|
PETE DYE: Well, if you can make the hole feel like the one shot goes left to right, and the next shot right to left, it's more trouble for good player to adjust but the higher handicapped player is not aware of it at all, they're never aware of it. Then if you make one side look a lot more open then the other side, then the player will play away from the hazard. But you know all that changed so dramatically in the last ten to fifteen years. John Daly crucified Crooked Stick with his length, and now John Daly is sixteen years older, and he’s fatter, and has everything else, and yet he hits the ball farther. You see, the United States Golf Association has completely lost control of the equipment. The next thing that's been changed dramatically is the maintenance of the golf course. The green speeds when Hogan won at Oakmont, the fastest greens in the world were about five or six on the stimpmeter. Today they're twelve or thirteen because they cut ‘em down. So when you're building the golf course today, as opposed to just five years ago, you can't even remotely build the same thing if you're trying to stay abreast. And my problem is most of the golf courses that I have that are on the PGA Tour. So when you talk about trying to make the golf course compatible for the higher handicaps as well as pros, it's almost totally impossible. Just like when anybody says they were building a Donald Ross golf course. The most ridiculous thing I've ever listened to, I'm the only one that knew Donald Ross, knew him well, talked to him, and if he was around today, he wouldn't anymore do what he did in 1923 then would the man on the moon!
JAY FLEMMA: How do you think Ross would have changed over time?
PETE DYE: Well he would change dramatically.
JAY FLEMMA: How?
PETE DYE: Well I can tell you that first hole over here at Gulf Stream was 423 yards uphill in 1923. What do you think the man would think today?
JAY FLEMMA: He would probably think it needed to be a little longer and the approach shot needs to be a little tighter?
PETE DYE: Well he had all his approach shots pretty tight. But at Pinehurst, he was going to tear up all the greens before he died and he didn't do it. He wanted to put them back the way they were. And anybody who says Pinehurst’s greens are Ross’ greens is listening to a figment of their imagination. They don't know what they're talking about. When they converted Pinehurst to grass in about '37 or '38 or something…
|
PETE DYE: Yep, sand. Everybody was playing on sand greens down there. So they had common Bermuda grass that was top dressed very heavily, and the greens just grew like a mushroom, about 18 inches crowned off. And then when he was alive, he told me he was going to cut those crowns off. And when he died in '48, Mr. Tufts, who was a good friend of my wife, who the North and South, kept saying I'm going to cut these crowns off, well they never cut the crowns off. It was sold to a truck driver, and he came back and rebuilt the greens to USGA sub base. But anybody that talks about Donald Ross, I just sit there and laugh, because Seminole is supposed to be a good Donald Ross golf course and it's not remotely the same.
JAY FLEMMA: Now let's talk a little about the—
PETE DYE: But it’s not even close to being what Ross built. So that's why Seminole in the '30s and the '40s, is not even close the Seminole being this way. Sit right there, don't move. I want to show you something. Really anybody that says I'm a Donald Ross expert, I'm glad, but I cannot believe it.
JAY FLEMMA: Okay, but let me ask you this. Do you possibly find that the crowned greens, that exist at Pinehurst today are more interesting because of their severe contours and dropoffs?
PETE DYE: I'm not saying the new greens are good, bad, or indifferent. I'm just saying they're not the same Ross built.
JAY FLEMMA: No question about that. As an article that appeared during the 2005 U.S. Open said, “Donald Ross would not recognize these greens.” That being said, any true golf enthusiast knows that the adventure should just begin when you get to the green. Do you find that greens that have more character and contour make the game more interesting?
PETE DYE: Oh, well, how would I answer that quickly? You know, you're right. But how are you going to control the organizations that put on the golf championships? If you're going to have a PGA championship, or they're going to have the Ryder Cup, or they're going to have this tournament or that played at your golf course, you’re going to do what they do under today’s playing circumstances.
JAY FLEMMA: Which is that they're going to speed up the greens so much that the contours become almost unplayable?
