The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, site of Phil Mickelson’s win in 2021, will host a third men’s major.
The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, will be the host of another major.
The venue, site of then-50-year-old Phil Mickelson’s PGA Championship triumph in 2021 to become the oldest player to win a men’s major, will again host the PGA Championship in 2031.
The PGA of America also announced Wednesday that the 2029 Girls and Boys Junior PGA Championships will be at the Ocean Course.
The 113th PGA Championship is scheduled for May 2031. It will be the third time the Wanamaker Trophy is up for grabs along South Carolina’s coast. The Ocean Course previously hosted the 2012 (won by Rory McIlroy) and 2021 PGA Championships. It’s the ninth course to host three or more PGA Championships.
Other significant events at the Ocean Course include the 1991 Ryder Cup won by the American side, the 2005 PGA Professional Championship (Mike Small) and the 2007 Senior PGA Championship (Denis Watson).
Kiawah Island Golf Resort’s Ocean Course in South Carolina (Courtesy Kiawah Island Golf Resort)
“We are ecstatic to bring the Junior PGA Championships and PGA Championship to the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort in 2029 and 2031,” said PGA of America President John Lindert, who is PGA director of golf at the Country Club of Lansing in Michigan. “Past PGA Championships at Kiawah Island have provided no shortage of memorable moments and historic performances, all taking place along a breathtaking coastal setting. The Ocean Course’s challenging layout and rich history make it an ideal destination for our championships.”
The Ocean Course was designed by Pete Dye and opened in 1991, shortly before the Ryder Cup. At the suggestion of his wife, Alice, he engineered fairways and greens closer to the tops of the dunes alongside the Atlantic Ocean instead of on lower grades, as is common on many traditional links layouts. This increases exposure to frequent winds while providing incredible views from just about any vantage.
Did Pete Dye dream up this hole? How many players hit the water? Who made the last ace on No. 17?
How hard can it be? It’s just a wedge, maybe a 9-iron, for the best players in the world, right?
Factor in wind, water, nerves and a giant gallery, and No. 17 at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is so much more than the yardage on the scorecard might indicate. With its green perched atop wooden bulkheads above a lake, No. 17 is one of – if not the – most famous holes in golf.
While PGA Tour pros normally would tear apart such a short hole, the scoring average on No. 17 during the 2021 Players Championship was 3.23, almost a quarter shot over par, to make it the third-toughest hole versus par on the course that year.
So what gives? If you’ve been fortunate enough to play the course – ranked No. 1 in Florida on Golfweek’s Best list of public-access courses – then you already know. If you haven’t played it, you owe it to yourself.
Here are five things to know about course architect Pete Dye’s most iconic hole – if you can give credit to that famous designer after all.
The son of Pete and Alice Dye, Perry Dye built more than 80 courses spanning 15 countries.
Perry Dye, the eldest son of Pete and Alice Dye, died Thursday in Denver at age 68.
The American Society of Golf Course Architects reported the news on Perry Dye, who began working on courses for his father at age 12. No cause of death was listed.
Perry formed his own course architecture firm, Dye Designs, in 1984. He was known as an early “green” builder, plotting courses with smaller footprints that were mere environmentally sensitive. He built more than 80 courses in all, including more than 20 in Japan, and his course legacy stretches to 15 countries.
Among the courses he designed are Pound Ridge in New York, Auburn Hills in Kansas, Desert Pines in Las Vegas, West One’s Country Club in Japan and Lykia Links in Turkey. He also continued to work with his father on a number of courses.
He was a true, larger-than-life character, who could laugh and entertain with the best of them. Tough to prosper being in the shadow of Pete, his famous father, but he created his own memorable courses. R.I.P. https://t.co/uP2ao1BrIR
“This is a great loss for golf design, but right now we should all be sending our love and support to the Dye Family,” ASGCA President Forrest Richardson said. “Perry and I shared many good times, and I am so grateful to have spent time with him at the 2020 Golf Industry Show just before the COVID lockdowns began. As usual, he was full of life, smiling and telling stories. We will miss him.”
Perry became an ASGCA member in 1996 and served on the ASGCA board of governors. Also a member of the Golf Course Builders Association of America, in 2004 he received the inaugural award that bears his name – the Perry O. Dye Service Award – which honors “exceptional individuals who have unselfishly contributed their influence to foster positive changes for the association and have continually endeavored to make it better.”
Perry’s mother, Alice, died in 2019, and his father, Pete, died less than a year later in 2020. He is survived by his brother, P.B. Dye, wife Ann, children and their spouses Lucy (Erik) Bowman and Lilly (Ross) Harmon, and grandchildren Brooks and Margaret Harmon.
