The GolfCourseHome Life

Oak Marsh Golf Course at Amelia Island Plantation Will Reopen Monday, Feb. 15th

The Oak Marsh course.

The Oak Marsh Golf Course at Amelia Island Plantation will reopen next Monday, February 15th.  The Pete Dye-designed course is noted for its tight fairways and small greens, meandering along serpentine salt marsh creeks and through the moss draped oaks for which Amelia Island is famous.  The original closure from early summer was extended due to the effects of reduced golf rounds in the industry. 

At par 72, this 6,500- yard course has 14 holes with water hazards and numerous bulkheaded greens. A variety of bunkers are placed throughout the course to add to the challenge and a natural approach has been maintained as well with the use of coquina shell cart paths, native plant life and preserved habitats for the local wildlife. 

Oak Marsh’s par-four eighth hole is a typical Dye design, challenging players to cross two tidal creeks before reaching the raised narrow green.  The 171-yard sixteenth is an ideal layout for the novice and presents the more skilled golfer with a tantalizing risk-reward proposition, confronting each player’s skill level.

Amelia Island Plantation, Florida’s natural island destination, is nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and the Amelia River, just 29 miles northeast of Jacksonville International Airport. Request more information.

The 1,350 acre resort property features:

• 3½ miles of wide, uncrowded beach
• 49,000 square feet of flexible meeting space
• 72 holes of golf
• a full service, holistic spa
• 23 tennis courts
• 20 pools
• an old Florida-shopping village
• state-of-the-art Health and Fitness center
• 9 dining opportunities
• age-specific youth programs. 

The resort offers more than 600 accommodations that range from deluxe hotel rooms in the all oceanfront, 249-room Amelia Inn & Beach Club to 1-, 2- and 3- bedroom villas featuring ocean, golf or resort views. Real estate includes homes, villas and homesites available with a variety of settings, views, starting at $199,000. Request more information.

Robert Trent Jones II, 2009 Awards in Hand, Looks to 2010 Course Openings

For many in the golf business, in the wake of one of the most challenging years on record, the new year can’t come soon enough.

Despite the difficult state of the industry, the staff at Robert Trent Jones II (RTJ II) golf course architects recognize some stars in the darkness of 2009 and are looking ahead to new highlights in 2010.

Both Master Architect Robert Trent Jones, Jr. and Chief Design Officer Bruce Charlton point to a number of 2009 accomplishments, including additions to the firm’s legacy of awards.

Golf World Awards
Golf World rated eight RTJ II courses in the Top 100 in Europe, and two recent courses in Denmark were ranked No. 1 (Lubker Golf Resort) and No. 3 (Skjoldenæsholm Golf Center) by Danish Golf Magazine.

In the U.S., highlights included Chambers Bay (University Place, Washington), which will host the U.S. Amateur in 2010, being ranked by GOLF Magazine among the Top 100 courses in the U.S., the Top 100 Courses Worldwide, and the Top 50 Courses of the last 50 years. 

Golfweek Accolades
Golfweek also chose a number of RTJ II courses among its Top Residential Courses (The Bridges, Rancho Santa Fe, California; and Miramont, Bryan, Texas), Top Municipal Courses (ThunderHawk, Beach Park, Illinois), and Top Resort Courses (Osprey Meadows, Donnelly, Idaho).

The firm also was proud to debut its Sequoyah National Golf Club in Cherokee, North Carolina, designed in collaboration with PGA Tour player Notah Begay. The course was recently cited by GOLF Magazine as a Top New Course You Can Play. 

Other awards included Golf Digest ranking RTJ II’s Rainmakers Golf Club among the Best New Private Courses in 2009. In addition to debuting great new courses, RTJ II completed fresh course renovations in Indonesia, Australia, and Hawaii.

Going Green
Also, in keeping with the firm’s Green Proclamation, which attracted industry and media attention worldwide in 2009, the firm currently boasts 22 Audubon International Sanctuary Courses.

In a year that saw Charlton successfully complete his term as president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, Jones, Jr., was recognized for his contributions to the game by Golf Inc., which awarded him its lifetime achievement award. Jones also was recognized by GOLF Magazine as an Innovator, and “Game Changer” in 2009.

