Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: Today we have a documentary episode for you on the
Speaker 1: story of how TPC Sawgrass, the venue of the Players
Speaker 1: Championship was designed and built. We actually released this episode
Speaker 1: this week last year as the fourth installment of our
Speaker 1: Frida Egg Story series. Now, of course you remember this
Speaker 1: week last year.
Speaker 2: We all do.
Speaker 1: It was when the seriousness of the COVID nineteen pandemic
Speaker 1: really became clear in the US, and the Players Championship
Speaker 1: was canceled after Round one. In the midst of all
Speaker 1: of that, we released this episode and people did listen
Speaker 1: to it. We really appreciated that, but we thought we
Speaker 1: would give it another chance this week, given that the
Speaker 1: Players Championship, by all indications, will actually happen. This episode
Speaker 1: has interviews with Dean Beeman, Jerry Pate, Vernon, Kelly, Tom Doak,
Speaker 1: Sean Martin, and Adam Shuepack, and we thought they said
Speaker 1: some really interesting and valuable things about Pete Dye, about
Speaker 1: the process behind TPC Sawgrass, and about the influence of
Speaker 1: both Die and what has become his most famous design. So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, here is episode four of Fried Egg Stories.
Speaker 1: Alligator Pitt the making of TPC sawgrass.
Speaker 2: The fried egg requires a different technique.
Speaker 3: What you need to do is.
Speaker 4: Actually square the face so they'll dig down underneath that
Speaker 4: bad lie and propel that ball right out onto the green.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing.
Speaker 5: Playing out of a buried lion of bunker is completely
Speaker 5: different than playing out of a night and clean lion
Speaker 5: a greenside bunker.
Speaker 6: You need to be aggressive on any show weather it's
Speaker 6: sitting cleanly for its fried egg.
Speaker 2: Well, we've all faced it.
Speaker 1: The dreaded fried egg not.
Speaker 4: To be cleared, though, it's actually a pretty easy shot
Speaker 4: to hit.
Speaker 6: Sailing out of Gravesend, England on the trade route, Captain
Speaker 6: William Hilton, one August morning in sixteen sixty three came
Speaker 6: upon an island peaceful and serene.
Speaker 1: What you're hearing is the telecast of the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: nine Heritage Golf Classic. It was a new event held
Speaker 1: at a new golf course, Harbortown Golf Links had been
Speaker 1: built by a forty three year old architect named Pete Dye.
Speaker 1: Back then, Pete Dye wasn't well known in a mainstream way,
Speaker 1: but his collaborator had a more recognizable name.
Speaker 7: Hello, I'm Jack Nicholas. This is Pete Dye.
Speaker 1: The two men lean against the balustrade of an outdoor stairway,
Speaker 1: both looking a little flushed in their full suits.
Speaker 7: Pete and I worked together to design and build the
Speaker 7: Harbortown golf Links here at Seapin's plantation.
Speaker 4: We're here on the eve of the.
Speaker 7: First Heritage Golf Classic to be played over the Thanksgiving weekend.
Speaker 7: Having a golf tournament on the first year of operation,
Speaker 7: it's a dream come true for both of us.
Speaker 5: And the golf course looks great.
Speaker 2: Dunnie looks beautiful.
Speaker 5: Jack.
Speaker 6: Really, it's been a lot of fun here and well, yes,
Speaker 6: that's a great contrast today the beautagrasses with a beheas
Speaker 6: centipede pin strong brings you back to Pinehurst and some
Speaker 6: of the old British golf links looks great.
Speaker 1: It was quite a coup for Pete Dye to be
Speaker 1: there on TV side by side with the greatest golfer
Speaker 1: in the world. If you were a golf architect in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, he didn't get an awful lot of
Speaker 1: press unless your name was Robert Trent Jones. So the
Speaker 1: opening of Harbortown marked a turning point in Pete Dye's career.
Speaker 1: Here was a course to be discussed. It was quirky
Speaker 1: and challenging, and it proved popular among the pros. One
Speaker 1: of those pros was Dean Beeman, who played his first
Speaker 1: Heritage in nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 5: My favorite golf course was Harbortown, and Harbortown was today
Speaker 5: is many players' favorite golf course.
Speaker 3: They really like it.
Speaker 5: Harbortown is a golf course that has just as many
Speaker 5: right to left as left to right holes. It has
Speaker 5: small and green, It demands accuracy. It doesn't favor a
Speaker 5: long hitter versus a shorter hitter. So I thought it
Speaker 5: had a great balance and it was a great test
Speaker 5: of golf and a fair test to golf.
Speaker 1: By nineteen seventy eight, Beaman was commissioner of the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour and he had just negotiated the purchase of a wild,
Speaker 1: soggy property near Jacksonville, Florida. There he intended to build
Speaker 1: a new venue for the Tournament Players Championship. He wanted
Speaker 1: the course to tax the abilities of the world's best
Speaker 1: golfers while providing a better viewing experience for spectators. It
Speaker 1: would be a stadium golf course, and he knew the
Speaker 1: man to build it was Pete Dye. Today, on Frida
Speaker 1: Egg's Stories, we are going back four decades to the
Speaker 1: building of the stadium course at TPC Sawgrass in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two Players Championship. This story has been told
Speaker 1: and retold over and over, and since it's Player's Week
Speaker 1: right now, you'll no doubt be reminded by various journalists,
Speaker 1: TV hosts, and podcasters of the usual bits of lore.
Speaker 1: Dean Beeman purchasing the property for one dollar, Pete Dies
Speaker 1: sketching a routing on the back of a place mat,
Speaker 1: the creation of the island Green, the complaints of the pros,
Speaker 1: and Jerry Pate after his victory in eighty two hauling
Speaker 1: both Beman and Die into the pond next to the
Speaker 1: eighteenth Green. Don't get me wrong, we'll replay a few
Speaker 1: of those hits in this episode. We're not about that.
Speaker 1: But the real reason I'm curious about the TPC Sawgrass
Speaker 1: story has to do with the personalities involved in the
Speaker 1: contrasts between them. On the one hand, you had Pete Dye.
Speaker 1: Golf architecture was a passion for him, not just a
Speaker 1: business enterprise, and as we know in the way he
Speaker 1: designed courses. He was intensely hands on and independent. He
Speaker 1: was an artist. On the other hand, you had the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour under the leadership of Dean Beeman, thirteen years
Speaker 1: younger than Pete.
Speaker 8: Die.
Speaker 1: Beeman was energetic and assertive, a deal maker. TPC Sawgrass
Speaker 1: was his venture, and he had ideas of his own
Speaker 1: about what it should be. No less an authority than
Speaker 1: Alice Dye, Pete's wife and most trusted design consultant, had
Speaker 1: her own doubts about the partnership between Dean and Pete. Oh, Pete,
Speaker 1: you're crazy, she said, you can't build for Dean. He's particular,
Speaker 1: he's efficient, he's all the things you aren't. He'll have
Speaker 1: his hands in there trying to tell you what to do.
