WEBVTT - Fried Egg Stories: Making TPC Sawgrass 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.880 The fried egg requires a different technique. 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.840 What you need to do is actually square the face 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:09.799 so it'll dig down underneath that bad lie and propel 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:11.200 that ball right out onto the green. 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:14.239 Here's the thing. Playing out of a buried lion of 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:16.880 bunker is completely different than playing out of a nice 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:18.759 clean lion of greenside bunker. 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:21.920 You need to be aggressive on any shop weather. It's 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:24.079 sitting cleanly for its Friday egg. 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.080 Well, we've all faced it, the dreaded Frida egg. 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:29.760 It's not to be feared, though. It's actually a pretty 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:30.640 easy shot to hit. 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:52.600 Sailing out of Gravesend, England on the trade route, Captain 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:56.720 William Hilton one August morning in sixteen sixty three came 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:58.720 upon an island peaceful and serene. 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.360 What you're hearing is the telecast of the nineteen sixty 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.840 nine Heritage Golf Classic. It was a new event held 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:08.920 at a new golf course, Harbortown Golf Links had been 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:12.520 built by a forty three year old architect named Pete Dye. 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:16.199 Back then, Pete Dye wasn't well known in the mainstream way, 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.440 but his collaborator had a more recognizable name. 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.120 Hello, I'm Jack Nicholas. This is Pete Dye. 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:27.080 The two men lean against the balustrade of an outdoor stairway, 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:29.959 both looking a little flushed in their full suits. 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:33.240 Pete and I have worked together to design and build 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.440 the Harbor Town Golf Links here at Seapin's plantation. We're 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.000 here on the eve of the first Heritage Golf Classic 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:43.320 to be played over the Thanksgiving weekend. Having a golf 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.080 tournament on the first year of operation, it's a dream 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:46.720 come true for. 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:47.720 Both of us. 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:49.600 And the golf course looks straight. 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:49.920 Down the sea. 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:52.920 That's beautiful, Jack, Really, it's been a lot of fun 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:56.680 here and we have that's a great contrast today the 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:01.640 unagrasses with a behea centipede mine strong brings you back 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.680 to Pinehurst and some of the old Briddies golflings. 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:05.680 Looks great. 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:09.240 It was quite a coup for Pete Dye to be 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.280 there on TV side by side with the greatest golfer 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:14.760 in the world. If you were a golf architect in 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.400 nineteen sixty nine, he didn't get an awful lot of 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.760 press unless your name was Robert Trent Jones. So the 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.160 opening of Harbortown marked a turning point in Pete Die's career. 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:27.639 Here was a course to be discussed. It was quirky 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:31.320 and challenging, and it proved popular among the pros. One 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.240 of those pros was Dean Beeman, who played his first 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:36.079 Heritage in nineteen seventy one. 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:42.480 My favorite golf course was Harbortown, and Harbortown was today 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.640 is many players' favorite golf course. 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:46.640 They really like it. 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:51.360 Harbortown is a golf course that has just as many 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:55.080 right right to left as left to right holes. It 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:59.960 has small and green. It demands accuracy. It doesn't fit 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:04.000 a long hitter versus a shorter hitter. So I thought 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.080 it had a great balance and it was a great 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:09.480 test of golf, then a fair test to golf. 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:13.080 By nineteen seventy eight, Beeman was commissioner of the PGA 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.440 Tour and he had just negotiated the purchase of a wild, 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:21.320 soggy property near Jacksonville, Florida. There he intended to build 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:25.080 a new venue for the Tournament Players Championship. He wanted 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:27.560 the course to tax the abilities of the world's best 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:31.880 golfers while providing a better viewing experience for spectators. It 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.240 would be a stadium golf course, and he knew the 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:41.440 man to build it was Pete Dye. Today on Frida 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.640 Egg Stories, we are going back four decades to the 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:48.080 building of the stadium course at TPC Sagrass in the 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:52.200 nineteen eighty two Players Championship. This story has been told 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:55.560 and retold over and over, and since it's Player's week 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:59.080 right now, you'll no doubt be reminded by various journalists', 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:02.320 TV hosts and podcasters of the usual bits of lore. 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:06.240 Dean Beeman purchasing the property for one dollar, Pete Dies 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:08.400 sketching a routing on the back of a place mat, 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.880 the creation of the island Green, the complaints of the pros, 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.320 and Jerry Pate after his victory in eighty two hauling 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:18.359 both Beaman and Die into the pond next to the 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:21.880 eighteenth Green. Don't get me wrong, we'll replay a few 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.200 of those hits in this episode. We're not about that. 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:27.760 But the real reason I'm curious about the TPC Sawgrass 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.120 story has to do with the personalities involved in the 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:36.799 contrasts between them. On the one hand, you had Pete Dye. 