New Courses in 2010
In 2010, RTJ II expects to open several highly anticipated courses, including Hickory Stick (Lewiston, New York), The Patriot (Owasso, Oklahoma), Bro Hof Slott’s Castle Course (near Stockholm, Sweden), The Scandinavian Golf Club (near Copenhagen, Denmark), Bahia Principe Golf Resort (Riviera Maya, Mexico), and Palmeres Golf Club (Lagos, Portugal).

The firm will also complete significant renovations to Pondok Indah in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Princeville Makai in Kauai, Hawaii. Work will continue on new projects in Greece, Mexico, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Egypt, Scandinavia and Vanuatu, as will renovations proceed in Puerto Rico, Canada and England.

 

 

Tiger Woods Video Captures Helicopter & Thrills of His Cliffs at High Carolina Event

New Tiger Woods Video: Tiger Woods visited the site of the first golf course he will design in the U.S. at The Cliffs at High Carolina last month and arrived in dramatic style by helicopter.

You can see Tiger's arrival, his walk with CEO Jim Anthony through the mountain property and his talk with interested attendees at this event here.

Heroes of the Southeast: Residential Golf Architects Byrd, Jackson, Johnston & Lee

Sea Trail, NC: Courses by Rees Jones, Dan Maples and Byrd.

GolfCourseHome's® Residential Golf Course
Architects Series, Part IX
By the Editors of GolfCourseHome®

In the rarified atmosphere of golf course architecture there is world-famous and then there is almost-famous. The famous are true globe-trotters while the almost-famous are regional specialists—those who know an area’s natural landscape and the local crews who can work it. In this, the ninth installment in our Golf Architect Series, we look at at the Southeast and architects Willard Byrd, Tom Jackson, Joe Lee and Clyde Johnston.

FLORIDA: Harbour Ridge Yacht & Country Club

Of these four, Joe Lee has the best claim to national recognition, though not because his work can be found far and wide. Born in Florida in 1922, Lee (with his partner, Dick Wilson), drew acclaim for Sunshine State courses like Pine Tree Golf Club, the Blue Course at Doral and the original 18 at Bay Hill, all of which have, through time, lost some of their Lee-Wilson imprint.

Lee was a stylish, dignified Southerner with a trim build who spoke softly and played a solid game of golf himself. The course he designed at Harbour Ridge Yacht & Country Club in the charming town of Stuart shows Lee’s mix of a tournament-worthy difficulty amid landscape flourishes that go easy on the eyes of even a frustrated player.

FLORIDA: Quail Ridge Country Club

In a recent book by course-design expert Ron Whitten, the Joe Lee legacy is finally presented in a worthy manner. The hardcover book, with extensive photos by Theresa Airey, is titled “Gentleman Joe Lee: 50 Years of Golf Design.” Well deserving of space in the book are Lee’s two complementary 18s at Quail Ridge Country Club in Boynton Beach.

Each layout is a stout par-72, with the South layout deemed the brawnier and more imposing of the two. Its sister course, Quail Ridge South, is more a course you can cruise over, although bunkers and pretty water hazards come into play.

SOUTH CAROLINA: The Cliffs at Glassy

The steep slopes and deep hollows over which Tom Jackson laid out The Cliffs at Glassy golf course could not have been tamed by most course designers. The architect’s thoughtful routing, learned by feel as well as via the mentoring of both George Cobb and Robert Trent Jones, combines topographic drama with well-timed pauses for serenity.

From the very first few holes, a player sees his shots fly over distant brows and soar down ridgelines in take-your-breath trajectories. In 1995, Golf Digest rewarded Jackson’s work  here by ranking the course No. 4 on a national list of Most Aesthetic layouts.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Carolina Country Club

Just down the road from Glassy Mountain, in the cool highlands of Spartanburg, Jackson authored a course for true golf lovers at Carolina Country Club in 1984. With 20 years of course-building behind him, Jackson chose to contain the front nine in a compact, intimate space to the south of the clubhouse then unfurl the back nine on a grand loop through woodlands to the north. 