Speaker 1: Don't do it. But he did, and oddly enough it worked.
Speaker 1: In this episode of Frida Egg Stories, we'll try to
Speaker 1: figure out how today the PGA Tour is the eight
Speaker 1: hundred pound rilla of the golf World. Back in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, it was more like a newborn COMPUTIONI. The
Speaker 1: Tournament Player's Division as it was then known, had just
Speaker 1: separated from the PGA of America, and it was a
Speaker 1: scrappy operation.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 9: Really a mom and pop shop back then.
Speaker 1: Adam Schupak is a golf journalist and the author of
Speaker 1: Golf's Driving Force, a biography of Dean Beaman.
Speaker 9: When the Tour moved its headquarters to Panaviter Beach, it
Speaker 9: was working out of a four bedroom home with Dean's
Speaker 9: office was the master bedroom. The garage had the copier
Speaker 9: and postage meter, and you know for an intercom, they
Speaker 9: just yelled at each other. It was. It was a
Speaker 9: really small staff and Beaman took over in nineteen seventy
Speaker 9: four and used to say that, you know, the largest
Speaker 9: capital ast that they had was an IBM Selectric typewriter.
Speaker 9: They had about twenty walkie talkies and they did it on.
Speaker 9: They had three Budweisers and the Canna Beans. I mean,
Speaker 9: it was a time period where bowling was still attracting
Speaker 9: higher ratings than golf, and tennis was the sport surging
Speaker 9: and popularity, so you know, he had a lot of
Speaker 9: work cut out for him when he took over his commissioner.
Speaker 1: It didn't take long for Beaman to start making aggressive moves.
Speaker 1: He was in his mid thirties and he had a
Speaker 1: background not only as an elite golfer who had won
Speaker 1: two US Amateurs, but also as an insurance broker. He
Speaker 1: knew his way around tax documents as well as boardroom negotiations.
Speaker 9: You know, he was an intense man. He's got these
Speaker 9: piercing blue eyes, and you know, his friends used to
Speaker 9: say that, you know, he could deliverer a look that
Speaker 9: could exterminate headlce And it was a job that required toughness,
Speaker 9: because you know, he had this quest to kind of
Speaker 9: roll over the status quo in this traditional game, make
Speaker 9: golf a bigger sport. And you know, he wanted to
Speaker 9: create a fan base that was much broader than just
Speaker 9: its own participants, and that meant doing things a little
Speaker 9: differently than they'd been done in the past.
Speaker 1: In his first year, Beaman converted the tour into a nonprofit,
Speaker 1: exempting it from paying income taxes and changing its financial fortunes.
Speaker 1: Beeman's other signature project was the new Turn of Players Championship,
Speaker 1: later known as the Players Championship and now apparently as
Speaker 1: just the Players Anyway. From the beginning, Beeman had big
Speaker 1: plans for the event. The USGA had the US Open,
Speaker 1: the PGA of America had the PGA Championship and the
Speaker 1: RNA had the Open, why shouldn't the PGA Tour have
Speaker 1: its own major. Well, for one, it's not easy to
Speaker 1: manufacture prestige, but Beeman tried his best. After staging the
Speaker 1: first three tournament players Championships at three different courses, he
Speaker 1: decided to stick with one. It had worked for the Masters,
Speaker 1: after all, So starting in nineteen seventy seven, the players
Speaker 1: absorbed to the Greater Jacksonville Open and set up shop
Speaker 1: at Sawgrass Country Club, which was.
Speaker 5: A very dynamic golf course that was played in March
Speaker 5: where the wind blew. It was as close to an
Speaker 5: ocean side course as you could get, and so it
Speaker 5: had all those elements in it.
Speaker 1: But while Beeman liked Sawgrass as a course, he thought
Speaker 1: it could be improved as a venue.
Speaker 5: There was going to have to be a substantial investment
Speaker 5: made in the golf course and the facilities to accommodate
Speaker 5: both the players and the gallery and what we wanted
Speaker 5: to do.
Speaker 1: So Beaman attempted to buy Sawgrass Country Club, but for
Speaker 1: a variety of reasons, the deal never happened. Instead, he
Speaker 1: set out to build a new course, a home course
Speaker 1: for the tour. Just across the road from Sawgrass Country
Speaker 1: Club was a huge tract of wilderness. The owners knew
Speaker 1: that being in business with the ascendant golf tour would
Speaker 1: raise the value of their land, so they sold four
Speaker 1: hundred and fifteen acres to Beaman for one dollar. From there,
Speaker 1: the commissioner pieced together financing from a non recourse loan,
Speaker 1: a few dozen expensive founding memberships, and a few thousand
Speaker 1: cheap annual memberships. It was a tidy sum acquired at
Speaker 1: minimal risks.
Speaker 10: PG tour.
Speaker 9: Commissionary's working for a board, he's working for the players,
Speaker 9: and they had a lot of doubts and they pretty much,
Speaker 9: you can't risk any of our assets.
Speaker 10: They didn't have a lot of to day.
Speaker 9: But they didn't want to put anything on the line,
Speaker 9: and if he failed, it was his neck. And so
Speaker 9: he went out figured a way to do it where
Speaker 9: they just couldn't say no, and it was you know,
Speaker 9: that is one of the most brilliant deals ever in
Speaker 9: the game of golf.
Speaker 1: After all of that, though, Beeman found himself in possession
Speaker 1: of a piece of land that, to put it mildly,
Speaker 1: seemed ill suited to golf. Here's how Pete Dye described
Speaker 1: it in his autobiography Bury Me in a pop Bunker.
Speaker 1: When I first inspected the proposed site for the player's course,
Speaker 1: my only compatriots in the impenetrable swampy jungle were deer, alligators,
Speaker 1: wild boar, and deadly snakes. In order to cut a path,
Speaker 1: I followed deer tracks that led me to dry areas
Speaker 1: in the swamp before I nearly drowned in the depths
Speaker 1: of the marshland well.
Speaker 3: The property was.
Speaker 5: It was dead flat, It had a lot of standing
Speaker 5: water on it'bstantial rainfall here in Jacksonville following rainfall.
Speaker 3: Until to dry it out.
Speaker 5: It was a pretty wet piece of property.
Speaker 1: It hadn't always been that way. The array of oak, pine, sweetgum,
Speaker 1: and magnolia trees on the site indicated that it had
Speaker 1: once been in upland, But when the Intracoastal Waterway was
Speaker 1: built nearby in the early nineteen hundreds, water began to
Speaker 1: collect on the site. By the nineteen seventies, it was
Speaker 1: a Florida forest mashed up with a Florida swamp. But
Speaker 1: Beeman didn't mind that the property was flat and would
Speaker 1: need to be almost wholly re engineered. To him, it
Speaker 1: was a blank slate where he could realize his vision
Speaker 1: for a stadium golf course.