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.120 Golf architecture was a passion for him, not just a 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:42.640 business enterprise, and as we know in the way he 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.880 designed courses. He was intensely hands on and independent. He 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:49.880 was an artist. On the other hand, you had the 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:53.760 PGA Tour under the leadership of Dean Beaman, thirteen years 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:57.680 younger than Pete Dye. Beeman was energetic and assertive, a 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.720 deal maker. TPC Sawgrass was his venture, and he had 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:04.880 ideas of his own about what it should be. No 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.240 less an authority than Alice Dye, Pete's wife and most 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.720 trusted design consultant, had her own doubts about the partnership 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.760 between Dean and Pete. Oh, Pete, you're crazy, she said, 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:19.880 you can't build for Dean. He's particular, he's efficient, he's 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.320 all the things you aren't. He'll have his hands in 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.040 there trying to tell you what to do. Don't do it. 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:30.359 But he did, and oddly enough it worked. In this 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.520 episode of Frida Egg Stories, we'll try to figure out 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:41.560 how today the PGA Tour is the eight hundred pound 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.920 gorilla of the golf world. Back in the nineteen seventies, 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:48.240 it was more like a newborn computian. The Tournament Player's 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.680 Division as it was then known, had just separated from 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.520 the PGA of America, and it was a scrappy operation. 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.560 Yeah, it was really a mom and pop shop back then. 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:01.039 Adam Shupack is a golf journalist and the author of 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.320 Golf's Driving Force, a biography of Dean Beaman. 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.240 When the Tour moved its headquarters to Panaviter Beach, it 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.159 was working out of a four bedroom home with Dean's 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.520 office was the master bedroom. The garage had the copier 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.400 and postage meter, and you know for an intercom, they 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:18.320 just yelled at each other. 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:18.640 It was. 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.400 It was a really small staff and Beaman took over 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.960 in nineteen seventy four and used to say that, you know, 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.440 the largest capital ast that they had was an IBM 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:32.120 Selectric typewriter. They had about twenty walkie talkies and they 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.360 did it on. They had three Budweisers and the Canna beans. 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.160 I mean, it was a time period where bowling was 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.320 still attracting higher ratings than golf, and tennis was the 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.000 sports surging and popularity. So you know, he had a 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:45.680 lot of work cut out for him when he took 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:46.480 over his commission. 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.200 It didn't take long for Beaman to start making aggressive moves. 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:52.359 He was in his mid thirties and he had a 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.720 background not only as an elite golfer who had won 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:58.120 two US Amateurs, but also as an insurance broker, he 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.679 knew his way around tax documents as well as boardroom negotiations. 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:04.440 You know, he was an intense man. He's got these 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.159 piercing blue eyes, and you know, his friends used to 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:09.479 say that, you know, he could deliver a look that 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:14.040 could exterminate headlice. And it was a job that required toughness, 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:16.560 because you know, he had this quest to kind of 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:19.880 roll over the status quo in this traditional game, make 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.960 golf a bigger sport. And you know, he wanted to 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.120 create a fan base that was much broader than just 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:27.679 its own participants, and that meant doing things a little 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:29.520 differently than they'd been done in the past. 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:33.400 In his first year, Beaman converted the tour into a nonprofit, 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:37.400 exempting it from paying income taxes and changing its financial fortunes. 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:43.040 Beeman's other signature project was the new tournament Players Championship, 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:46.520 later known as the Players Championship and now apparently as 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:50.320 just the Players Anyway. From the beginning, Bemon had big 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.600 plans for the event. The USGA had the US Open, 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:56.880 the PGA of America had the PGA Championship and the 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:59.760 RNA had the Open, why shouldn't the PGA Tour have 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:03.280 its own major. Well, for one, it's not easy to 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:07.640 manufacture prestige, but Beeman tried his best. After staging the 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:11.320 first three tournament players Championships at three different courses, he 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:13.800 decided to stick with one that it had worked for 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.320 the Masters after all, So starting in nineteen seventy seven, 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:20.680 the players absorbed to the Greater Jacksonville Open and set 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:23.720 up shop at Sawgrass Country Club, which. 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:27.120 Was a very dynamic golf course that was played in 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.680 March where the wind blew. It was as close to 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:33.640 an ocean side course as you could get, and so 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:35.480 it had all those elements in them. 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:39.480 But while Beeman liked Sawgrass as a course, he thought 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:41.160 it could be improved as a venue. 