Ideal for competition, Carolina C.C. hosts the annual Wofford Invitational Championship, a prestigious collegiate event, and each May hosts the BMW Pro-Am.

FLORIDA: Amelia Island Plantation

Lest you imagine that a Tom Jackson design can only work in a setting of high, rugged terrain, take a look at the low-lying Amelia River course at Amelia Island Plantation on the Atlantic coast near Jacksonville. On this level, oak- and palm-studded property, Jackson did his designing with ocean breezes well in mind.

The Amelia River course plays to a yardage of 6,823 from the back tees. Its fairways have adequate width and appealing ground contours. As in his mountain designs, Jackson throws in a blind shot or two on this links to test the nerves of a newcomer and to keep the regulars on their toes.

NORTH CAROLINA: Lockwood Folly

No doubt Willard Byrd was the right architect for the job when Lockwood Folly Country Club was being site-planned on a dynamic waterway location where the Intracoastal Waterway and the open Atlantic converge. A university-trained landscape architect, Byrd was fully capable of producing entire master land-use plans for a gated golf community, and did so on several occasions.

At Lockwood Folly, he built the romance of a coastal hideaway into his routing, which features on-parallel fairways that wind through the hardwoods to ensure a sense of seclusion.

GEORGIA: The Landings on Skidaway Island

Working in good company at The Landings (where courses by Arthur Hills, Tom Fazio and Arnold Palmer also compete for accolades), Byrd went for a British links type of playability for his Plantation Course. Its front nine goes out to the southwesterly tip of the island, and the back nine returns to the Plantation Clubhouse. Holes No. 8, 9 and 10 are especially scenic, overlooking Adams Creek and Ossabaw Sound.

Byrd lived to the age of 85 and designed or renovated 100-plus courses, but he surely had few finer sites to ply his craft upon than this one at The Landings. His company records are now archived at North Carolina State University, as a valuable documentation of important progress in the fields of land planning and landscape architecture.

NORTH CAROLINA: Sea Trail

Working once again at a club complex with multiple courses (including works by Rees Jones and Dan Maples) the esteemed designer created his eponymous Willard Byrd Course for Sea Trail. 

The community itself is a 2,000-acre lacework of creeks and woodland, rife with interesting wildlife. In places the Byrd course has interesting filtered views made up of pine-tree trunks. Elsewhere there are white-sand bunkers so precisely sculpted and knowingly placed that you can forget these aesthetic wonders are put there to impede your progress and stain your scorecard.

NORTH CAROLINA: Ocean Ridge Plantation

Golfers at this landmark community find themselves surrounded by resort comforts, but they recognize the Lion’s Paw course as one of the few un-pampering amenities at Ocean Ridge Plantation. 

Byrd got everything right at this open, hilly layout, filling it up with bold contours and features. Its hazards—ribbony creeks, recurring wetlands and towering hardwoods—are also the elements that make the Lion’s Paw layout so handsome to behold.

NORTH CAROLINA: River Landing

The last member of our architect foursome, Clyde Johnston, actually apprenticed under Willard Byrd before setting out on his own. Among Johnston’s many award-winning designs, his 36-hole installation at River Landing in Wallace, NC, along the northeast Cape Fear River, is surely a personal favorite.Its highlights include a cascading waterfall and arched bridge on one of the two home holes.

Before his employment with Byrd, Clyde Johnston took his cues about course design from his father, a golf professional who coached Arnold Palmer at Wake Forest University and was known to dabble in course architecture. The elder Johnston, with Clyde helping out as best a youngster could, designed several public courses for no fee, just to promote the game of golf.

The GolfCourseHome® Golf Architect Series

I. The No. 1 Real-Estate Enhancer: Jack Nicklaus - Find out why this golf course architect adds the most value to the real estate surrounding the golf courses he designs.
II. Tom Fazio: Elevating Course Design--and Home Values
III. Arnold Palmer: His Brilliant Second Career
IV. Arthur Hills: Value-Adding Visionary
V. Robert Trent Jones II: Continuing the Legacy
VI. Bob Cupp & Tom Jackson: Veterans with Prime Portfolios
VII. Pete Dye: Lifelong Innovator (Part-Time Intimidator)
VIII. Greg Norman: Still a Champ & Competing, But On a Larger Golf Landscape

Rees Jones Took a Legacy and Ran With It - Woodside, Viniterra, Others Are Examples

In the field of golf course design, it seems unlikely that any family could keep up with the Joneses. The passing of patriarch Robert Trent Jones, Sr. eight years ago left the golf landscape to his highly accomplished sons, R.T. Jones, Jr. and Rees.