No. 17 at Kiawah Island is a long (like, uber-long) par 3 over water. Here’s what players had to say early week.
KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. – Off in the distance some 230 yards is a sliver of emerald safety that gives slight comfort to those who will be staring down potential tragedy during the 103rd playing of the PGA Championship.
It’s the putting surface at the end of the par-3 17th hole on The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, Pete Dye’s masterpiece hard by the Atlantic that, while eye-popping, is a wind-swept, treacherous walk on a tightrope, or as Lee Westwood said of the layout, it’s a thrills-and-spills kind of place.
This week, the course could play out to 7,876 yards, making it the longest in major championship history by more than 100 yards, and the 230 yards on the penultimate hole protected by water on the right and two deep waste areas that look like bunkers on the left could prove the most pivotal of all.
“Seventeen is the ultimate test of nerve,” 2013 Masters champion Adam Scott said. “It doesn’t matter when you’re playing it. If it’s three weeks ago or this Sunday coming down the stretch, it’s a long par 3 over water.
“I don’t know how holes get more difficult than that.”
The Puttview yardage book for Kiawah Island Golf Resort’s Ocean Course (Courtesy of Puttview)
If blame is to be assigned for the cruel outcomes over the years on the 17th, it would be directed toward Alice Dye, an accomplished architect herself and a top golfer who always had her husband’s ear. It was her idea as the course was nearing completion for the 1991 Ryder Cup to add the watery graveyard.
“There wasn’t going to be a lake on the 17th but Alice felt we needed a dramatic element at this point,” Dye wrote in his autobiography. “Since players of Ryder Cup caliber can handle bunker shots with ease, to make a realistic challenge, we dug an eight-acre lake that stretches from the tee to the offset green, which runs away from the player diagonally to the right.”
The hole exploded in the minds of golf fans when The Ocean Course made its tournament debut in the 1991 Ryder Cup dubbed the “War by the Shore.” It played out like a dark alley in a horror flick as players fell victim to the confrontation time and time again.
Johnny Miller said on the telecast that year the hole was so intimidating that a player could choke while playing a practice round alone. David Feherty, who closed out Payne Stewart in Ryder Cup singles play on the 17th, said he’d never seen anything like it.
“The hardest hole in the history of the universe,” Feherty said of the 1991 version of the 17th. “It was 270 yards and nowhere to go. Water to the right and these mine shafts on the left they called bunkers.”
Ian Woosnam of the European team plays out of the bunker on the 17th hole during the Final Day Singles of the 1991 Ryder Cup at Kiawah Island in South Carolina. (Photo: Stephen Munday /Allsport)
Mark Calcavecchia had one of golf’s infamous meltdowns in his crucial singles match against Colin Montgomerie. Calcavecchia was 4 up with four holes to play but lost the 15th and 16th. He looked safe to win after Montgomerie hit his tee shot on 17 into the water.
Calcavecchia, however, hit a shank into the lake and then missed a 3-footer for bogey to lose the hole. He also lost the 18th and only earned a halve. Thinking he cost the U.S. victory, he went to the beach and broke down in tears, then started hyperventilating and needed medical attention. His health improved as the U.S. won the match.
Twenty-one years later, The Ocean Course held its first major with the 2012 PGA Championship and the par-3 17th wasn’t much easier. The field averaged 3.303 strokes on the hole that week, making nearly as many double bogeys or worse (28) than birdies (31). It ranked in the top-10 of most difficult par-3s that year on the PGA Tour.
And now it’s making another start turn this week.
Expect more carnage.
Well, maybe not from Wyndham Clark. The first alternate who got into the field Monday when 1998 and 2004 PGA champion Vijay Singh withdrew, had never seen the course before playing a Tuesday practice round. At the 17th, he took out his 4-iron and sent the ball skyward and made a hole in one.
As for most all others, the 17th was not kind.
Using a 2-iron on Tuesday, world No. 4 Xander Schauffele hit a tee shot that found the water. Using the same 2-iron, he hit his next tee shot to 2 feet.
“I think that kind of sums up the hole in all honesty,” he said. “When you’re hitting a long iron into wind and it’s struck properly, it should hold its line and its flight. If you don’t, it’s going to go way offline and not hold its flight.
“You’ve really got to muster up some courage coming down the stretch and depending on where they put that tee box, it’s going to be really tricky.”
World No. 2 Justin Thomas took to Twitter and Instagram to show his go at 17.
“220 hole, 198 cover, into a 15ish mph wind … what y’all hitting? I flighted hold cut 4 iron … into the water. It looked pretty though!” he wrote with the accompanying video documenting the shot.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CO_Jh5TBlDk/
World No. 3 Jon Rahm muscled up when he got to the 17th.
