to meet Pete and him up by the green.
The first thing Pete said to me, Jimmy get on that dozer and push the dirt around, gave a few quick ideas which I remembered from previous jobs and told me he would be back, Rod checked in on me and made a few more suggestions and then told me to go over to hole #9.
I recognized that layout with two finishing holes wrapped around a large lake, (Pete's template holes) and got busy shaping that green in as well. In typical Pete Dye fashion, adjust a little here move that over a bit there and then wait for Alice to chime in. Sent me down to 17 green next, I was so comfortable with the jargon that Pete used that if anyone else had heard the conversation they would wonder if we were speaking a foreign language.
Pretty good piece of land especially down along the creek area on the North end of the property. So long ago yet seems like yesterday.
Thanks for the memories.
Someone needs to define Mailing It In.
# of Days on site - Results - Routing only- what is the definition of Mailing it In ??? ??
Mackenzie mailed in a lot of his work???
JC,
I appreciate that. It was announced about the first month I started my own practice, and I got the name of the developer and called him and wrote them. I got a nice answer back that they had already hired Pete prior to the public announcement, with an invite to go out there any time to monitor progress, and I did go out there once.
The original land plan had a lot of apartments and multiple family, and I have to admit I wondered why a name architect was required for low end housing. The final product did edge up to higher end, especially around his course, which made more sense to me. After all, I think North Dallas invented the McMansion trend........
My funny story about that version of the 9 and 18 around a lake. I took a potential client there to play and he was slicing all day, and finding nearly every water hazard. On 18, I bet him lunch on whether he would find water off the tee. He missed the lake by over correcting right and landed in a swimming pool, which cause animated discussion on what the bet was. I contended that hitting a swimming pool counted, as we didn't specifically say water hazard, and won the argument, but since he was a potential client, bought lunch anyway.
Another funny Stonebridge story, shortly after I hired Jeff Blume, we went out and played there. He had been rejected by Alice in part because he has a hazard right in front of the traditional women's tees, and then he saw a deep bunker right in front of one of those tees on the course. He brought in his drawing which Alice had marked up, "X" ing out hazards that affected women (this was right around when her "Two Tee System for Women" came out. He was perplexed, to say the least, but probably only his first lesson in the fact that gca' don't always follow their own written philosophies to the T.
The one feature I always wondered about was the deep bunker behind ten green, which had a huge cut at the back. It actually looked to me like it has been shaped as a constant back slope, until someone realized a drain tile had to be cut through somewhere, and they cut it so they could trench it, and just left it after trenching. Sometimes the unique somewhat awkward design features are happy accidents (if my theory is true in that case)
Lastly, I was a member there briefly, when they changed it to "Dallas Stars Country Club" and gave all season ticket holders a membership, but it lasted a year, and seemed like too long a drive for me to use anyway.
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Mackenzie mailed in a lot of his work???
Seems like that is never discussed. He spent 3 months in Australia yet consulted on 9 courses. It's a rumor in the Bay Area that he spent very little time if any at Green Hills. That course was built by Jack Fleming.
Regarding Dye, of course he mailed it in. I played golf with Perry and Ann Dye at the Mountain course at La Quinta and Perry took credit for most of the work.
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I can't believe -- on this, of all sites -- some are seriously getting their knickers in a bunch over the relatively innocuous term "mail it in."
Otherwise amazing actors sometimes get accused of "mailing in" a performance on a film they never really wanted to do. It's a thing. Some people do it. The OP was asking if Dye ever did.
Good Lord.
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I can’t bring myself to either like or hate Pete Dye’s work. I often feel like once you’ve played one of his courses, you have played them all. I can live with an island green and bulkheads, but extremely predictable and unattractive bunkering doesn’t do it for me. But in the world of modern architecture which is almost completely rubbish, he was certainly above average.
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"Mailing it in" on something that takes so long to build? I don't know about that. I used to see landscape architcture projects get wittled down by clients. Projects that started as one thing and turned into something entirely different by the end. It happens, and sometimes your name (unfortunately) ends up on it. Depending on the state of the economy you take the work that keeps the lights on.