Speaker 5: No golf course up to that point had been bought,
Speaker 5: had been built that more interest was concentrated on the
Speaker 5: gallery than the players. Most golf courses are built for players.
Speaker 5: We needed to build build one for the players, but
Speaker 5: we also had to we want. I wanted to build
Speaker 5: a golf course that would be the first what I
Speaker 5: called a stadium golf course.
Speaker 3: Well, I wanted. I wanted two things. There were two elements.
Speaker 5: That I thought were extremely important in making a stadium
Speaker 5: course as successful as it could be. One is that
Speaker 5: you did all you could to build the spectator areas
Speaker 5: in the highest places on the course and the golf
Speaker 5: courses in the playing services on the lowest point of
Speaker 5: the golf course, so that the spectators were actually walking
Speaker 5: with you, and they would be above the players, and
Speaker 5: so more people could see. And that's the concept of
Speaker 5: a stadium. The second part of the concept that I
Speaker 5: thought was very important was the routing of the golf
Speaker 5: course should be in a way that produced the most
Speaker 5: what I call areas of activity. Instead of spreading the
Speaker 5: golf course out and stringing the holes out. They shared
Speaker 5: wind back and forth in a way that created us
Speaker 5: hubs of activities where a spectator could maybe walk two
Speaker 5: or three hundred yards and see four or five different
Speaker 5: shots close to a couple of tees, a couple of greens,
Speaker 5: and maybe a fairway, and not have to walk five
Speaker 5: miles to watch a lot of golf. Because there are
Speaker 5: some spectators that want to follow their favorite player and
Speaker 5: others that just want to watch golf.
Speaker 1: It's striking how these ideas, although novel at the time,
Speaker 1: call to mind the features of certain time tested tournament
Speaker 1: golf courses. As Pete Dye pointed out in his autobiography,
Speaker 1: the Links courses of Great Britain and Ireland have dunes
Speaker 1: that form natural spectator mounds along the fairways and around
Speaker 1: the greens, and Beeman's notion of hubs of activity reminded
Speaker 1: me of how Augusta National returns to certain landforms, creating
Speaker 1: gathering spots where spectators can see multiple greens and tees
Speaker 1: at once. Perhaps in part because he appreciated these historical references,
Speaker 1: Pete Dye took beeman stadium concept and ran with it.
Speaker 1: Over dinner at the Homestead restaurant in Jacksonville. Die sketched
Speaker 1: a back nine routing on that now famous Place Mat
Speaker 1: and Beeman knew he had the right architect. Granted a
Speaker 1: Place Matt is a lot easier to work with than
Speaker 1: a four hundred and fifteen acre alligator pick.
Speaker 11: We killed rattlesnakes and moccasins all the time, almost every day.
Speaker 11: Were also alligators and spatters and all kinds of stuff
Speaker 11: out on the side, and you wore snake boots or
Speaker 11: or you didn't really go out there.
Speaker 1: Vernon Kelly was the project manager at TPC Sawgrass.
Speaker 11: There was something out there we called blue gumbo clay.
Speaker 11: What it was was almost a plastic kind of play
Speaker 11: It was like quicksand. And when you were digging san
Speaker 11: and out of the pits, because wherever you found sand,
Speaker 11: we excavated it for the golf holds, and that's how
Speaker 11: we created seventeen. Of course, almost anyway you see a
Speaker 11: lake out there, it's because there was sand in that
Speaker 11: area and we didn't have the money to buy sand.
Speaker 11: And once you excavated the sand, sometimes you would hit
Speaker 11: this gushy kind of play material and it didn't seem
Speaker 11: to be in the bottom to it and out on
Speaker 11: I think it was number seven. One night we went
Speaker 11: a backo when we were digging building the green, and
Speaker 11: he got into that stuff, and I mean literally, without
Speaker 11: a couple of hours, it completely covered the tracks of
Speaker 11: the back hoe and was up to the cab, which
Speaker 11: is about five feet. We were able to pull it
Speaker 11: out with a dozer, but it just showed how treacherous
Speaker 11: the sight was.
Speaker 1: Early on, it could seem like the land itself was
Speaker 1: rejecting the golf course.
Speaker 11: The first thing we had to do was to find
Speaker 11: the property, so we had the boundary surveyed, and the
Speaker 11: surveyors actually went out there and cut the survey line
Speaker 11: with machetes, and then you know, went from point to
Speaker 11: point and marked the points with the survey steaks and
Speaker 11: survey tape. Well, the vegetation grew so fast out there,
Speaker 11: literally within a couple of days.
Speaker 10: You could barely.
Speaker 11: Find the cut lines, which were the pass from state
Speaker 11: to streak, and you couldn't find the steaks at all.
Speaker 1: And then there was the wildlife.
Speaker 11: So one day we were walking along it as hot
Speaker 11: as could be, and the bugs were about to carry
Speaker 11: off the skews and the rest, and I was talking
Speaker 11: to David.
Speaker 1: That would be David post Away, Pete Dye's construction superintendent.
Speaker 11: He said, do you think there are any alligators out here?
Speaker 11: I said, oh, yeah, they're all over the place because
Speaker 11: they can travel in this water. It's about knee high
Speaker 11: and they can move from place to place. And he said,
Speaker 11: those are step on one it's all. We won't do that,
Speaker 11: but you can find them because there'll be an alligator pit.
Speaker 11: And what they do is they'll be in an area
Speaker 11: of saw grass and they'll root around and make an
Speaker 11: alligator pit that's probably twenty feet square around where they
Speaker 11: ripped up the vegetation and kind of dug them but
Speaker 11: a little bit deeper, and that's where they live and
Speaker 11: that's where they sleep in the water. And all they're scavengers.
Speaker 11: They don't eat live meat. They kill things and they
Speaker 11: put it in that pit to rot and when it's
Speaker 11: real gamey, then they'll eat it. So when you come
Speaker 11: to one of those pits, you can tell what it
Speaker 11: is because it stinks to high heaven. And he said, boy,
Speaker 11: I hate to be in something like that, and I said, yeah,
Speaker 11: me too. So in the meantime, we're pushing through. We're
Speaker 11: pushing through the saw grass and it's about five feet ah,
Speaker 11: so thick.
Speaker 10: I mean, you can't.
Speaker 11: It just wears you out to push against it, sort
Speaker 11: of leaning leaning into it. I was in front and
Speaker 11: Dave was following me, and all of a sudden I
Speaker 11: was leaning. All of a sudden it just parted and
Speaker 11: I fell in this hole. And I knew immediately what
Speaker 11: it was because it's stunk to high of it and
Speaker 11: I'd fallen into an alligator. H Fortunately the alligator went home.
Speaker 12: But you know, so I'm lad of this thing, and
Speaker 12: my full concentration is on keeping my alpha order. All
Speaker 12: of a sudden, David comes and pops right through the
Speaker 12: grass and falls right on top of me.
