Two golf course designers dominate the PGA Tour schedule – Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus.
Their creations are popular with tour officials because they tend to suit tournament play and are long enough for the modern game as well.
Of the two, Dye just edges Nicklaus in terms of events hosted, but which of his courses are the best?
Let’s rank them.
1. TPC Sawgrass
Originally a swampland that was deemed so unpromising as a plot of land that the PGA Tour purchased it for a nominal fee, the then CEO of the tour, Deane Beman, dreamed of a magnificent Florida HQ and a course that would host the Players Championship in style.
He wanted a big and difficult test. But he also demanded drama and the capacity for big crowds to see it all. The notion of a Stadium Course was born and Pete Dye was hired to create it.
Initially it was loathed. JC Snead called it “90% horse manure and 10% luck” and critics remain loud. To them it is a confection of a course with too much water, fairway-long bunkers that are aesthetic rather than technical, and absurd putting surfaces. They consider the island green on the 17th hole a travesty.
To others it is peak modern golf and there is no reason to mock it. Brandel Chamblee recently quoted its quality as a reason to make the Players Championship the fifth major.
Ultimately, it is possible to take the middle ground. TPC Sawgrass is modern, it is the result of machinery not nature, and it is sometimes ridiculous.
But it also fulfilled the brief: it created a new way to put on a golf tournament and, on the final three holes, anything can happen.
2. Harbour Town
This is actually a co-design with Jack Nicklaus and was the great man’s first creation – he was learning on the job with Dye. If Nicklaus can be said to have been doing work experience, he was!
It’s a very flat course that sneaks through the forest on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina and it contrasts markedly with TPC Sawgrass because it is short not long and it calls for accuracy not power.
But it does also test patience which is a key Dye-namic.
While Sawgrass tends to do so with manufactured traps, Harbour Town does it with narrow, small and blocked targets.
But it hosts the annual Masters after-party that is the RBC Heritage and everyone loves the relaxed vibe.
3. Kiawah Island
Like TPC Sawgrass, many an architect would have taken a look at the raw material available at Kiawah Island and done a runner.
Not Dye.
In one sense it looked more like the linksland of Britain and Ireland, but only a vague sense because there is sand and the beach is next door.
Otherwise Dye’s favourite machinery had to rip up the land and begin the process of fashioning the Ocean Course from what was left.
It hosted the Ryder Cup in 1991 – the famous War on the Shore. It has also hosted the PGA Championship in 2012 and 2021 – the latter witnessing the victory of Phil Mickelson aged 50 making him the oldest winner of a major championship.
Unlike the linksland of Britain and Ireland the Ocean Course features lots of water – not just alongside the holes, but with forced carries.
4. TPC River Highlands
Like Harbour Town, TPC River Highlands is on the short side. And like the RBC Heritage, the Travelers Championship (which River Highlands hosts) makes a huge effort to produce a great atmosphere for the players.
Many typical Dye features come into play but this is also a rather more traditional layout, making its way through the Connecticut woodland, and that is explained by the fact that it is a Dye redesign, albeit a rather extensive one undertaken in 1984.
In 2016 Jim Furyk carded a 58 there – it remains the PGA Tour’s record low score.
5. Stadium Course at PGA West
As with Kiawah Island, there was a sense that Dye was instructed to create a Scottish-style course at PGA West in California.
Scottish are not convinced by what resulted.
In truth, the course has far more in common with TPC Sawgrass and it is a regular host of January’s The American Express.
Like Sawgrass, however, when it was first used on tour the players started a petition to have it removed from the schedule. After lots of changes it returned and is now a popular track famous for a simply enormous bunker by the 16th green.
Most bunkers have lips. This one has a cliff face.
Read next: Golf’s most feared hole? The biggest Sawgrass 17th disasters
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Article Link: Ranking the top Pete Dye courses on the PGA Tour schedule