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My Interview with Pete Dye will be in the PGA Championship Program

So my preview for this year’s PGA Championship will not only be another hilarious laugh-a-minute romp with Kiawah Island course architect Pete Dye, but will also be in the PGA Championship program!

Here’s a taste:

JF: We hear some interesting things happened while you were building Kiawah Island?

PD: Oh I got plenty of stories! Everything happened to us trying to build that golf course. Back then it was owned by Landmark and Eddie Vossler, (you remember him, he won a lot on the PGA Tour), and Joe Walser. They owned PGA West, La Quinta, and Oak Tree – I’ve built 10-11 courses for them – and they had the Ryder Cup coming to PGA West in 1991, but TV requested a time change for the tournament, which required them to move it to the east coast instead.

JF: Network television wanted to air the tournament during prime time in Europe, wasn’t that it?

PD: Right first time! So they bought the Kiawah land in 1988 and they looked at me, and I looked at the swamp they bought, and they said, “We’re gonna have the Ryder Cup here in two years!” and I said, “Well you must be having it at another golf course!” And they just looked right back at me and said, “Oh no, were having it right here.” “And I thought, ‘Well, it’s our funeral…” but I said, “Okay, let’s go…”

Well, it was tough enough having only two years to get the course done and grown in, but we had barely got started, and then Hurricane Hugo came in and tore up everything. It made a wondrous mess.

But because of Hugo, we were able to restore a lot of the land. We were able to fix up the sand dunes, add two new ponds, and turn the site from salt water to fresh. But most importantly, Alice said, “you ought to make the inland holes built up so you can see the ocean from every hole,” and that was a great idea, perhaps the best suggestion she ever made in a long career of making great suggestions. So she’s just as responsible for the course being so good as anyone. We built up all the fairways, and now they’re even more windswept than they would have been.

Well everybody said we couldn’t do it. No way could we get the course ready for the Ryder Cup. I remember Tom Kite saw it and Dave Stockton, and a bunch of other guys all said we can’t play it here, but we did it. We got it ready even though they thought we couldn’t, and it was perfect.

During the rest, Pete talks Alice, the prevailing wind, who might win, and how to best play the Ocean Course. We’ll post the interview early next week.