Of the two scions, Rees has been more the industry insider, doing more to shape and set up courses for major championships than any other architect. Being born into the world of golf course design has also kept Rees Jones focused on the long view and resistant to mere fashions and trends. His training as an undergraduate at Yale and in graduate studies at Harvard reinforced his inclination toward classic design.

NORTH CAROLINA: Sea Trail Plantation

Sea Trail Plantation, NC

At a course like Sea Trail Plantation, for example, it’s easy to see the controlled beauty and well-framed fairways that Jones is known for. Known to vary his bunkering styles according to the region and the type of terrain he is working in, Jones went for an eclectic array at Sea Trail, using pot bunkers and large expanse bunkers to vary the shot values. This course represents a liberal use of water by Rees—some form of water hazard is featured on 11 of the 18 holes.

FLORIDA: Hammock Dunes Creek Course

Playing the Rees Jones-designed Creek Course at Hammock Dunes Private Community, you can see that Jones was asked to produce a layout challenging enough that it might even suggest U.S. Open difficulty in spots. Played from the back tees, this marsh- and creekside beauty stretches to 7,355 yards on a 450-acre expanse of lovely Lowcountry. The design firm’s long commitment to sustainability is evidenced by the Creek Course’s designation as a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary.

GEORGIA: Reynolds Plantation

Jones was at the top of his game and working under ideal conditions when he designed the Oconee Course at Reynolds Plantation, which opened in 2002. This dramatic, challenging and playable layout has captured the attention of the golfing industry, hosting highly visible tournaments like the 2007 PGA Cup, the 2007 Chick-Fil-A Bowl Alma Mater, and serving as the future site of the 2008 PGA Professional National championships. The Oconee layout “may actually be the resort's crown jewel," wrote Gary Van Sickle in Travel & Leisure Golf.

All three designing Joneses had independent streaks. Before setting off on his own in 1974, second son Rees, who grew up traveling with his family to courses all over the world, became a partner in his father’s firm. During that time he served an apprenticeship and absorbed the master’s teachings. In fact, his mantle of U.S. Open “doctor” was passed down to him by Trent Jones, Sr., who had first ascended to fame in part through the renovation of Oakland Hills C.C. for the 1951 Open.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Woodside Plantation

The career of Rees Jones has unfolded during a time of important changes to the theory of American golf course design. While favor has fallen on a more British, rough-hewn look, Rees has generally kept to a recognizably American parkland style. His emphasis has been on playability and the psychology of a risk and reward. “Golf holes that unfold with a variety of shot options requiring intelligent management of the game,” says Jones, in describing his design goals.

Staying on top of multiple projects and directing his design and administrative staff leaves little time for outside projects. Jones has always been keen to contribute to the literature of his profession, however, with two book co-authorships to his credit and surely more to come. In 2005, he teamed with Chris Millard to write the copy for a knee-buckling coffee table book, “Golf’s 100 Toughest Holes.” Several years earlier he teamed with writer Joel Zuckerman to pen “Golf in the Lowcountry: An Extraordinary Journey Through Hilton Head Island & Savannah.”

He put his thorough understanding of Lowcountry terrain and “ground movement” to work in designing one of the two the well-received championship courses at Woodside Plantation Country Club, in Aiken, SC.

Throughout the game and industry of golf, Rees Jones is known for almost as much for his fellowship and easy nature as for his design skills. Some of his 50-plus golf club memberships are honorary, but many others are testimony to his true love of the golfing life.

VIRGINIA: Viniterra at New Kent Vineyards

In a Golf Digest profile article, Jones admitted to playing in a member-guest tournament at a club he forgot he belonged to. “The whole time, I thought I was the guest,” he admitted sheepishly.