Speaker 11: He looks around, he says, oh my god, he says,
Speaker 11: the stinks that I have and what is this? So
Speaker 11: it's what we were talking about. It's an alligator. He's gone.
Speaker 11: He just disappeared. He took off so fast.
Speaker 1: How did you get out?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 10: I got out.
Speaker 11: I was I was right behind, but nothing happened to it.
Speaker 1: Kelly, who hadn't worked on a Pete Dye project before,
Speaker 1: quickly got a taste of Diye's creative process.
Speaker 11: When we first started working with him. We had to
Speaker 11: get upset of plans for the bank in order to
Speaker 11: cheer a loan. It was the hardest thing to get
Speaker 11: a set of plants. Beat resisted and just didn't want
Speaker 11: to give us a set of plants. And finally we
Speaker 11: were able to secure a set of plants from him.
Speaker 11: We gave them to the bank and everything's ready to go.
Speaker 11: So we were on the site the first day. We
Speaker 11: were walking out to the first t I said, oh, waitmen,
Speaker 11: I forgot something, and I went running back to the
Speaker 11: truck and got the plans. And so I come running,
Speaker 11: come running back, and Pete says to me, what's that
Speaker 11: And I said, Oh, these are the plants, And he
Speaker 11: said put them back in the truck, and I don't
Speaker 11: want to see him again. That was the last time
Speaker 11: we had the plants on the job.
Speaker 1: And that it seems to me exactly where Pete Die
Speaker 1: and the tour could have found themselves at loggerheads, the
Speaker 1: craftsmen versus the corporation, the improviser versus the plan followers.
Speaker 1: But as it turned out, Dean Beeman himself had a
Speaker 1: healthy regard for Die's methods.
Speaker 3: That's Pete.
Speaker 5: Pete wants to be hands on boots on the ground.
Speaker 5: I want to see it. I don't want to see
Speaker 5: it on a piece of paper. I want to see
Speaker 5: it with my own eye and my boots on the
Speaker 5: ground and get wet.
Speaker 1: And from vernon Kelly's point of view. While there was
Speaker 1: a contrast in styles between Die and Beman, there was
Speaker 1: also a crucial element that kept the peace.
Speaker 11: There was a tremendous amount of respect between Dean and
Speaker 11: det In both ways and Alice both ways.
Speaker 1: Years later, Alice I admitted that her initial fears about
Speaker 1: the partnership had been unfounded. Dean was wonderful, she said.
Speaker 1: He let Pete do his thing, and both of them
Speaker 1: let Alice do her thing. She too was on site,
Speaker 1: and she too had a knack for boots on the
Speaker 1: ground improvisation. According to plans, the par three seventeenth would
Speaker 1: have water just on the right, but around the seventeenth green,
Speaker 1: as it happened, was some of the best sand on
Speaker 1: a generally mucky property, So the crew kept digging that
Speaker 1: sand out and using it as foundation for turf elsewhere
Speaker 1: on the course. Eventually there was an enormous pit where
Speaker 1: the seventeenth hole was supposed to be. Here's how Pete
Speaker 1: Dye recounted what happened next. I called Alice over to
Speaker 1: discuss with her where we could find a new place
Speaker 1: for the green. She said, put the green back where
Speaker 1: it was and fill the hole with water. Simple enough.
Speaker 1: This sort of husband wife collaboration was common on Dye projects.
Speaker 1: One summer when he was in college, Tom Doak worked
Speaker 1: on the crew at Die's Long Cove Club on Hilton
Speaker 1: Head Island.
Speaker 2: They were renting a house three miles away and see
Speaker 2: Pine's plantation, and Pete would be there six or seven
Speaker 2: days a week at six thirty in the morning with
Speaker 2: the crew, and Alice would come out maybe two or
Speaker 2: three times a week, you know, lunchtime or in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: and she'd just come check on progress and see, you know,
Speaker 2: see what what had been done since the last time
Speaker 2: she was out there, which you know, even that would
Speaker 2: be more visits than most architects would make to their
Speaker 2: own construction sites. And it was actually a guy on
Speaker 2: our crew that would have been a college roommate of PD's,
Speaker 2: you know, Pebe was shaping on the golf course and Steve,
Speaker 2: his roommate, was out there working on the labor crew.
Speaker 2: And I get to know Steve a little bit, and
Speaker 2: at one point Steve just sort of said, really casually, well,
Speaker 2: you know, nothing's really done out here until miss Sally
Speaker 2: says it's okay. And I thought that was funny at
Speaker 2: the time, but but I really did get the impression
Speaker 2: by the time I was done working for Pete and
Speaker 2: Alice that Alice had a lot to say about you know,
Speaker 2: maybe not the final say, but she was certainly going
Speaker 2: to tell Pe if she didn't think, you know, she
Speaker 2: thought golf course is too hard or too easy, or
Speaker 2: if that feature didn't look right, and you know, hers
Speaker 2: was the most important opinion to Pete.
Speaker 1: So while Pete die was firm in his own convictions,
Speaker 1: he was also eager to gather input from others.
Speaker 2: I can stand as an architect, the hardest one of
Speaker 2: the hardest things to do when you're in the middle
Speaker 2: of a construction project is half perspective on you've sort
Speaker 2: of you've gotten away from playing golf on graph and
Speaker 2: you get to lose perspective of this is too hard,
Speaker 2: is this too easy? And it really helped out somebody
Speaker 2: out there you trust just this you know, it's okay,
Speaker 2: it's fine, or it's oh wait, Are you sure you
Speaker 2: want to be doing that? You know, and most architects
Speaker 2: don't have that.
Speaker 1: The Stadium Course opened in nineteen eighty, but as the
Speaker 1: eighty two Players Championship approached, the first players to be
Speaker 1: held at TPC Sawgrass, the pressure on both p Die
Speaker 1: and Dean Beaman ratcheted up.
Speaker 8: It was definitely a move forward for the PGA Tour
Speaker 8: because they were opening their own golf course.
Speaker 1: Sean Martin is a senior editor for PGA Tour dot com,
Speaker 1: and in twenty seventeen he wrote a feature called Leap
Speaker 1: of Faith behind the Stadium Course's wild debut at the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two Players Championship. It's really great and a
Speaker 1: major inspiration for this episode.
Speaker 8: So now they were getting into the golf course business,
Speaker 8: and there was debate among the players whether or not
Speaker 8: the PGA Tour should be getting into the golf course business,
Speaker 8: whether or not that was a wise business decision.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 8: You look at Adam Schupack's book about Dean Beaman and
Speaker 8: the early tour was run out of basically, I believe
Speaker 8: it was a town homer, a condo at the Sawgrass
Speaker 8: Country Club. So it was a very modest organization, so
Speaker 8: to now all of a sudden get into the golf
Speaker 8: course business. It was a risky venture.
