Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Out Podcast. My name is DJ. We've got a big one today. We've got a couple big ones coming for you back to back. Today is going to be the first episode of our Pete Dye Deep Dive.
Me, Neil, and our guy Charlie Van Kirk are going to go Deep into the catalog of Pete Dye. We're going to get part two of this episode out on Sunday. We are traveling around the world right now. Can't really do a normal Sunday recap this week. So we're going to do this back to back monster Pete Dye deep dive. Instead, really hope you guys enjoy it.
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You owe it to yourself to find out what combination of flight, spin, and feel best fits your game. Head to Titleist.com to learn more. Let's get into it. We got a big one for you today, or at least the first part of two big ones, I think is what we're going to have. We're going to be talking about the great man, Pete Dye.
A little bit of a follow-up to our CB McDonald episodes that we did earlier in the year. And to help me break it down is my good friend, Neil. Neil, greetings from New Jersey, my man. Greetings, Deej. I don't know if break it down, I'm in the student chair.
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Chapter 2: What insights do DJ and Neil share about Pete Dye's early life?
You know, I came to the seminar. I'm looking to learn about Mr. Peter Dye. Love his name. I obviously named my son Peter, so I'm fired up. I know enough to be dangerous, but not enough to tell anybody else about him. The guy who's going to be telling everybody else about him is our good friend Charlie Van Kirk. Charlie, how are you?
Doing well, thanks. Excited that Neil is in the hot seat, the only student in the class this time, so nowhere to hide, man.
Yeah, professor, I got a question. Great student. I like your drum set back there. I'd like to play some drums with you.
Let's see some paradiddle adaloodles out of you, man. Come on. Great student to teacher ratio in this class. It's a Montessori school. This is office hours.
This is this is Charlie. You probably recognize or remember from I always got to introduce him as the guy who made the big cans remix first and foremost. You know, to a lesser extent, also did all the reporting on our Kapalua episode as well. And just a generally talented, curious, interested guy.
And so, Neil, I think to to set the table, you and I, along with the rest of our compadres, went down to Casa de Campo.
earlier in the year it was kind of right after we recorded the the cb mcdonald episodes we're like well what should we do next and we i think just walking around that place we're like man i don't know anything about pete dye we need to we need to spend some time diving into pete dye and uh so we we tasked charlie we said go find out everything you can find out charlie what have the last couple months looked like for you
Yeah, well, I've had my boots on the ground a little bit. I took the opportunity to do some due diligence and visit a couple of his courses. I wasn't with you in the DR, so I didn't go there, but I went a couple other places, interviewed 16 or 17 people who either worked with Pete and were friends with Pete in different capacities.
I read a couple books, scoured the internet for some other wonderful things that other people in golf media have made, and put into a giant doc for us to go through here.
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Chapter 3: How did Pete and Alice Dye's relationship influence their careers?
Exactly. Yeah, a lot of broken plays. Hey, Fry, you go deep, okay? And I want to hook her out here from you, Gil, all right? Yeah, a lot of broken plays out there. I think, Charlie, we got to just, you know, we got to hit this before the 10-minute mark here. If we're going to talk about Pete, we got to talk about Alice. I think that's a permeating truth through this whole story.
When I sat down with Roger Warren, who is the president of Kiowa,
before i even press record on the tape he said i hope that whatever conversations you're having about pete are also about alison i assured him that that was in fact the case they had a really interesting partnership and by all accounts a very strong marriage and she was a killer in her own right as a golfer and as a design partner i'm not sure
How much that was publicized in the moment kind of depends on the outlet, but she's a super interesting character. We're going to dive into her as well.
as i understand it she was the better golfer like she was the golfer and almost got him into it is that right she was more accomplished in her own right she didn't get him into it per se but they they started their design business together yes don't uh don't sleep on how good of a player uh pete was as i did and i did not realize like coming yes absolute stud a couple a couple other things charlie i mean bundle of energy we're going to hear a lot about a lot about the work ethic
Yeah, back to Bobby Weed in Florida. He was finishing up TPC at Sawgrass, and he'd drive from Ponte Vedra to Hilton Head. And sometimes I'd hear him come in at like 12, 1 o'clock. And the next thing you know, he'd be knocking on our doors. We shared a condo, his son Peavy and I.
And we shared a condo with Pete and Alice, and shit, he'd be knocking on our doors at 5.30, and he'd be like, get out of that bed. You can't build no golf course lying in bed. And I'm like, holy shit. He hadn't been here five or six hours.