One club where Rees’s affection for fellowship would be well indulged is Viniterra at New Kent Vineyards, a newer club in the Virginia countryside where a Jones original marked by gorgeous green complexes and bold bunkering shares the spotlight with a 12,000- square-foot winery that is already producing some impressive vintage varietals.

VIRGINIA: RoseWood Village at Wintergreen

Expressing the core fundamentals of his approach to architecture, Rees has said that his team “aims to provide variety and interest to the layouts we design. But innovation for the sake of innovation alone is not our style. We [favor] creating a strategic bunker complex to achieve a certain shot value rather than creating ‘window dressing’”.

In designing the 27-hole Stoney Creek course at Wintergreen Resort, a golf amenity of RoseWood Village at Wintergreen, Jones used the angles of play from tee to green to frame distant Blue Ridge Mountain peaks. On the ground, he brought the natural elements of the landscape into play: meandering streams, hardwood forests and pristine wetlands. In the end, the resort had a lower- elevation golf course that offered mountain beauty but remains playable basically all year round.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Briar's Creek

“The only effective way to get a feel for the land is to walk it,” says Jones. “We are hands-on designers, and our routing plans are always confirmed on the ground.” At times the U.S. golf media has praised a younger cohort of architects for hand- crafting their courses while forgetting that the Rees Jones design group has honored this principle from the beginning.

The acclaim that greeted Briar’s Creek was thrilling even for an industry luminary. Golf Digest editors proclaimed it the “Best New Private Course” of 2003, and that honor paved the way for a litany of awards and rankings that have followed. The list is too long to include in a brief summary of Rees Jones courses—suffice to say that any list of the most artful and challenging courses in the Carolinas has to include this five-year-old jewel.

Looking back over Rees Jones’ important and prestigious role in U.S. golf as the Open Doctor—his renovation resume includes six PGA Championship courses, three Ryder Cup sites and one Walker Cup golf course—Jones would still be acclaimed for his design instincts and for the craftsmanship that lends his 100-plus original golf course designs, such as Briar’s Creek and Reynolds Plantation’s Oconee Course, such memorable flow and symmetry. His father, Jones Sr., would certainly be proud.

Greg Norman: Still a Champ & Competing, But On a Larger Golf Landscape

Jupiter Country Club course: one of Norman's many.

Residential Golf Course Architects, Part VII

Many stars retire from golf competition and begin an awkward search for golf-related business opportunities. Greg Norman was different--he had always been looking ahead to his future as an entrepreneur.

Norman’s successful foray into course design (one of many enterprises in which he has excelled) is marked by an artful, inspired visual style coupled with a keen sense of the difficulty factor most players can handle.

FLORIDA: Jupiter Country Club

The 2008 British Open—where Norman nearly went wire-to-wire as a surprise 53-year-old champion—testified to the athleticism and pure golf feel that made Greg Norman such a great player for so long. In addition to being the No. 1 golfer worldwide for 331 consecutive weeks, he won two major championships and finished second in a handful of others.

From Norman’s U.S. base right on Jupiter Island, the trip to Jupiter Country Club was the shortest of rides. This “home-field advantage” for the project gave Norman the chance to make many visits and provide ongoing design input. The result is a course of great design integrity with a special rhythm to the holes.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Barefoot Resort & Golf 

Norman entered the course-design field knowing that his charismatic personality and reputation for bold, at times high-risk shotmaking preceded him. Always a bit of a showman, he knew he could use course architecture to express those elements of his personality. That said, in cases where his client desired a subtle, more cerebral routing, Norman has complied. But where a more heroic style has been called for, the famed Aussie sportsman has been eager to comply.

The Norman Course at Barefoot Resort & Golf in the vacation mecca of Myrtle Beach makes use of a flowing, no-transition technique Norman likes to employ. The layout’s fairways at certain points run directly into sand, at other points into scrubby native-vegetation areas, without buffers or demarcations. This means that aggressive shots have no light rough or other border-type surface to keep them out of the hazards. The technique also adds visual drama, an attribute Norman strongly favors.

TENNESSEE: Tennessee National

Medalist Development, a joint venture between Great White Shark Enterprises and Macquarie Bank of Australia, represents the Norman technique of forming partnerships that provide greater creative control of his work and more equity in the resulting asset. It was under the Medalist umbrella that the 1,450-acre Tennessee National came into being.