Speaker 1: And the heat on Beaman and Die got turned up
Speaker 1: when the pros started to visit the new course.
Speaker 8: So Sawgrass Country Club, which hosted the players, with literally
Speaker 8: across the street, so when guys were in town for
Speaker 8: the players, they could go over and see TPC. It
Speaker 8: was carved out of a swamp. It was much more
Speaker 8: severe than what you see today. I think some of
Speaker 8: that is just when you build slopes and you shape them,
Speaker 8: they never look quite as severe as when they get
Speaker 8: grass on them. And so just I think of course
Speaker 8: is always gonna be severe when it's new. And then
Speaker 8: also you know, combine some of that with just the
Speaker 8: wild surrounds off the fairway. If you strayed from the
Speaker 8: corridors and hit it into that stuff, I mean you're
Speaker 8: looking at lost balls, You're having trouble hacking out. It
Speaker 8: was very raw and very very penal.
Speaker 1: The players began to make their opinions known, and not
Speaker 1: long after the grand opening, Dean Beaman oversaw some significant changes.
Speaker 5: It was difficult for me to envision what the final
Speaker 5: product would be based on looking at dirt when the
Speaker 5: grasso was on it, it was far different.
Speaker 3: Than I had imagined.
Speaker 5: And clearly as soon as it opened, even before tour
Speaker 5: players came in and wanted to play it, I determined
Speaker 5: it was much too severe. The greens themselves were much
Speaker 5: too severe. So during the course of that year, before
Speaker 5: the first tournament Wilt, a lot of work was done
Speaker 5: to take some of the severity out of the greens.
Speaker 1: But when the eighty two Players Championship arrived, the course
Speaker 1: was still very rugged and very difficult. Tom Doak headed
Speaker 1: down from Cornell during his spring break to watch the tournament.
Speaker 1: When Doak remembers that era of TPC Sagrass, the image
Speaker 1: of a relatively bare bones golf course comes to his mind.
Speaker 2: You know, one of the things about the TPC that
Speaker 2: most people don't realize is, you know, in nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: ninety eighty was terrible recession time in America, and the
Speaker 2: TVC was really built to be a low meetenance golf course,
Speaker 2: in a fairly low budget golf course to build. And
Speaker 2: of course once it was opened for three or four years,
Speaker 2: they all of a sudden it was like, well, this
Speaker 2: is the headquarters of the tour. We've got to spruce
Speaker 2: it up, and we've got to make it look pretty imperfect.
Speaker 2: But that was not Pete's idea going into it. One
Speaker 2: of the quotes I remember him saying it to the
Speaker 2: original tournament in nineteen eighty two, with everything here is
Speaker 2: the dead opposite of Augusta on purpose.
Speaker 1: When Dope got to the tournament, he went out and
Speaker 1: found Pete Dye on the course.
Speaker 2: I think it was on like the eleventh or twelfth hole. Basically,
Speaker 2: he was just going around to one hole at a
Speaker 2: time and watching players come through and you know, watching
Speaker 2: shots and seeing how they reacted. He wanted to see
Speaker 2: how they played him. He didn't want to hear how
Speaker 2: what they said. He didn't care so much what they
Speaker 2: said about it. You know, he just wanted to see
Speaker 2: if the shots work the way he intended them to.
Speaker 2: And you know, so we just go to one hole
Speaker 2: at a time and watched three or four groups play through,
Speaker 2: and Pete did see somebody hid a good shot and go, oh,
Speaker 2: that hole works. We can go to the next hall now.
Speaker 1: But the pros were coming to their own conclusions.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 8: Going in, people knew I think that it was going
Speaker 8: to be a high tension week. This was a players
Speaker 8: were facing something that was new, something that was very penal.
Speaker 8: Players had an opportunity to voice their opinions and voice
Speaker 8: them strongly and loudly, and the press obviously was very
Speaker 8: willing to write them. And so you had some great
Speaker 8: quotes that you know, I think players had probably spent
Speaker 8: some time thinking about. And so you had Ben Crenshaw
Speaker 8: of all people, referring to it as Star Wars golf
Speaker 8: designed by Darth Vader. Jack Nicholas after missing the cuts
Speaker 8: that I've never been very good at stopping a five
Speaker 8: iron on the hood of a car.
Speaker 1: At least one player, however, was in his element.
Speaker 4: As far as a Pete Die golf course, I was
Speaker 4: fortunate enough to play in nineteen seventy four, I played
Speaker 4: the Teeth of the Dog at Casady Compo.
Speaker 1: Jerry Pate was a twenty eight year old US amateur
Speaker 1: and US Open champion. He had a silky, powerful swing
Speaker 1: and a fearless attitude, and he felt that he had
Speaker 1: a bead on Pete Die designs.
Speaker 4: So I kind of understood Pete strategies.
Speaker 10: I had to feel for how he liked.
Speaker 4: To strategize holes, and there were just certain places you
Speaker 4: couldn't hit the ball.
Speaker 10: You just if you'd hit it there, you were in trouble.
Speaker 4: And when I saw the Stadium course for the first time,
Speaker 4: a lot of people complained about it because the greens
Speaker 4: were sort of perched up off of the grade, so
Speaker 4: you had a lot of areas.
Speaker 10: That had I would call.
Speaker 4: Them false fronts in the front, and the green ran
Speaker 4: off on the left side and the right side, and
Speaker 4: there were very very small pinnable areas that were little
Speaker 4: target areas, and if you didn't hit it there, the
Speaker 4: ball would gather some fifteen to thirty forty feet away
Speaker 4: from there into a low depression either on the green
Speaker 4: or off the greens. So you had to be extremely
Speaker 4: accurate with your iron. You had to be a good
Speaker 4: driver of the ball, which I was, and you had
Speaker 4: to be a really good iron player, which I was.
Speaker 4: So his designs sort of played right into my hand.
Speaker 1: Still, like everyone else, Jerry Pate was struck by the
Speaker 1: rawness and difficulty of the new TPC.
Speaker 4: And you know, the golf course was wild and willy then.
Speaker 4: It wasn't naturally managed and manacured light. I mean, it
Speaker 4: wasn't as manicure today it was natural with pal meadows
Speaker 4: and just you know, basically bobcats and rattlesnakes twenty foot
Speaker 4: off the fairway and Armadilla's and you name it. So
Speaker 4: that day there was nothing on earth. And I mean
Speaker 4: that with it, not with exaggeration. There was no other
Speaker 4: course on the earth more difficult and diabolical than that
Speaker 4: golf course.
Speaker 1: But unlike almost everyone else, Pet wasn't much bothered by
Speaker 1: the stadium course's severity. This was at least in part
Speaker 1: because he just wasn't the worrying type.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so he was this gregarious bass riker, just fun
Speaker 8: loving flagging shots and I guess maybe kind of cavalier
Speaker 8: in that way, aiming at flags and playing I think
Speaker 8: kind of care free, because when you're that good of
Speaker 8: a bass riker, you can kind of do that because
Speaker 8: the ball's going to go where you aim.