PETE DYE: Exactly. If you're in the business, and your golf course is going to be exposed to tournament conditions, you're either going to have another Shinnecock…
JAY FLEMMA: When you say another Shinnecock, you mean in 2004 where people were ping-ponging back and forth and across the greens?
PETE DYE: That's right. And so if you don't want that to happen to your greens, you're going to have to change the contours as well as your thinking. I totally agree that it's better for the game to leave greens the way they were because that was part of the strategy. We had greens all over this way, all over that way. Now you have greens that are second class. I also agree that the contours that they used to have on the greens had more undulations than we have now.
JAY FLEMMA: Why is it second class?
PETE DYE: They were more interesting.
JAY FLEMMA: Why do you think this happened?
PETE DYE: Because the United States Golf Association and other people pride themselves on eliminating them. They think “if this course that got a tournament did it, I'd better do it.” But my golf courses are different. I've had eight major championships played on my golf courses, eight majors. The golf pros play the TPC every year. They come to Harbour Town every year. And then I get the LPGA Championship coming to Bulle Rock. Now I can't dictate what they do at a major. I can’t tell them “I want the greens at eight.” A course may be great that has speeds of eight and the greens may be terrific, but probably nobody else ever sees that golf course.
JAY FLEMMA: And that's a bad thing isn't it?
PETE DYE: Yes. I'm building a golf course right now that I think they'll have major championship on, I'm not going to go out and put contours in the greens, like maybe I might like to, because I know what's going to happen to them. Here I am half of 162 years old. I don't agree with it, but there's nothing I can do to fight it. And then the Tournament Players Club, I've rebuilt that thing three times. And every time I've just softened the greens that much. But here's the thing, it costs a lot more money to maintain greens at speeds of ten and eleven. No question about it, no question. Now the old greens, they’ve lost something. When it comes to the tour, only on the old greens would you have a lot of slope or contour coming into the green. But now, I don't run City Hall, and I guarantee you where they have the US Open this year, where is it?
|
PETE DYE: And where was the PGA again?
JAY FLEMMA: Southern Hills.
PETE DYE: Well they’ll do the same thing at the US Senior Open at Crooked Stick, and they're talking about playing the golf course at 7300 yards for the seniors, so it's gonna be about 11 on the stimpmeter for the greens. Now that's the US Senior Open Championship! So at Crooked Stick, which I built, I had to go back and modify the greens for when they had the PGA championship there. I had to modify them for the Solheim Cup. So every time I'd go back...whether it’s Crooked Stick, Harbour Town, TPC, The Ocean Course, since I built them originally, I went back softened all those greens, no matter how they ran when I first designed them.
JAY FLEMMA: What can we do to change people’s thinking about that?
PETE DYE: Well you can write the United States Golf Association, tell them they got their brains polluted.
JAY FLEMMA: Do you think that perhaps television contributes to this preconditioning by making the general public think that this is acceptable?
PETE DYE: Well sure television has a lot to do with it. Primarily television has a lot to do with it because it's the image they get from Augusta, and the image they get from the US Open, and the image of any major championship and all they talk about on the television is the speed of the greens. Now that wasn't true 25 years ago. And so a lot of the old golf courses, they say, “why haven't they been able to hold their own?” Well you take Pine Valley, any of the old golf courses—
JAY FLEMMA: Or National Golf Links of America?
PETE DYE: Sure, any of the old golf courses that still have the contours that they built for six or seven, and now they're mowing them at 11, heck yes, it's a battle to hold their own.
JAY FLEMMA: Let's take Harbour Town and Fowlers Mill on one hand and Kiawah Island and Whistling Straits on the other. How would you say you have changed over time in terms of your design strategies over the last 40 years?
PETE DYE: I don't think my strategy has changed much at all. I think that I used to reward the long drive maybe, if it made you hit near a hazard. It’d give you a reward, but I don't reward the long drive anymore. That's a hard thing to do.