Did Robert DiNiro mail it in when he filmed "Dirty Grandpa"? Maybe....or maybe he went into the project thinking "it is what it is". (Why doesn't anyone say "it ain't what it ain't?) Filler work. Sometimes you get The Godfather II and Good Fellas, and in between you get Little Fockers and Dirty Grandpa. Some people choose to do it, others don't.
Mailing it in on a golf course construction would require someone dedicated, someone absolutely hellbent, with a singular focus to go into work and just not care. Every. Single. Day. For like a year. He just doesn't strike me as the type. JMO.
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Mailing it in on a golf course construction would require someone dedicated, someone absolutely hellbent, with a singular focus to go into work and just not care. Every. Single. Day. For like a year. He just doesn't strike me as the type. JMO.
I don't think he mailed it in for a good chunk of his career. But to deny that he didn't have courses with his name on them that he had almost nothing to do with is naive, I think. I would call that mailing it in.
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WWho actually knows other than his family/company about which projects he didn't spend much/any time at. hat if Pete Dye had done what Jack Nicklaus did, which is to create the Jack Nicklaus Signature courses to differentiate the ones he worked on all himself from the company as a whole. Don't the JN signature courses also require JN to approve changes as well? If PD had a signature line maybe that would differentiate the list.
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The most recent episode of Derek Duncan's "Feed the Ball" podcast included Tim Liddy, who explained that once Dye found an architectural "vocabulary" that resonated with him, he stuck with it over the course of the rest of his career. That made a lot of sense to me.
I think it can be tempting to interpret a combination of aesthetic consistency of his courses + perceived not-greatness of them as "mailing it in" but I think it was more about him being comfortable being himself and declining/refusing to compromise on his artistic style.
It seems today's most prominent architects are either still finding their own vocabularies, or they are ideologically opposed to the idea of having and pursuing a vocabulary in quite the same way. I think that's a sound approach, too, because ultimately the content of the golf course is more important. I've always found the content of Dye's courses to be very good to excellent, so the aesthetic consistency doesn't bother me.
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The most recent episode of Derek Duncan's "Feed the Ball" podcast included Tim Liddy, who explained that once Dye found an architectural "vocabulary" that resonated with him, he stuck with it over the course of the rest of his career. That made a lot of sense to me.
Call me skeptical but I think Pete took his fame and this style of the big stadium courses and rode it to the bank on the back of Landmark land, Herb Kohler and others.
It just doesn't make sense that his arguably two best courses were built in 1966 and 1969 yet he went after these big money projects going forward.
[size=78%] [/size]
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The most recent episode of Derek Duncan's "Feed the Ball" podcast included Tim Liddy, who explained that once Dye found an architectural "vocabulary" that resonated with him, he stuck with it over the course of the rest of his career. That made a lot of sense to me.
Call me skeptical but I think Pete took his fame and this style of the big stadium courses and rode it to the bank on the back of Landmark land, Herb Kohler and others.
It just doesn't make sense that his arguably two best courses were built in 1966 and 1969 yet he went after these big money projects going forward.
[size=78%] [/size]
You can argue that most of his best courses were actually built in the 80s in one way or another
TPC
Long Cove
Honors
Blackwolf
Pete Dye (finished in 90s but mostly built in the 80s)
PGA West
Old Marsh
Firethorn
Austin
Kiawah (started late 80s)
I don't know about you but that is not a bad decade by any means. I would also venture to guess that the above courses are also the courses that got the most personal attention from Dye. He outsourced a lot of others to his son's in the 80s. I don't think Dye has many courses that rate a 5 or less that he gave his full attention to.
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The most recent episode of Derek Duncan's "Feed the Ball" podcast included Tim Liddy, who explained that once Dye found an architectural "vocabulary" that resonated with him, he stuck with it over the course of the rest of his career. That made a lot of sense to me.
Call me skeptical but I think Pete took his fame and this style of the big stadium courses and rode it to the bank on the back of Landmark land, Herb Kohler and others.
It just doesn't make sense that his arguably two best courses were built in 1966 and 1969 yet he went after these big money projects going forward.