Speaker 1: Peate also had the advantage of having played at the
Speaker 1: grand opening of TPC Sawgrass in nineteen eighty and being
Speaker 1: pair with Dean Beaman himself. Beaman had shown him where
Speaker 1: he could be aggressive off the tee and taught him
Speaker 1: not to be intimidated by Die's visuals.
Speaker 8: Look, the fairways are much wider than they appear. They're
Speaker 8: classic Pete Die deception, you know, who build up bunkers
Speaker 8: or slopes that will make the fairway look smaller than
Speaker 8: they are. But the problem is is really the fairways
Speaker 8: or wider than you think. And if you lay back
Speaker 8: off the tee, the second shot you're going to face
Speaker 8: into the greens is harder than the shot that you
Speaker 8: just avoided.
Speaker 3: Off the tee.
Speaker 8: So by playing safe off the tee, you're not really
Speaker 8: avoiding as much trouble as you think you are, and
Speaker 8: you're just bringing that much more into play around the greens.
Speaker 8: And so it is very visually intimidating, but you're also
Speaker 8: going to be best suited if you take the challenge on.
Speaker 1: So Pete was even more confident than usual going into
Speaker 1: the eighty two players. Not only did he like Pete
Speaker 1: Die courses and do well at them, not only did
Speaker 1: he have the right skill set and disposition. Not only
Speaker 1: did he have intel on TPC sawgrass, but he also
Speaker 1: had deep family connections to Jacksonville. His father had been
Speaker 1: born and raised there, and his mother had moved there
Speaker 1: in high school. Added all up, and Jerry Pate felt
Speaker 1: that he had destiny on his side.
Speaker 10: I just knew I was gonna win it.
Speaker 4: It wasn't even a thought in my head, you know,
Speaker 4: I knew it all along.
Speaker 1: Well, he didn't exactly jump out to the lead. He
Speaker 1: hung around shooting seventy seventy three seventy. After fifty four holes,
Speaker 1: he was tied for sixth, three shots behind his brother
Speaker 1: in law Bruce Letsky and co leader Brad Bryant. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Pate was very aware of the rumblings among veteran players
Speaker 1: about the course and the tour's new direction.
Speaker 4: And there was talk in the locker room by the
Speaker 4: senior Hall of famers just before they were into Hall
Speaker 4: of Fame. And I won't mention names. Some of them
Speaker 4: are dead now, some are still alive in their eighties,
Speaker 4: and the talk was they were going to get, you know,
Speaker 4: have a coup and fired Dean because we had no
Speaker 4: business owning a golf course and it was crazy, and
Speaker 4: it was competing against some of the famous golfers design careers.
Speaker 4: They had their own design careers going. So they're thinking, well,
Speaker 4: wait a minute, PGA Tours hiring some outside guy named
Speaker 4: Pete Died to design their golf cours. Why didn't they
Speaker 4: hire a player. It was victrial, it was anger. The
Speaker 4: players were mad, angry. I mean, you could use all
Speaker 4: those words. It was a big deal politically for Dean
Speaker 4: and Pete Die, I.
Speaker 10: Can tell you.
Speaker 4: And there were some really top players in that, as
Speaker 4: I said, hall of fame, golfers that didn't like the
Speaker 4: golf course at all, in fact missed the cut. And
Speaker 4: then once you get something that's negative in your mind,
Speaker 4: you don't like the golf course, you're done. There's no
Speaker 4: way you're going to play well. And I loved it.
Speaker 1: On Sunday, after burdying twelve, Pate had closed the gap
Speaker 1: between himself and the leaders. The year prior, he had
Speaker 1: won in Memphis, and in celebration he had leapt into
Speaker 1: the lake by the eighteenth green. So rumors were already
Speaker 1: going around TPC Sagrass that if he pulled off the victory,
Speaker 1: he would do the same today.
Speaker 4: So anyway, as I walked back to thirteen Can, I
Speaker 4: heard somebody kind of running up behind me and they
Speaker 4: grabbed my arm.
Speaker 10: I turned around.
Speaker 4: It was Alice Die and she looked at me and
Speaker 4: she said, you've got to win this thing, and you
Speaker 4: got to throw Pete in the lake.
Speaker 1: Alice's idea, it seems, was that a little playful public
Speaker 1: come up ins might do some good. It might provide
Speaker 1: an outlet for the rising hostility toward her husband and
Speaker 1: their design business.
Speaker 4: Of course, Pete had been catching ungodly amount of heat
Speaker 4: for this golf course, and Alice, I think, was a
Speaker 4: little bit worried.
Speaker 10: Can I turn around? Looked at her just.
Speaker 4: Calm as can be, And everybody used to think, you know,
Speaker 4: when I played, I was cocky.
Speaker 10: I really wasn't cocky.
Speaker 4: I just you know, I knew in my heart I
Speaker 4: could pull it off, and I said, I'm gonna win.
Speaker 1: Pet went on to par thirteen, Birdie fourteen, and Bertie
Speaker 1: the Island seventeenth hole. He drove it right up the
Speaker 1: god on eighteen and had a five iron into the green.
Speaker 1: Until that point, the most famous moment in Pet's career
Speaker 1: had involved another seventy second hole five iron, this one
Speaker 1: at the nineteen seventy six US Open. He hit it
Speaker 1: so close to a dangerous whole location that some accused
Speaker 1: him of pulling it. Today, the approach to the eighteenth
Speaker 1: that TPC sawgrass is still a scary shot, even when
Speaker 1: pros are hitting eight or nine irons. Almost no one
Speaker 1: goes directly at the pin, but Pate did with a
Speaker 1: five iron, and he knocked it to two feet.
Speaker 4: For me to hit that shot like Ben Crenshaw hitting
Speaker 4: a six foot pot. He's not nervous. Jack Nicholas isn't
Speaker 4: nervous on a six foot pot. Tom Watson wasn't nervous
Speaker 4: on a six foot but Lee Terveno was never nervous
Speaker 4: on a nine yard wed shot, and Jerry Fate was
Speaker 4: never nervous hitting a.
Speaker 3: Long iron shot.
Speaker 4: I mean, I nerves weren't even in my vocabulary. And
Speaker 4: when I hit the five iron, and I went to
Speaker 4: the press room, and I think Tom Place was running
Speaker 4: the interview for the PGA Tour and he said, you
Speaker 4: have any opening statements, and I go, yeah, I guess,
Speaker 4: I guess I pulled another five iron.
Speaker 1: But let's go back for a moment to the eighteenth
Speaker 1: fairway after Pate had stiffed his approach and.
Speaker 4: The camera was on me, little Davy Finch, you worked
Speaker 4: for CBS and Trick Kenny and is in the truck.