JAY FLEMMA: Why is it a hard thing to do?
PETE DYE: It just is. A guy hits it a mile on a 500 yard par four, and he hits it 360 yards and he's got 140 to go and he's got a wedge in his hands. It just shows the game is playing backwards now. And then more than that, there is less play. It costs a lot more, cost is one of the biggest problems and that leads to even less play. But even the greatest players out there today, never have the chance to stand out there and hit a good drive and be left with a three or four iron just to get a par on a par-4. That part of the game is gone. And then when they get on the green, the greens are just absolutely perfect, they got a perfect speed of 11, so the good players, and there's no problem for them.
JAY FLEMMA: Why do you think we're chasing people away from the game if we're making the holes shorter because of technology?
PETE DYE: The technology is not helping the guy who that hits it 200 yards, It's not helping him at all.
JAY FLEMMA: All right, so let's talk a little more about Harbour Town. Deane Beman said that it reminded him of Scotland, but to an untrained eye, it looks like a low country shot shaping course. What's Scottish about Harbour Town?
|
PETE DYE: Who said that?
JAY FLEMMA: Deane Beman.
PETE DYE: Darned if I know. But I really love Harbour Town. The reason for Harbour Town is this. When I first started in the business, Mr. Jones – Trent Jones – the first few courses I built, I copied a lot of Mr. Jones’ style.
JAY FLEMMA: Like what? Runway tees? Pedestal greens?
PETE DYE: The tees, the greens, the bunkers, everything.
JAY FLEMMA: And the style of bunkering on both sides of the fairways?
PETE DYE: Yes, the bunkering. Trent had a lot of fine golf courses, and he was a good friend. So the first course I built was the University of Michigan, and it was a lot like Mr. Jones' course, and he always liked it. So when I went to Harbour Town, I moved there. And when I went to build the dang golf course, he was building Palmetto Dunes. And it occurred to me that the only way I would ever get an identity was just go the dead opposite.
JAY FLEMMA: So what did you do that was dead opposite?
PETE DYE: Well the greens are much smaller, and the profiles of the greens, if you walk Harbour Town you see I didn't raise anything 18 inches in Harbour Town, nothing. Nothing at all. And I imagine why Harbour Town got a shot in the arm was that Arnold Palmer won the first tournament, the Heritage Classic. That probably had as much to do with it as anything. And maybe Calibogue Sound had something to do with it. And when it first opened, you feel isolated, because there were no houses around it, and you're just going through the woods, great big live oak trees. And it looks nothing more like Scotland then anything as far as I can see. Maybe Deane thought so.
JAY FLEMMA: What are your favorite strategic moments at Harbour Town?
PETE DYE: Well I don't know about strategic moments, but I think at that time nobody did something like it. When I first went over to Scotland and Ireland, the railroad ties were part of the bunkers and you saw them all different places, and they were part of the golf course. You’d get in these bunkers and they had these pilings up coming out, because they were all built along the railroad tracks. That’s the way people traveled back and forth. But at Harbour Town, I don't think I was thinking of Scotland or Ireland, but it dawned on me to keep it low and keep people from trying to mow the bank of the lagoons because they have grass going down. So I just thought to put the railroad ties and bulkhead it. I think that was the first golf course that the lagoons and the canals were bulkheaded. I think that the press saw it as being different. And another thing, by bulk heading that way, I could keep the profile of the greens down which was just the opposite of what Trent Jones, who was a great friend and a great friend of Alice’s, but it was just the opposite of what he was doing, dead opposite. Now fortunately enough, I worked on it with Jack Nicklaus, who’s also been a good friend, and he'd fly back and forth and we talked about the strategy. But I built this course, and Jack I remember his biggest input at one time, he said, “why don't you build the smallest greens in the world?” Well it being a resort we weren’t thinking too good. But we built the 15th green and I don’t think that’s 3000 square feet. That was also different from Mr. Jones too, big time.
Go to Page 2