[size=78%] [/size]
You can argue that most of his best courses were actually built in the 80s in one way or another
TPC
Long Cove
Honors
Blackwolf
Pete Dye (finished in 90s but mostly built in the 80s)
PGA West
Old Marsh
Firethorn
Austin
Kiawah (started late 80s)
I don't know about you but that is not a bad decade by any means. I would also venture to guess that the above courses are also the courses that got the most personal attention from Dye. He outsourced a lot of others to his son's in the 80s. I don't think Dye has many courses that rate a 5 or less that he gave his full attention to.
His best overall work was in the 1980's no doubt.
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The most recent episode of Derek Duncan's "Feed the Ball" podcast included Tim Liddy, who explained that once Dye found an architectural "vocabulary" that resonated with him, he stuck with it over the course of the rest of his career. That made a lot of sense to me.
Call me skeptical but I think Pete took his fame and this style of the big stadium courses and rode it to the bank on the back of Landmark land, Herb Kohler and others.
It just doesn't make sense that his arguably two best courses were built in 1966 and 1969 yet he went after these big money projects going forward.
[size=78%] [/size]
You can argue that most of his best courses were actually built in the 80s in one way or another
TPC
Long Cove
Honors
Blackwolf
Pete Dye (finished in 90s but mostly built in the 80s)
PGA West
Old Marsh
Firethorn
Austin
Kiawah (started late 80s)
I don't know about you but that is not a bad decade by any means. I would also venture to guess that the above courses are also the courses that got the most personal attention from Dye. He outsourced a lot of others to his son's in the 80s. I don't think Dye has many courses that rate a 5 or less that he gave his full attention to.
His best overall work was in the 1980's no doubt.
As the economy was growing as well, good timing. The 70's was such a down time in many things, not the least of which was golf course design. By far the worst decade I think for new courses being developed.
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I know that Pete Dye had a number of bull doze shapers, like Mike Stantz who moved alot of the dirt for him and went on to be excellent architects in their own right. I enjoyed playing each and everyone of his courses as they required alot of imaginative shot making around the greens
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So which Ross courses are duds and forgettable?
Bogey
Miami Shores GC IN Troy Ohio.
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Mackenzie mailed in a lot of his work???
Seems like that is never discussed. He spent 3 months in Australia yet consulted on 9 courses. It's a rumor in the Bay Area that he spent very little time if any at Green Hills. That course was built by Jack Fleming.
Regarding Dye, of course he mailed it in. I played golf with Perry and Ann Dye at the Mountain course at La Quinta and Perry took credit for most of the work.
So much misinformation on this thread, it's hard to know where to start. [Cary's post two places above mine is a good start, actually ... Mike Strantz worked for Tom Fazio, not for Pete Dye.] I leave for two months and the site goes to hell. Who runs this site anyway?
Joel's posts are off the mark, too.
Dr. MacKenzie went to Australia for six weeks and consulted on NINETEEN designs in that time. He didn't mail anything there; he just didn't promise to get back on another steamship, and the clients didn't want to pay for that anyway. So, he went, he spent two or three days per course working on his plans, and he handed them to a construction supervisor who saw them built. [He spent much more than a couple of days with the construction supervisors who were to build Royal Melbourne, and they wound up overseeing a lot of the rest of his work.] MacKenzie did not boast about his work in Australia because he never saw them done, and in some cases, the work wasn't even completed until after his death seven years later!
Pete Dye, well, he did it every which way over his very long career. I am not sure he was any better in the 1980's than in the 70's or 60's, he just had more opportunities. For Joel to say he went for the money is a joke . . . Pete never did anything for the money, he just liked to work. His design fee for the TPC at Sawgrass was $80,000, and he must have spent two years of his life there all told with the renovations and going back to the tournament. Perry Dye saying he built the Mountain course at LaQuinta was just a typical bald-faced lie . . . Lee Schmidt supervised most of the work for Landmark in Palm Springs, and I am pretty sure [not positive] that included the Mountain course, but I am dead sure Perry didn't build it.
Ah well, back to mailing in my latest design in New Zealand . . . where I've spent the last two months, unplugged from GCA.
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Thanks Tom.
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As usual Doak comes through with reason and facts.
BTW Tom, does anyone know how much of Pete there is at Red Mountain Ranch, vs. how much of Perry.
I play there and no one seems to know.