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:45.240 There was going to have to be a substantial investment 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.480 made in the golf course and the facilities to accommodate 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:52.960 both the players and the gallery and what we wanted 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:53.320 to do. 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:57.480 So Beeman attempted to buy Sawgrass Country Club, but for 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.120 a variety of reasons, the deal never happened. Instead, he 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.120 set out to build a new course, the home course 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:07.880 for the tour, just across the road from Sawgrass Country 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:11.960 Club was a huge tract of wilderness. The owners knew 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:14.480 that being in business with the ascendant golf tour would 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:16.959 raise the value of their land, so they sold four 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:21.079 hundred and fifteen acres to Beaman for one dollar. From there, 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.800 the commissioner pieced together financing from a non recourse loan, 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:28.400 a few dozen expensive founding memberships, and a few thousand 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:32.559 cheap annual memberships. It was a tidy sum acquired at 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:33.280 minimal risk. 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:36.839 As PGA Tour commissiony, he's working for a board, he's 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:40.319 working for the players, and they had a lot of doubts, 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:43.080 and they pretty much said, you can't risk any of 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:44.719 our assets. They didn't have a lot to day, but 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:46.760 they didn't want to put anything on the line. And 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:48.600 if he failed, it was his neck. And so he 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:50.760 went out figured a way to do it where they 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.720 just couldn't say no. And it was you know, that 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.640 is one of the most brilliant deals ever in the 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:57.480 game of golf. 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:04.160 After all that, though, Beeman found himself in possession of 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.080 a piece of land that, to put it mildly, seemed 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.240 ill suited to golf. Here's how Pete Dye described it 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:13.760 in his autobiography Bury Me in a pop bunker. When 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.760 I first inspected the proposed site for the player's course, 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:22.240 my only compatriots in the impenetrable swampy jungle were deer, alligators, 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:26.280 wild boar, and deadly snakes. In order to cut a path, 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:29.120 I followed deer tracks that led me to dry areas 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.120 in the swamp before I nearly drowned in the depths 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:33.760 of the marshland well. 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:35.679 The property was. 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.080 It was dead flat. It had a lot of standing 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:45.120 water on it. There's substantial rainfall here in Jacksonville. Following 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.560 rainfall until it dried out, it was a pretty wet 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:49.440 piece of property. 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:54.479 It hadn't always been that way. The array of oak, pine, sweetgum, 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.280 and magnolia trees on the site indicated that it had 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.559 once been an upland, but when the Intracoastal Way was 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.760 built nearby in the early nineteen hundreds, water began to 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:06.959 collect on the site. By the nineteen seventies, it was 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:10.880 a Florida forest mashed up with a Florida swamp. But 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:13.800 Beeman didn't mind that the property was flat and would 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.920 need to be almost wholly re engineered. To him, it 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.600 was a blank slate where he could realize his vision 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:21.240 for a stadium golf course. 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.080 No golf course up to that point had been bought, 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:30.760 had been built that more interest was concentrated on the 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:32.120 gallery than the players. 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:34.480 Most golf courses are built for players. 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:37.719 We needed to build build one for the players, but 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:41.000 we also had to we want. I wanted to build 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.960 a golf course that would be the first what I 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.280 called a stadium golf course. 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:49.520 Well, I wanted. I wanted two things. There were two. 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:53.320 Elements that I thought were extremely important in making a 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:57.400 stadium course as successful as it could be. One is 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:03.000 that you did all you care to build the spectator 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.040 areas in the highest places on the course and the 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:10.040 golf courses in the playing serfs on the lowest point 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:14.800 of the golf court, so that the spectators were actually 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:17.920 walking with you, and they would be above the players, 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.400 and so more people could see. And that's the concept 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:25.120 of a stadium. The second part of the concept that 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.920 I thought was very important was the routing of the 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.800 golf course should be in a way that produced the 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:37.880 most what I call areas of activity. Instead of spreading 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.920 the golf course out and stringing the holes out they 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:45.520 should wind back and forth in a way that created 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:51.000 us hubs of activities where a spectator could maybe walk 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:54.720 two or three hundred yards and see four or five 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:59.040 different shots close to a couple of tees, a couple 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:02.520 of greens, and and may be a fairway and not 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:06.439 have to walk five miles to watch a lot of golf. 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.000 Because there are some spectators that want to follow their 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:12.600 favorite player and others that just want to watch golf. 