25 Facts About Pete Dye

Pete Dye was married to fellow designer and amateur champion Alice Dye.

Pete Dye was the son of Paul F "Pink" and Elizabeth Dye.

Pete Dye first moved to Delray Beach, Florida, with his parents in 1933 and eventually established his own winter residence there.

Pete Dye entered the Airborne School at Fort Benning in Georgia to be a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, but the war ended while he was in training.

Pete Dye was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina where he served the rest of his hitch as greenskeeper on the base golf course.

Pete Dye would come over and watch us play golf, and most of the time the captain and colonel hauled me over there.

Pete Dye won the Indiana amateur championship in 1958, following runner-up finishes in 1954 and 1955.

Pete Dye made the decision to become a golf course designer in his mid-30s.

Pete Dye warned them about the economic uncertainty of the profession, but they persisted.

Those nine holes are now incorporated into the Royal Oak course at Pete Dye's Walk Country Club.

Pete Dye designed the Radrick Farms Golf Course for the University of Michigan in 1962, but the course did not open until 1965.

At the time, he was using the design style of Trent Jones, but after seeing the work of Alister MacKenzie, who designed the 1931 Michigan course, Pete Dye decided to incorporate features from two greens into his next project.

Pete Dye visited Scotland in 1963 and made a thorough study of its classic courses.

Also in 1969, Pete Dye designed his first course in Florida called Delray Dunes.

The owners of the project went bankrupt and Pete Dye went unpaid; the course was eventually finished and had many of Pete Dye's signature course characteristics such as deep bunkers, small greens, short challenging par fours, and railroad ties.

In 1986, Pete Dye designed a course in the Italian province of Brescia, near Lake Iseo, the Franciacorta Golf Club, recognized today as a wine golf course.

Pete Dye is considered to be one of the most influential course architects in the world.

Pete Dye's designs are known for distinctive features, including small greens and the use of railroad ties to hold bunkers.

Pete Dye is known for designing the "world's most terrifying tee shot," the par-3 17th hole of the Stadium Course at TPC at Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.

Many of the best young golf architects have "pushed dirt" for Pete Dye, including Bill Coore, Tom Doak, John Harbottle, Butch Laporte, Tim Liddy, Scott Poole, David Postlewaite, Lee Schmidt, Keith Sparkman, Jim Urbina, Bobby Weed, Rod Whitman, and Abe Wilson.

Pete Dye received the Old Tom Morris Award in 2003 from the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, their highest honor.

In 2005, Pete Dye became the sixth recipient of the PGA Tour Lifetime Achievement Award.

Pete Dye was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in November 2008 in the Lifetime Achievement category.

Pete Dye was named Architect of the Year by Golf World magazine, awarded a Doctor of Landscape Architecture degree from Purdue University, received Indiana's Sagamore of the Wabash award and was honored as Family of the Year by the National Golf Foundation.

Pete Dye is credited with designing more than 200 courses internationally during his lifetime.