I talked to one of his shapers who started working with Pete when Pete was in his 70s, and Abe Wilson, the shaper, was in his 20s, and he said that Pete ran him ragged. So, yeah, just boundless.
Hustle, baby. I love it. You kind of mentioned the self-deprecation, the aw shucks, kind of this Midwestern. I mean, he wasn't a grandfather the whole time he was doing this. He was obviously a young guy when he started. But this kind of very grandfatherly, like your wacky old grandpa sort of vibe, which is awesome and it makes for a great book.
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Chapter 4: What unique design philosophies did Pete Dye implement?
So World War II breaks out, and Pete's given a little bit more responsibility at this homemade golf course, Urbana, because all the other guys are shipped off to war, essentially. So when he's 15, he takes over the duties of greenskeeper at this kind of homemade golf course.
and so early on he's you know he's trying to put on these uh lessons that he's learned from the the former greens keeper and and put them into practice and he saw that the greens were getting a little brown one of the summers and so he tries this mix of sulfate of ammonia and water to, as he says, quote, inject a hot dose of nitrogen onto the putting surfaces.
And he was so stoked when this worked. And, you know, he added it a little bit, and he saw that the green started to become a little bit darker green, and it was working. And so... he just kept going and just kept going and kept at, he's like, if, if this, you know, made him a little more green, what would a little bit more do? And, uh, he says, unfortunately I went a bit too far.
The putting surfaces went from light green to medium green, to dark green, to black, and then a yellow straw that spelled disaster for me in the course. Uh, Charlie, I love the experimentation vibe. I think he's filing these lessons away for, uh, as he goes down the road.
Let's go find out. Let's go fuck around and find out. This reminded me of a quote from an interview on, I believe it was the Turf Today podcast with a superintendent at a Pete Dye golf course, which we'll get to.
But the superintendent, Keith Christina said, essentially the reason that a bunch of younger people, younger superintendents call me and ask for advice is that I've killed more grass than they have. Like, you know, I've figured out almost as many ways as possible to mess things up. And then I've not made that mistake again. And yeah, Pete kind of lived by that as well.
I mean, kind of a relatable thing. I feel like every young man has learned that more is not always better. Sure. Hard lesson learned. Maybe with alcohol, maybe with subwoofers in the back of your car, you know, more bass is not always better. I learned that in high school, you know, so this is just another example of that. You got to know where the edge is.
Otherwise, you know, yeah, you got to know when you're going to cross. But the key there, as Charlie said, don't make the same mistake twice. Exactly. I struggle with that as well.
uh pretty common during this time for you know famous golfers big name golfers to travel around the country do these exhibition matches pro golf was not nearly what it is now so they kind of had to supplement their incomes by doing like essentially what would be almost charity outing type things uh today and so between tournaments they'd visit these small towns almost do these like barnstorming tours and visit a club and get paid to do it and so one of the guys that actually came to urbana was uh walter hagen
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Chapter 5: What techniques did Pete Dye use for visual deception in golf course design?
Let's just, let's dig a little earth out in front of the green, make it look elevated. It's not elevated, but it appears that way.
I got a little bit from Tom Doak when we were at Pinehurst number 10, uh, when Ben and I were, were out there, I don't know, two or three years ago. And he was talking just about what he learned from Pete Dye on, uh, how to use very specific trees to create visual deception.
Same kind of idea of like using distance and be like how far, you know, really messing with people on how far away something is or making something look bigger or smaller based on like the, whether it's digging, elevating, or like using landmarks for that stuff. I just love it.
We're going to, we're going to hear some of this when we talk about the golf club as well, but the, this idea that like, what would it take to push these? Like, obviously we want to push up these greens and we want to make it more difficult and more demanding and add more dimension. And it's like, oh man, that's going to take a lot of dirt. That's going to take a lot of work.
That's going to take a lot of this, that the other thing, like, what if we just dug a big trench and, you know, just dig out in front of the green. So it looks like it's up and then they might hit it over the back. Who knows? Yeah. What if we just, but what if we just like make it look like we did that and it, but we didn't really do it. It's great.
So that's just one of those very crystal clear, like you always hear, oh, Pete Dye, visual deception. It's like, well, what does that mean? What are you talking about? It's like, that's just a very concrete example. Well, I think the best example, and I think Donald Ross does this a good amount too. Maybe, again, I'm not an architecture expert. But the bunker that is 40 yards short of the green.
Yeah. Oh, that's great. That if done properly makes it look like that's a green side bunker. And you just, I've been fooled by that so many times on a Pete Dye course where I'm like, oh, I got to carry that bunker. And it's like, no, that bunker is not really like even a factor. Especially in the days of, you know, before range finders and before. Yes, exactly. Like even more important.