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.440 It's striking how these ideas, although novel at the time, 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:19.560 call to mind the features of certain time tested tournament 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:23.200 golf courses. As Pete Dye pointed out in his autobiography, 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.360 the Links courses of Great Britain and Ireland have dunes 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.840 that form natural spectator mounds along the fairways and around 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:33.520 the greens, and Beeman's notion of hubs of activity reminded 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:37.920 me of how Augusta National returns to certain landforms, creating 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.480 gathering spots where spectators can see multiple greens and teas 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:46.360 at once. Perhaps in part because he appreciated these historical references, 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.520 Pete Die took beeman stadium concept and ran with it. 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:53.640 Over dinner at the Homestead restaurant in Jacksonville. Die sketched 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.400 a back nine routing on that now famous Place Mat 0:13:56.679 --> 0:14:00.199 and Beeman knew he had the right architect. Granted a 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.760 Place Matt is a lot easier to work with than 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:04.880 a four hundred and fifteen acre alligator pit. 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:14.640 We killed rattlesnakes and moccasins all the time, almost every day. 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:19.600 Were also alligators and spiders and all kinds of stuff 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:22.880 out on the site, and you wore snake boots or 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:24.680 you didn't really go out there. 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:29.160 Vernon Kelly was the project manager at TPC Sawgrass. 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:33.480 There was something out there we called blue gumbo clay. 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.440 What it was was almost a plastic kind of clay. 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:41.880 It was like quicksand. And when you were digging sand 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:46.360 out of the pits, because wherever you found sand, we 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:48.720 excavated it for the golf holds, and that's how we 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.320 created seventeen. Of course, almost anywhere you see a lake 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:54.920 out there, it's because there was sand in that area 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.160 and we didn't have the money to buy sand. And 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.800 once you excavated the sand, sometimes you would hit this 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:05.600 gushy kind of play material and it didn't seem to 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.800 be the bottom to it, and out on I think 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.800 it was number seven. One night we went a backo 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:16.120 when we were digging building the green, and he got 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:20.600 into that stuff, and I mean literally, without a couple 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.480 of hours, it completely covered the tracks of the back 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:26.960 hoe and was up to the cab, which is about 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:29.640 five feet. We were able to pull it out with 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:35.000 a dozer, but it just showed how treacherous the sight was. 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:38.560 Early on, it could seem like the land itself was 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:39.920 rejecting the golf course. 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.520 The first thing we had to do was to find 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:47.040 the property, so we had the boundary surveyed, and the 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.920 surveyors actually went out there and cut the survey line 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:54.680 with the cheties, and then you know, went from point 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.600 to point and marked the points with the survey steaks 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:03.560 and survey tape. Well, the vegetation grew so fast out there, 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.760 literally within a couple of days, you could barely find 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:11.640 the cut lines, which were the pass from state to streak, 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.920 and you couldn't find the steaks at all. 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:17.920 And then there was the wildlife. 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:22.760 So one day we were walking along it as hot 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.440 as could be, and the bugs were about to carry 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.280 off the skews and the rest, and I was talking 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:29.120 to David. 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:33.080 That would be David post Away, Pete Dies Construction superintendent. 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.160 He said, do you think there are any alligators out here? 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:38.400 I said, oh, yeah, they're all over the place because 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.440 they can travel in this water. It's about knee high 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:43.960 and they can move from place to place. And he said, 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:48.200 those are step on one. It's all. We won't do that, 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:51.560 but you can find them because there'll be a an 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:54.680 alligator pit. And what they do is they'll be in 0:16:54.360 --> 0:17:00.240 an area of sawgrass and they'll root around and make 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:05.040 an alligator pit that's probably twenty feet square around where 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:08.679 they ripped up the vegetation and kind of dug the 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.920 butt a little bit deeper, and that's where they live 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:14.320 and that's where they sleep in the water. And all 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:19.320 they're scavengers. They don't eat live meat. They kill things 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:22.679 and they put it in that pit to rot and 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.400 when it's real gamey, then they'll eat it. So when 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:28.440 you come to one of those pits, you can tell 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.760 what it is because it stinks to high heaven. And 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:33.639 he said, boy, I hate to be in something like that, 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:35.879 and I said, yeah, me too. So in the meantime, 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:39.200 we're pushing through. We're pushing through the sawgrass and it's 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:42.760 about five feet high, and it's so thick. I mean, 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.800 you can't. It just wears you out to push against it, 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:50.840 sort of leaning leaning into it. I was in front 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:53.560 and Dave was following me, and all of a sudden 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:55.800 I was leaning. All of a sudden it just parted 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.280 and I fell in this hole. And I knew immediately 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:00.320 what it was because it's stunk to high have it, 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.600 and I'd fallen into an alligator. 