THERE IS EVIDENCE THAT GOLF first came to Savannah as early as 1794, and the Savannah Golf Club incorporated in 1899.  But that’s stuff for the history books. Here’s one of the most important reasons that, in the modern era, a couple of hundred golf bags circle the baggage carousel at Savannah-Hilton Head International Airport on any given day: Late in 1925, the world’s preeminent modern golf course architect, the irrepressible, iconoclastic Pete Dye, was born in Ohio.  
    Some 44 years later, over Thanksgiving weekend in 1969, the PGA Tour pros came to Hilton Head Island, S.C., to play in the inaugural Heritage Classic on the brand-new Dye-designed Harbour Town Golf Links.  No less an eminence than Arnold Palmer won that first event and the Hilton Head golf scene, and for that matter, Dye, were never the same again.
    A former insurance agent and crack amateur golfer, Dye was well into his 30s when he decided to chuck his membership in the Million Dollar Roundtable and opt for membership in the American Society of Golf Course Architects instead.  
    Good move.  
    There are more than 300,000 insurance agents in the nation and about 200 members of the architects’ society.  But there is only one Dye.
    The courses that Dye, often in concert with his wife, Alice, has created are a de facto honor roll of the most-celebrated venues in the modern game, and a disproportionate number of his most famous creations are an easy drive from downtown Savannah.  
    Beside Harbour Town, there’s The Ocean Course on Kiawah Island, S.C., and the famed TPC Sawgrass --Stadium Course near Jacksonville, Fla.  Also in the immediate neighborhood:  The highly regarded Long Cove Club on Hilton Head, the uber-private Ford Plantation south of Savannah in  Richmond Hill and the stylish Dye Course at Colleton River Plantation in Bluffton, S.C.  More recently, Dye created the user-friendly Hampton Hall, also in Bluffton, and just last year redid the somewhat benign Sea Marsh Course in Sea Pines Plantation on Hilton Head into a fearsome resort test now known as Heron Point.
    However, Dye’s international legacy extends far beyond the Carolina Lowcountry and Coastal Empire, prolific though he’s been in this area.   
    A wide-ranging “Who’s Who” list includes Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, Teeth of the Dog in the Dominican Republic, PGA West’s Stadium and Mountain Courses in California, Oak Tree in Oklahoma, Crooked Stick in Indiana, The Honors Course in Tennessee and Bulle Rock in Maryland.  There are nearly a hundred more.  Add in the work of his two sons, Perry and P.B., and his nephews and niece, and the list of Dye designs swells to more than 250 courses, in all corners of the globe.
    Dye is a genius, a workaholic, a visionary, an octogenarian giant in the game of golf.  In fact, he’s being inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame this autumn.  In regards to his modus operandi while conceiving and then executing a golf course, it’s been said about Dye that he never met a board of governors he didn’t prefer to ignore, or an executive committee whose counsel he would rather not seek.  One could sum up his self-assuredness by instituting a subtle twist on an old expression:  “It’s the Dye way or the highway.”  
    
Editor’s Note: In 2006, Joel Zuckerman was hired by the Dye family to write the authorized celebration of Dye’s career, “Dye: Golf Courses — 50 Years of Visionary Design.”

FOR DYE’S SAKE: ANECDOTES FROM THOSE WHO KNOW HIM WELL
SAM PUGLIA: Owner of the Dye Club at Barefoot Resort in North Myrtle Beach, S.C.
    “There was a big press conference when we announced that we were building four courses simultaneously at Barefoot Resort.  There were several hundred in attendance.  Besides the press, each of the design principals had an entourage of assistants with them.  
    “One-by-one they stood up and introduced themselves and their entire staff.  Mark Love, the president of Love Course Design, stood in for Davis.  Greg Norman’s chief design associate was there, as was Tom Fazio.  They all were talking about how they were going to build enjoyable, playable resort courses that would appeal to all levels of golfers.
    “Then Dye took the microphone.  He said, ‘I’d like to introduce you to my entire staff.  Alice, please stand up.’  After the laughter died down, he said, ‘This business can be tough, so I keep the staff small.  In case business slows down, I only have one employee I need to lay off.’  
    “He went on to say, ‘I know all about these guys and their staffs, because at one time or another, most of them have worked for me.  And one other thing:  My golf course won’t be like theirs.  It’s going to be so damn hard, people are going to hate it!’  And Dye was true to his word.  The course is one of the hardest in the state.  But once people play it, they can’t wait to come back and try it again.”

DAVID TANDY: Head superintendent, Delray Dunes Golf Club
    “When I first met Mr. Dye, he wanted to show me his plans for redoing the par-5 fourth hole at our course.  He didn’t have a sketch or blueprint.  Instead, he lay down sideways in the fairway bunker on the hole, and while his elbow, hip and feet were in the sand, he started tracing the hole with his index finger.  Afterwards he got up and brushed himself off.  I was so amazed to see a world-famous, 80-year-old man lie down in the sand like that; I forgot to remind him to rake the bunker once he got out.  I thanked him for his time, and then raked it myself.”

BOBBY WEED: Golf course architect, longtime design associate of Dye
    “Dye and I shared a condo on Hilton Head for quite awhile when we were working on Long Cove.  He was also taking regular trips down to Jacksonville, checking on the progress of the Stadium Course.  Dye would interrupt my sleep, tromping up the stairs in his boots at one, sometimes two in the morning.  The next thing I knew he’d be pounding on my door at 5 a.m., saying, ‘You can’t build a golf course from bed!’  I couldn’t believe how much energy the man had, keeping on the move 20-odd hours a day.  But when you have so much passion for what you’re doing, it drives you relentlessly.  With the challenges that these various projects entailed, his energy never seemed to flag.”

TIM LIDDY: Golf course architect, longtime associate of Dye
    “When you’re with Dye, you usually get upper-floor, deluxe suites at hotels.  One time we were working at Nemacolin Resort in Pennsylvania, and our rooms supposedly had floor-to-ceiling mountain views.  I never saw them, because we checked in long after dark, and we were out of there before first light.  
    “The only hotel employee we usually have contact with is the night clerk.  That’s who’s on duty when we arrive, and they’re still on the job when we check out.  That’s life with Dye.”  

KELLY GIBSON: Former PGA Tour pro, TPC Louisiana design consultant
    “We were walking the back nine during construction, and I was trying to convince Dye to save the magnificent cypress tree located at the corner of the dogleg on the 13th hole, which was slated to be taken down.  He said, ‘Son, you can’t be a tree hugger and survive in the course-design business.’  
    “I continued to plead my case.  I said that the tree was probably 750 years old, and it would be a shame to take it down.  We kept walking up the fairway, and he smiled a bit, and then said, ‘You’re telling me that tree is 750 years old, and I’m telling you that I’m 75 years old.  One of us is leaving today, and it’s not me!’  
    We walked a bit further, I asked him to look at the tree from a different angle.  Finally he was convinced.  He said, ‘You know, you’re right.  I think we’ll keep it.’  I’m happy to say the tree not only survived Dye, but several years later, it also survived Hurricane Katrina.”