And that's just, that's, and again, that's like,
i remember doke saying some of that of like yeah if i if i lower the fairway to make it so you can't see over that bunker it looks like it's green side from 150 yards out but it's not you got like 20 yards in between there and the front of the green exactly finally the course you know the course he was there to play was the old course he was there for the for the british am uh you can count him in the uh in the group charlie of people not exactly enamored uh with the old course first time around
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Chapter 6: How did Pete Dye's relationship with Fred Jones influence his design process?
Uh, him and Alice got, were just totally struck by the vastness of it, the flatness, but it's not really flat. The definitions between the gorse and the pop bunkers and the way that they wind changed wind, all of that stuff. He ended up by the end of that trip calling a golf course design in its purest form and said that the road hole may well be the very best par four in the world.
Shout out to Bob Mack, like you said, Charlie. God, I fucking love this. This is how Charlie, I think, has the details. This is how enamored he was by the 17th green when they got there.
he and alice rented a tripod in order to measure the dimensions of the green they were surprised to learn after actually getting the getting the gear out and taking the measurements that the road hole green is a perfect rectangle despite appearing as an oval from the fairway and he went as far later on as suggesting to walt disney that they attempt to recreate the whole stateside like note for note but walt passed away before they could follow through on that one
And I'm guessing maybe the Old Course Hotel had not been built by this point. I think it would have been there. 1963? I actually don't know. It's a good question. I don't know when that actually was built. Good question. I'd love to get his thoughts on that. Well, that's kind of the end of the aggressive biography section there. So we can move through some of the courses.
And I think the first one that we're going to get to is Crooked Stick. Charlie, why is this the first one? Why is this on the list?
Crooked stick, Carmel, Indiana, built from 1964 to 1967.
Caramel, Indiana, or Carmel.
They're going to get on you for that one. Did I hit you with a Carmel? You did. Straight to jail. I'm not even from California. Right up the road from Terry hot. Now, see, I don't have a problem with the French pronunciations, but yeah, they'll probably kill me for that one too. Okay.
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Chapter 7: What unique features define the golf club designed by Pete Dye?
somewhere in indiana they built a golf course in the mid 60s this was not the first course that they built we established that el dorado they're crossing the creek 13 times in nine holes was the first but they considered this course their first born pete and alice did it was interesting i thought the golf club was right after that okay all right it's coming it's good to know same period of time the golf club capital t the golf club sorry yeah not the golf course
The course is considered to be their coming out party. It's distinctive because they initiated it. They found the funding. They found the land. Pete knocked on doors. He kissed babies. He figured out how to get this property. He brought some early members in. This was their project and their course from ground zero.
Charlie, for our song comp section, this is how he described. He said something to connote a major coming out party arriving on the scene. No outside developers in the label, not major.
Chapter 8: How did the first Heritage Classic impact Pete Dye's career and reputation?
I don't know. I don't have a lot of deep cuts on here. I put about a girl from the Nirvana's first record.
you know generation kind of a new genre yeah I think 1991 you know PJ Championship was doing a lot of heavy lifting right like we're setting the table so that in 1991 we've got a full a full takeover but you've also got like the Jones family just playing the you know the 80s Arena stuff and and here comes this small outfit like yeah what's this grunge thing yeah this is interesting yeah exactly
uh but you know it's kind of based on punk and it's kind of yeah it spawns i like this spawns you know tom doke is dave grohl you know goes on to do his own thing for years and years like just a lot of offshoots to this um joke wasn't on this course but yes yes yeah you get the point i know i know yeah i like it should we talk about the name i feel like that's that's we got to start there right charlie sure it turns out that naming a golf course
isn't always the easiest thing to come up with. There's some funny stories in the book. Some of these courses that we'll go through, sometimes it's a lightning bolt of inspiration. Sometimes there are some less than ideal
suggestions thrown out there pete wanted to call this course the mirror of ord which means fields of gold which was inspired by the name of a james braid course scotland really rolls off the tongue for those those those indianans in carmel and and i i can't even bring i'm afraid like you neil of this pronunciation now started here for the party now yeah oh boy
I got all those Hawaiian pronunciations dialed, but Carmel, Indiana.
I've been canceled on pronunciations so many times. It's like quadruple jeopardy. You can't put me in jail anymore, guys. Andrew Tate. Can't cancel them anymore. Can't do it. I'm post-cancel on pronunciation.
We're an hour and 21 minutes in. We got our first Andrew Tate mention.
Take my blood, okay?
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