The golf course site Tennessee National developers set aside had a bumps-and-hollows movement to it that Norman found ideal. Covering 260 acres, the course features stacked sod-wall bunkers, an unusual temperate-zone mix of Bermuda and bent grasses, plus native stone bulkhead walls and spillways. There are 13 man-made lakes on the course and water comes into play on 11 holes.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Oldfield

Never one to do things halfway, Norman seized the issue of sustainable golf development when, in 2004, he signed on as a Trustee of the Environmental Institute for Golf, a philanthropic organization governed by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. As part of his appointment, Greg agreed to chair the institute’s advisory council, which has given shape to, funded and developed many important initiatives.

Working with his clients at Oldfield, Norman’s design team moved earth and cleared the native trees very selectively. The result is a Lowcountry championship course that prowls through rippled, oak-shaded terrain and dares a player to hit toward unforgiving marshland on a short-cut path to the target.

FLORIDA: BellaTrae at Champions Gate

Norman was extended the opportunity to double his efforts at the new BellaTrae at Champions Gate, FL, and the result was the National and International. Golfers enjoy a comprehensive tour of the 1,200-acre private and gated community on the 36 holes which weave through woodlands, wetlands, and orange groves. The community is additionally enhanced by being the world headquarters of the David Leadbetter Golf Academy. It further proves that Norman the showman and gritty golfer can share a stage with anyone and still look great.

Golf Architects Officially Add Pace of Play to Golf Course Design

World Golf Village, FL: Two courses, Hall of Fame & more.

One of the oft-heard remarks about playing 18 holes of golf is
that it takes too long--four hours or more. In today's fast-
paced, always connected world that can be a lifetime. The
members of the American Society of Golf Course Architects
(ASGCA) know this fact well and while the golfers themselves
are part of the equation, the course designers can help them
along with design strategies aimed at speeding up play.

“A properly designed, well-drained course with ample playable
areas, properly placed bunkers, visible water hazards and
smaller greens usually plays fastest,” explains ASGCA
President Steve Forrest. “ASGCA architects work with
developers to design courses that are challenging but not
overwhelming. This keeps play moving without detracting
from the player’s overall experience.”

Courses offering faster play usually benefit from a
combination of factors including quality professional
management, and the cooperation both of those playing and
those directing play.

However, according to Forrest, faster play also results from
course designs that pay special attention to routing designs
and tactical layouts of tees, greens and fairways.

“Common sense tells us that shorter, wider courses will play
faster than longer, narrow ones, particularly for the average
and beginning players,” notes Forrest. “But, other design
elements should also be taken into account.”

When you are investigating a master-planned community's golf
course, here are other design elements which, considered
along with the myriad other design issues, can work to speed
up your play and get you off to the tennis court, marina or
other activity more quickly. And, of course, you can always
play just nine holes.

Multiple tees: Another common sense element—but one that
must be considered in conjunction with how tee placement
and length affect proper shot alignment—is the number and
placement of multiple tees.

Flatter, Smaller Greens: When greens have fewer severe
undulations, three putt frequency is reduced. Smaller greens
also lessen the number of three putts, and reduce the time
spent lining up putts.

Strategic Fairway Mounding: Fairways can be designed to
contain slightly errant shots by strategic mound placement.

Easily-Visible Yardage Marking: Vertical yardage markers, or
markers that are otherwise quickly identifiable, with accurate
yardage information will speed play.

The ASGCA has a number of publications that address design
considerations. For a list of free publications on golf course
remodeling, development, master planning and golf course
architect selection, contact ASGCA at 262-786-5960 or
[email protected]. To see the list of more than 75 golf course
architects that have designed for GolfCourseHome
communities and a list of their course, click here.

Golf Architect Pete Dye: Lifelong Innovator (Part-Time Intimidator)

PGA Village, FL: A Dye course and famous golf school.