Speaker 4: I knew that, and you know all my buddies and
Speaker 4: CBS were there, and I.
Speaker 10: Have no idea what they've said.
Speaker 4: But as I walked up the eighteenth fairway, Davy Finch says,
Speaker 4: you're gonna jump in the lake, and I said, Pete,
Speaker 4: die will go for a swim.
Speaker 1: As he waited for the groups behind him to finish,
Speaker 1: pet saw Dean Beaman's wife Judy, who urged him to
Speaker 1: throw Dean in the water with Pete. As that was happening, CBS,
Speaker 1: with Vin Scully calling the action, was working a bit
Speaker 1: of TV magic.
Speaker 8: There was a gator that had been seen in the
Speaker 8: pond at seventeen. So Frank Trickinny in the Great CBS
Speaker 8: producer put up a split screen and there's kind of
Speaker 8: waiting for Jerry to throw them in at the trophy
Speaker 8: ceremony on one side and the other side of this
Speaker 8: gator in the water. But what Vin said was that
Speaker 8: this gator is on the lake at seventeen. The lake
Speaker 8: on eighteen is not connected. And so the television viewers
Speaker 8: thinking they're about to jump into this gator infested pond.
Speaker 4: Now I didn't even think I was gonna go in.
Speaker 4: I thought I would just throw them both in the
Speaker 4: lake and that would be it. And then they were
Speaker 4: out there, and you know, in the lake, So I
Speaker 4: threw them both in the lake off the bulkhead, and
Speaker 4: then I jumped in behind him. But you know, I
Speaker 4: never realized how high it was, and when I jumped in.
Speaker 4: After the fact, I go back and look at those videos. Heck,
Speaker 4: it was about an eight foot off the water. That
Speaker 4: bulkhead was about eight foot, so it's a pretty big
Speaker 4: racing dive. But to be eight foot in the air,
Speaker 4: but we didn't care. There was so much, so much adrenaline,
Speaker 4: the emotion of winning.
Speaker 10: It was an exciting time and it was, you know,
Speaker 10: a memory I'll never forget it was.
Speaker 4: It was as great as winning the US Open.
Speaker 10: I can tell you.
Speaker 1: Dean Beeman that's his own way of remembering the experience.
Speaker 1: How did the water feel?
Speaker 3: It was pretty ugly.
Speaker 1: The jumping and it's theater of just desserts may have
Speaker 1: taken the edge off the player's outrage. Dean Beeman kept
Speaker 1: his job and Pete Die kept designing courses for the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour, but the pro's opinion of the stadium course
Speaker 1: at TPC Sawgrass didn't change. Right away.
Speaker 8: After the tournament was over, Pete's in the locker room
Speaker 8: changing He's just been thrown in the lake. Ed Snead
Speaker 8: and Tom Weiscoffer waiting for him, and Pete knew both
Speaker 8: of them from Ohio, and they had a question about
Speaker 8: the thirteenth hole, which is a par three. There's water
Speaker 8: left and the green is bisected by a pretty severe swale,
Speaker 8: and so the whole locations down on the left. They're
Speaker 8: by the water. But you can use that swale to
Speaker 8: funnel the tea shot towards the hole. However, if you
Speaker 8: miss on the wrong side of it, you're now putting
Speaker 8: down a very steep slope to the hole. Two putting
Speaker 8: is almost impossible. So Ed and Tom had played together.
Speaker 8: They said their te shots landed within two feet of
Speaker 8: each other. One of them funneled down towards the hole,
Speaker 8: the other state up top. And they were asking, how
Speaker 8: can we have a golf course where two shots that
Speaker 8: land within two feet of each other have such vastly
Speaker 8: different results. That doesn't seem fair. Pete looks at them
Speaker 8: and he says, well, the only reason that happened is
Speaker 8: because you guys are chicken. If you were aiming at
Speaker 8: the hole, that two feet wouldn't have mattered at all.
Speaker 8: But you're afraid of the water on the left, so
Speaker 8: you're aiming for a slope in the green to try
Speaker 8: to save you, and that has too small of a
Speaker 8: margin for error, which you just told me you're not
Speaker 8: good enough to hit.
Speaker 1: In spite of appearances, though Pete Die was not unmoved
Speaker 1: by the criticism. He wrote in his autobiography, the verbal
Speaker 1: assault against our new creation hit like a stake in
Speaker 1: my heart. Still he saw no evidence that the course
Speaker 1: was too hard. After all, Jerry Pate had won at
Speaker 1: eight under. In order to make the top ten, you
Speaker 1: had to break par. In fact, Die said at the time,
Speaker 1: when they learn how to play this stadium course, we
Speaker 1: may have to put in some more obstacles to keep
Speaker 1: them totally frustrated. But ultimately it wasn't Die's call. After
Speaker 1: the eighty three Tournament Players Championship, the pros revolted. According
Speaker 1: to Adam Shuepack's account, a group of top players sent
Speaker 1: a letter of complaint to Commissioner Beman. Among the signees
Speaker 1: were Ben Crenshaw, Taylorwin Jack, Nicholas, Craig Stadler, Tom Watson,
Speaker 1: and Tom Weiscough. Quickly, Beaman arranged a meeting at TPC
Speaker 1: Sawgrass between Pete Dye and a player committee. They toured
Speaker 1: the course and the players grilled Die about the green contours.
Speaker 1: The commissioner saw their side well.
Speaker 5: Some of the lowest areas on the greens that were
Speaker 5: pin positions were in places that the green surfaces at
Speaker 5: the higher part of those greens were so severe that
Speaker 5: the ball coming off the high side down to the
Speaker 5: low side wouldn't stay on the green at all. So
Speaker 5: it was literally impossible to not three parts, many many
Speaker 5: times from one transition.
Speaker 3: Part of a green to another.
Speaker 5: And the players were right, they were too severe. It
Speaker 5: was still too severe to be really a fair test
Speaker 5: to golf. Yeah, our feelings were still hurt, but they
Speaker 5: were right.
Speaker 1: Months later, Ben Crenshaw, the co chair of the architectural committee,
Speaker 1: presented a list of changes to be made to the
Speaker 1: Stadium course. At that point, I almost certainly saw the
Speaker 1: writing on the wall. How do you think mister Die
Speaker 1: reacted to or felt about the fact that he was
Speaker 1: modifying or had to modify the course.
Speaker 5: The answer is he was very reluctant to make the
Speaker 5: changes that we wanted made. He wanted it as difficulty
Speaker 5: could because he wanted to challenge the best players in
Speaker 5: the world.
Speaker 3: But and he didn't care.
Speaker 5: He didn't think golf was fair in the first place,
Speaker 5: so he was not He was not happy with the
Speaker 5: continual modifications of it, but.
