Pete Dye spent part of his youth at Pinehurst, where he became a lifelong admirer of Donald Ross, and Pinehurst was clearly on his mind when he set out to design The Dye Preserve. “We aimed at making a different kind of golf course down here,” he said. What he built was in effect a non-Floridian golf course in Florida, a task inspired and helped by the quality of the soil, the grasses and the trees.

“I tried to give the course a clean, well-defined look using the natural features and materials,” the designer explained. “South Florida is dead flat so the golfer needs some help to see the shape of every hole from the tee.”

Dye incorporated several elements on the course to attain that goal:

• The rough is St. Augustine grass, which gives the fairways great definition and brings to mind courses of the northern areas of the United States.
• Bermuda grass lines the fairways, while the greens are Tifeagle.
• Tees were designed with paspalum, which is a salt-water resistant grass.
• Bunkers have grass faces to help define them.
• Mulch under the trees offers a contrasting color to make it easier to find your ball if a wayward shot should occur.

Pete Dye’s reputation for building punishing golf courses still occasionally haunts him, but he may have laid it to rest at the Dye. If there is one word to describe Pete Dye’s creation, it is “playable.” There is plenty of room to drive the ball, there are no forced carries, the green speed is consistent and the course is always in perfect condition. “My inspiration for this course came from golf’s greatest traditional courses,” said Dye.

It is a golf course that requires strategy: It doesn’t wear the golfer out, yet it doesn’t yield par easily. There is room for error. Poor, as opposed to bad shots, are not savagely penalized, while good shots are rewarded. The golf course is both competitive and fun to play. In the opinion of many golfers, it has a definite “Pinehurst” quality.

Yardage:
5,154 yards from the front tees
6,082 from the middle tees
6,637 from the back tees
7,149 from the Championship tees

Par: 72
Slope rating: 146
Course rating: 74.8