Pete Dye: Lifelong Innovator
(Part-Time Intimidator)

Welcome to the seventh installment in an ongoing series of
articles on golf course designers and the style and value they
bring to a golf community. Past installments have focused on
Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio, Arnold Palmer, Arthur Hills,
Robert Trent Jones II, Bob Cupp and Tom Jackson.

Forget railroad ties, island greens and “Dye-abolical” course
layouts that all the “experts” cite in summing up Pete Dye’s
mark on golf course design. Dye’s career makes sense only
if you understand that in the late 1960s and ‘70s  he
re-introduced the strategic subtleties of British links golf into
American golf course design, and in doing so, changed
American golf forever.

Now in his 80's and still designing, Dye grew up playing a nine-
hole course on his family’s farm in Urbana, Ohio. He won the
Ohio State High School Championship and continued to
compete in amateur events for decades.

FLORIDA: Harbour Ridge Yacht & Country Club

The architect’s life and career changed in 1963, when he took
his first trip to Scotland. That visit freed Pete Dye to bring a
sense of mystery and natural, free-form randomness to the
fairways and greens he would build.

Dye had none other than Jack Nicklaus along as a rookie
assistant designer when he built the world-famous Harbour
Town Golf Links within Sea Pines Plantation on HIlton Head
Island. Site of an annual PGA Tour event, the Harbour Town
course was Dye’s first visible statement of how British
linksland design elements would influence him from that
point on.

GEORGIA: Marina Cottages at The Ford Plantation

Almost every type of terrain has golf potential, in Dye’s view,
but he is particularly fond of Carolina Lowcountry marsh.
Colleton River Plantation, where a bold and fast-running Dye
layout complements a Nicklaus-designed course, is an
excellent example of the “ground movement” Dye creates.

One Pete Dye golf course that the game’s top players have
always felt confident on is the River Course at Kingsmill on
the James, in historic Williamsburg, VA. With Michelob as a
title sponsor, both the PGA Tour and the LPGA Tour have
staged exciting tournaments on Dye’s smooth fairways and
carefully perched greens.

 Despite the long association between Dye’s designs and tour-
level competition, Pete is just as pleased and challenged to
design a purely recreational course. His 18-hole, championship
golf course at Hampton Hall, SC, is a case study in hole
variety, switching its requirements from power to positioning
and back again.

Dye is known for staying on site over long stretches and even
operating the shaping machinery himself. By being so hands-
on, he was able to master an eco-friendly approach that
controlled water use and made it possible to work in sensitive
environments. The courses he built at Amelia Island
Plantation, FL, in the 1970s with Bobby Weed are prominent
early examples.

One of Dye’s design ideas is that private courses should have
hard-to-read features that baffle a newcomer but become like
quirky old friends to the golfers who encounter them time and
again. At the Southern Hills Plantation Club outside Tampa,
FL, we can see that sleight-of-hand in the form of boomerang-
shaped mounding that hides steep-faced bunkers.

It is particularly tempting to course developers who are
building large, multi-course properties to include the work of
Pete Dye in the golf amenity. Barefoot Resort & Golf, a
landmark community on the Myrtle Beach Grand Strand,
features a star-studded design marquee that includes Greg
Norman, Davis Love III, Tom Fazio and a 7.343-yard Dye
Course. It’s a visually captivating layout whose so-called
safe areas are sometimes more tricky to play from than the
hazards one is trying to avoid.

FLORIDA: Ranch Colony

Likewise, the Dye reputation for presenting a stiff challenge
naturally leads a community like PGA Village, FL, to include
one of Pete’s courses in its 54-hole golf complex. Known for
providing one of America’s leading resort-style golf
academies—the famed PGA Learning Center—this community
turns its ever-improving golfers loose on two Tom Fazio 18s
and one by Dye.

Other Articles in the Golf Architect Series

I. The No. 1 Real-Estate Enhancer: Jack Nicklaus - Find out
why this golf course architect adds the most value to the real
estate surrounding the golf courses he designs.

II. Tom Fazio: Elevating Course Design--and Home Values

III. Arnold Palmer: His Brilliant Second Career

IV. Arthur Hills: Value-Adding Visionary

V. Robert Trent Jones II: Continuing the Legacy

VI.  Bob Cupp and Tom Jackson: Veterans with Prime Portfolios