Pete Dye and Alice Dye first met whilst studying at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. They then married in 1950 and moved to Indianapolis, Alice’s hometown, where they raised two sons, Perry and Paul Burke Dye. Pete quit his successful career in insurance to concentrate on golf course design and, once the children were a little older, Alice followed him into what eventually became one of golf’s best known design companies.

In The Golf Course by Geoff Cornish and Ron Whitten, the authors state that Perry “first accompanied his golf architect parents to course construction sites at age 12. While still a teenager, he absorbed enough knowledge to be heavily involved in the initial routing of the first course at John’s Island, Florida.

While at college, he served as project manager for a number of his father’s designs, including Harbour Trees near Indianapolis. After graduating from the University of Denver with a degree in Real Estate Marketing, Perry left the family business to pursue a career in housing development and construction.

The recession of the late 1970s caused him to abandon his plans and he rejoined his father in the course design business. In 1982, Perry formed his own course design company, Dye design Inc. Based in Colorado, and later in Arizona, the firm concentrated on real estate development courses.”

His most notable golfing credits in the 1980s were his efforts at Plum Creek Golf Club in Castle Rock, Colorado, Red Mountain Ranch Country Club in Mesa, Arizona and The Farms Golf Club in Rancho Sana Fe, California, all of which were designed in collaboration with his father, Pete Dye.

Into the 1990s and Perry carried out several assignments within American states that the Dye family hadn’t worked in previously: Royal Hawaiian Country Club and Big Island Country Club in Hawaii; Desert Pines Golf Club and Royal Links Golf Course in Nevada; as well as ad-hoc projects in Kansas (Auburn Hill) and Washington (The Plateau Club).

But it was his work in Asia that really took off during that decade, with four developments in both Thailand and South Korea and no fewer than nineteen courses built throughout Japan.

At the end of the 1980s, Perry had laid out a course at Kannami Spring Country Club in Shizouka and co-designed the Royal course at Pete Dye Golf Club in Imaichi with his father and these two Japanese layouts seemed to just open the floodgates in that country for further commissions throughout the 1990s, with Perry producing an average of two layouts every twelve months.

After operating at such a frantic pace for more than ten years, it was only natural that Perry would slow down a bit entering the new millennium, though he started off this new era with four domestic projects in rapid succession in 2001-2002 (at Hideaway Golf Club in California, Green Valley Ranch in Colorado, Indian River Preserve in Florida and Promontory Ranch Club in Utah).

A couple of overseas projects quickly followed in Spain (2003) and China (2004) but since then Perry dramatically scaled back his output. Notable designs in recent years include Lykia Links in Turkey and Pound Ridge Golf Course in New York, each of which were unveiled in 2008. His latest offerings were completed in 2018 at El Elcanto Country Club in El Salvador and El Punte Golf in Guatemala.

Perry O’Neal Dye sadly died in July 2021 at just 68 years of age, his wife Ann survives him.

Extracts

“Dirty Jobs” by Perry Dye from Secrets of the Great Golf Course Architects by Michael Patrick Shiels:

“I'm very proud to be part of a strong golf family dedicated to the advancement of design.Mind you, the job is not always glamorous.

Working for my father when I was thirteen, I was directed to clean out a wet well intake structure. Since I could fit into it, I had to crawl up inside the pipe and drag out the mud bucket by bucket.

Someone came along and asked my father why I was cleaning out the pipe. “It might be dangerous, and Perry can't sue me 'cause he's my son,” my father answered.

Obviously, I was lucky my father introduced me to golf at a young age. He was convinced that the motorized cart would mean the end of golf. He felt that the absence of caddies would result in the deterioration of the game because young people, who served as caddies, wouldn't get an introduction to the game.

But the golf cart has allowed people to continue playing into old age, which has benefited the game greatly. In addition, the golf cart has allowed us to put golf courses on land that we could not have used without carts. What the walkers say is true, but they should walk while others ride.”

From the DyeDesign.com website:

“The first golf course I ever worked on was Crooked Stick. Talk about jumping into the profession feet first, and learning right from the beginning how to construct a world class course. I guess I should be thankful for the time the babysitter never showed up, they were forced to bring me to the job site, I made myself useful, and my education began!”

Just like his parents, Pete and Alice, who started to do some of their finest work in their fifties, sixties and beyond, Perry Dye is following a similar trajectory. “I feel it's an accumulation of experience, knowledge, wisdom, and exposure to different cultures. It's being on site for weeks at a time in a variety of different terrains and topographies, working with a wide range of individuals, both at home and overseas, that have allowed me to improve and sharpen my work,”

Over the decades and on hundreds of job sites, Perry Dye has by turn assumed the mantle of architect, engineer, site manager, builder, shaper, and many other roles that make him in essence, a one-stop shop. Particularly in the contracting golf economy, it's far more affordable to have just a few people running a project than a whole contingent. It makes more sense to have one experienced person than a team of ten.

From Pete Dye in Bury Me in A Pot Bunker :

“Perry first began working with me when he was only twelve, hauling water, pounfding stakes, raking sand in the bunkers, and driving small equipment at Crooked Stick. By the time he was seventeen years old, Perry staked out the routing for the John’s Island course, and at nineteen he supervised the construction of the Harbor Tree course north of Indianapolis.

After a successful stint in real estate, Perry founded Dye Designs Inc. in Denver and has built memorable courses in the western part of the United States. In the mid-19080s, Perry began to research the golf industry in Japan, and beginning with the Mariya Country Club in 1987, he has built outstanding courses there.

His style, more than anyone else’s, has greatly influenced architecture in Japan. Extending his talent eastward, Perry now has courses in Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Australia.”