Speaker 1: The modifications were made mostly carried out by Die's associate
Speaker 1: Bobby Weed between eighty three and eighty eight. Weed once said,
Speaker 1: one of my biggest regrets of being in the business
Speaker 1: is I was the one who had to make all
Speaker 1: the changes. Those changes did, however, mollify the pros and
Speaker 1: TPC sawgrass, which today boasts Augusta like conditions, complete with
Speaker 1: flower beds accenting the arena of the seventeenth hole, is
Speaker 1: now highly regarded among PGA Tour members. In a way,
Speaker 1: it's become a symbol of the tour the Dean Beaman built, sturdy,
Speaker 1: impressive and efficiently run. Here's Adam Schuepack.
Speaker 9: Dean came along at a time where the PGA Tour
Speaker 9: was just this mom and pop shop, and he really,
Speaker 9: during his twenty years tenures, assembled the building blocks that
Speaker 9: are the foundation of the modern PGA tour. And I
Speaker 9: feel like the PGA Tour is still running the Dean
Speaker 9: Beaman playbook. It's worked all this time, and it continues
Speaker 9: to seem almost invincible. And impenetrable to whatever comes along.
Speaker 9: It's just a well oiled machine.
Speaker 1: Now, whether the alterations Tode's original design were for the
Speaker 1: best remains a topic of debate in the golf world,
Speaker 1: one that breaks down along familiar lines. If you're a
Speaker 1: competitive or score oriented golfer, if you prize fairness and
Speaker 1: course design whatever that means, you'll likely see the changes
Speaker 1: as positive, even necessary. Others may argue that fairness is
Speaker 1: an irrelevant concern, especially when everyone is competing on the
Speaker 1: same course. These people may wish that more of the
Speaker 1: rugged quirk of Die's original design had been preserved. Tom
Speaker 1: Doak takes a fairly diplomatic view.
Speaker 2: I don't know if he can say the changes made
Speaker 2: the course better or worse. You know, it's all it's
Speaker 2: all a matter of opinion, and it's all your perspective
Speaker 2: on what the objective of the course should try to be.
Speaker 2: To me, it just made it different than the original intention,
Speaker 2: you know, in terms of how much pressure it put
Speaker 2: on the players to hit good shots consistently through the
Speaker 2: golf course. But you know, the bottom line is, you know,
Speaker 2: pros don't like shooting seventy five when they have an
Speaker 2: average to poor day. You know, they don't mind not
Speaker 2: shooting sixty seven all the time, but they don't. They
Speaker 2: don't want the numbers to get up there and the
Speaker 2: TPS see when you were having a bad day there
Speaker 2: darnwell reflected it on the scorecard.
Speaker 1: In a sense, Alice Stye's prediction had come true. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't Dean Beeman specifically who came into conflict with
Speaker 1: her husband. It was the players, and they had the
Speaker 1: last word. At some point, perhaps during that walk around
Speaker 1: TPC Sagrass with the committee in nineteen eighty three, he
Speaker 1: must have recognized that fact. After his triumph at the
Speaker 1: eighty two Players, Jerry Pate was living large.
Speaker 4: And I had a ten year exemption.
Speaker 10: It was a big deal. The most money anybody.
Speaker 4: Had ever won, ninety thousand dollars, a lot of endorsements,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 10: Life was great.
Speaker 4: To have my own private plane. Jack and Arnold and
Speaker 4: I were the only three players had a private plane
Speaker 4: on the tour at that time. And I was twenty eight,
Speaker 4: you know, in pretty big tall cotton, I guess you
Speaker 4: could say for a Southern boy.
Speaker 10: And then in one swing.
Speaker 4: In the first of June that was kind of into
Speaker 4: my golfing competitive career.
Speaker 1: He was on the driving range at Pensacola preparing for
Speaker 1: the Open, and by practicing one iron stingers into the
Speaker 1: wind off of hard ground on one swing, he felt
Speaker 1: his left shoulder pop, and that injury turned Jerry Pate
Speaker 1: into one of golf's great what if stories. He never
Speaker 1: won again on the PGA Tour, but he stayed in
Speaker 1: the golf business, eventually starting a course design firm of
Speaker 1: his own. Over the years, he became close with Pete
Speaker 1: and Alice Dye. Their friendship had begun in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: four when a twenty one year old Pate played the
Speaker 1: World amateur at Teeth of the Dog. Today, his firm
Speaker 1: looks after Teeth of the Dog and the other die
Speaker 1: courses at Casada Compo.
Speaker 4: As we've sort of taken on the role to keep
Speaker 4: the integrity of the aesthetics of the architecture and agronomics there.
Speaker 4: I go to Kasa Da Kamp, I'm going next week
Speaker 4: down there. In fact, I go go down.
Speaker 10: There a lot.
Speaker 4: And so it's a great honor to have met Pete
Speaker 4: Dye as a twenty one year old kid, and now
Speaker 4: I'm sort of stepped in his place. At one of
Speaker 4: his favorite places, and that's.
Speaker 10: Where he died.
Speaker 1: If you listen to the Fried Egg podcast, I already
Speaker 1: know that Pete and Alice I are no longer with us.
Speaker 1: Pete passed away in January at the age of ninety
Speaker 1: five after a battle with Alzheimer's. Alice was ninety one
Speaker 1: when she died in February of last year. They're longtime friends.
Speaker 1: Like Dean Beaman, Vernon Kelly, and Jerry Pate tend to
Speaker 1: speak about Pete and Alice in terms of both personal
Speaker 1: and historical. Their generosity, their accomplishments, their eccentric, nomadic lifestyle,
Speaker 1: their influence on a generation of architects, their commitment to
Speaker 1: the game and to the craft.
Speaker 4: They didn't build golf courses for the money. They built
Speaker 4: golf course because because Alice was a great amateur player
Speaker 4: in her own right, her husband was really a fine
Speaker 4: amateur player, and they gave so much to the game.
Speaker 4: I guess Alice was the first woman to sit on
Speaker 4: the PGA of America board that I remember, and I
Speaker 4: know she was head of the Architects Society.
Speaker 10: I mean they were for a woman. She did on.
Speaker 4: Incredible things in our man's world and of course Pete
Speaker 4: was a legend.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 4: You know the stories Pete used to tell me about
Speaker 4: how he got fired by Augy Bush or fired by
Speaker 4: herb Cooher and then they'd.
Speaker 10: Hire him back. And I'm sure Dean wanted to fire ms.
Speaker 10: He was quite a character.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: And you couldn't help beloved Pete Dye and Alice was
Speaker 4: just gosh, she was the salt of the earth. She
Speaker 4: was like a mother to me, I'll tell you. And
Speaker 4: so I dearly miss him both. I dearly miss him both.
Speaker 1: This was the fourth episode of Frida Egg Stories. It
Speaker 1: was created and hosted by me Garrett Morrison, with mixing
Speaker 1: and engineering from Jay Eric. Our executive producer is Andy Johnson.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.