"Pete Dye Golf Courses" by Joel Zuckerman documents 50 years of genius

Several years ago, while I was interviewing golf course architect Dr. Michael Hurdzan in the veritable golf museum that are his offices in Ohio, one of the golf mementoes that caught my eye was a napkin signed by Pete Dye. Along with the signature was a drawing of the 17th hole on The Straits Course at Whistling Straits.

Hurdzan told me that he was so impressed by the course, he asked Dye, the course architect, for a print of one of the hole blueprints. Dye responded by saying, essentially, “What blueprints? I don’t use blueprints.” So Dye drew the hole on a napkin, signed it, and gave it to Hurdzan – the only extant drawing of the iconic par 3.

The new coffeetable book “Pete Dye Golf Courses: Fifty Years of Visionary Design” (Abrams, $50) is a gorgeously photographed, richly detailed compendium of Dye design through the past half-century. The author – none other than one of WorldGolf.com’s own writers, Joel Zuckerman – was granted unprecedented access to the Dye family, including Pete’s inspiration and collaborator, his wife, Alice. The insight into Dye’s unorthodox, simultaneously throwback and forward-looking style makes for fascinating reading.

Zuckerman also enlisted the help of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Greg Norman to write “appreciations” of Dye’s work in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1990s, respectively.

Dye and protégés (family and non-family) have designed or redesigned hundreds upon hundreds of courses all over the world, many of which hold special memories for millions of golfers (like me, for example, who first broke 90 on a Dye renovation). Zuckerman’s book does a fine job of documenting the enormous – perhaps unparalleled – contribution Pete Dye has made to golf.

The golfer/reader cannot help but feel both awe and gratitude for the man who has done so much to meld aesthetics with strategy in the modern game. Thanks, Pete.