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:03.960 Kid. 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:08.600 Fortunately the alligator was home, but you know, said, I'm 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:13.199 laying of this thing, and my full concentration is on 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:17.440 keeping my balpha order. All of a sudden, David comes 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:20.160 pops right through the grass and falls right on top 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.880 of me. He looks around. He says, oh my god, 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:25.760 he says, the stinks that I haven't what is this. 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:30.479 It's what we were talking about. It's an alligator. He's gone. 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:35.040 He just disappeared. He was He took off so fast. 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:36.520 How did you get out? 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.520 Oh? I got out. I was. I was right by, 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:41.920 but nothing happened to it. 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.919 Kelly, who hadn't worked on a peat dye project before, 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.760 quickly got a taste of Die's creative process. 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:53.840 When we first started working with him. We had to 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:56.679 get upset of plans from the bank in order to 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:00.280 just strin alone. It was the hardest thing to get 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:04.000 a set of plants. Pete resisted it and just didn't 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:06.480 want to give us a set of plants. And finally 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:09.200 we were able to secure a set of plans from him. 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:11.880 We gave him to the bank and everything's ready to go. 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:16.119 So we were on the site the first day. We 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:19.040 were walking out to the first t I said, oh, wait, man, 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.280 I forgot something. And I went running back to the 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:25.280 truck and got the plans, and son come running, come 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.399 running back, and Pete says to me, what's that And 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:30.960 I said, Oh, these are the plants. And he said, 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:33.160 put them back in the truck, and I don't want 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:38.320 to see them again. That was the last time we 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:39.359 had the plants on the. 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:42.480 Job, and that, it seems to me, is exactly where 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.600 Pete Die and the tour could have found themselves at loggerheads, 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:50.399 the craftsmen versus the corporation, the improviser versus the plan followers. 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:53.760 But as it turned out, Dean Beeman himself had a 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.720 healthy regard for Die's methods. 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:57.359 That's Pete. 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:01.119 Pete wants to be hands on boots on the I 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:02.840 want to see it. I don't want to see it 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:04.320 on a piece of paper. I want to see it 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.639 with my own eye and my boots on the ground 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:08.320 and get wet. 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:10.359 And from Vernon Kelly's point of view. While there was 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.520 a contrast in styles between Die and Beaman, there was 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:15.919 also a crucial element that kept the peace. 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.760 There was a tremendous amount of respect between Dean and 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:23.479 deep In both ways and Alice both ways. 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.320 Years later, Alice I admitted that her initial fears about 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:31.200 the partnership had been unfounded. Dean was wonderful, she said. 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.880 He let Pete do his thing, and both of them 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.840 let Alice do her thing. She too was on site, 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:39.960 and she too had a knack for boots on the 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:44.320 ground improvisation. According to plans, the par three seventeenth would 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.720 have water just on the right, but around the seventeenth green, 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:49.720 as it happened, was some of the best sand on 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:53.199 a generally mucky property, So the crew kept digging that 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:56.360 sand out and using it as foundation for turf elsewhere 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:59.720 on the course. Eventually there was an enormous pit where 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:02.720 the seeventeenth hole was supposed to be. Here's how Pete 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:06.520 Dye recounted what happened next. I called Alice over to 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:09.000 discuss with her where we could find a new place 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.000 for the green. She said, put the green back where 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:15.720 it was and fill the hole with water. Simple enough. 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:21.200 This sort of husband wife collaboration was common on Dye projects. 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.080 One summer when he was in college, Tom Doak worked 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:26.520 on the crew at die'es Long Cove Club on Hilton 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:27.159 Head Island. 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:30.960 They were renting a house three miles away and see 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:34.400 Pine's plantation, And you know, Pete would be there six 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:36.280 or seven days a week at six thirty in the 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:39.920 morning with the crew, and Alice would come out maybe 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:42.440 two or three times a week, you know, at lunchtime 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:46.439 or in the afternoon, and she'd just come check on 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:49.080 progress and see, you know, see what what had been 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:51.480 done since the last time she was out there, which 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:54.560 you know, even that would be more visits than most 0:21:54.680 --> 0:22:00.840 architects would make to their own construction sites. And it 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.359 was actually a guy on her crew that would have 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:07.080 been a college roommate of PD's. You know, Pete was 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:10.240 shaping on the golf course and Steve, his roommate, was 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:12.040