“I smoked a 2-iron to just carry it over the middle of the green over the water,” he said. “Extremely difficult. That’s all I can say. Any time you have 230 yards into the wind over water into a narrow target, it’s just not easy.
“I’m hoping we don’t play it back there every day.”
So does Kevin Kisner.
“Lord hope that we’re going to play a tee up,” Kevin Kisner said. “(Tuesday) we played it at 202 from the front edge of the back box, so we were trying to hit a 235-yard shot over water to an area about 13 yards wide.
“I tried to hit a 7-wood; was unsuccessful. That’s not a very easy shot into the wind. Depending on where they play it and where the flag is, I think you have a range (of club selection) from 5-iron to 3-wood.
“Sounds fun, doesn’t it?”
The 17th is part of a closing stretch that’s just downright mean – the 466-yard, par-4 15th; the 608-yard, par-5 16th; the 17th; and the 505-yard, par-4 18th. It’s an unsympathetic finish which demands the winner to call on all his talents.
Which is the way it should be, said European Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington, who won the 1997 World Cup here with Paul McGinley.
“If you want to hit the green on 17, you’ve got to be brave,” said Harrington, who hit 5-wood into the wind on Tuesday at the 17th. “There are a lot of great holes here. I do agree if I was designing the golf course, a championship golf course, I would have a real stern test at the end because you want a true winner, and a true winner is going to have to hit the shots at the end and really take them on.
“You can’t have a soft finish in any shape or form. Nobody would have won this tournament until they’re through the 71st hole, that’s for sure.”
The Dye, a junior golf tournament, is set to honor the legacy of course designers Pete, Alice Dye later this year at Crooked Stick.
The legacy of famed golf course architects Pete and Alice Dye will live on forever in their countless courses across the world.
The two will also be honored with a new junior golf tournament set to debut in 2020 at the home to the Dyes’ “firstborn” championship course.
Announced by officials on Monday, the inaugural Pete and Alice Dye Junior Invitational, to be known as The Dye, will be held at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana, May 25-27.
A field of the top 33 boys and girls junior players will compete in the 54-hole event and will receive points for the World Amateur Golf Rankings (WAGR), National Junior Golf Scoreboard (NJGS) and Golfweek/Sagarin Junior Rankings.
Why 33? That’s the number of cars that race in the Indianapolis 500, held the day before The Dye just a few miles south of Crooked Stick. The field is highlighted by Golfweek/Sagarin No. 2 Alexa Pano, No. 7 Michael Brennan and John Daly Jr., son of 1991 PGA Championship winner at Crooked Stick John Daly.
“Pete and Alice Dye were both elite level amateur players and began winning tournaments as juniors,” said tournament chairman Wayne Timberman. “The Dye is the only national invitational where elite boy and girl golfers play for a major title on the same Top 100 course at the same time.”
The winners will receive a hand-carved award in the shape of the club’s iconic Crooked Stick.
Pete Dye, who built some of the most famous and toughest golf courses in the world, has died at age 94.
World Golf Hall of Fame member Pete Dye, who designed some of the world’s most famous golf courses, is dead at age 94.
The PGA of America announced the news on Thursday, and its president, Suzy Whaley, released a statement in tribute of Dye.
“Pete Dye left an imprint on the world of golf that will be experienced for generations, painting wonderful pictures with the land that continue to inspire, entertain & challenge us,” Whaley wrote. “The PGA is saddened by the passing of this dear friend of the PGA Professional. Pete & his late wife Alice formed the greatest force in golf design history. The Dye family will forever be linked to many of the thrilling championships in PGA history & for something that they intended all along – that we embrace golf’s life values.”
Dye, who was born in Urbana, Ohio, and lived most of his life in Indianapolis, originally was an insurance man before transitioning into golf course design in the 1960s. Among his most notable designs were TPC Sawgrass, home of The Players Championship, the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Resort in South Carolina, which has hosted both a Ryder Cup and a PGA Championship, and Whistling Straits, site of the 2020 Ryder Cup in Kohler, Wisconsin.
Dye used his vast powers of visual deception to create holes where desire and disaster often converge. Perhaps his most famous was the 17th-hole island green at TPC Sawgrass.
“Life is not fair, so why should I make a course that is fair?” Dye once said.
Dye received numerous awards for his work in the golf industry. The Golf Course Superintendents Association of America presented him the Old Tom Morris Award, its highest honor, in 2003. Dye was the 2004 recipient of the PGA Distinguished Service Award and in 2005 he was honored with the PGA Tour’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
“The ardent golfer would play Mount Everest if somebody put a flagstick on top,” Dye once said.
Dye’s wife and partner in course design, Alice, passed away Feb. 1, 2019.
In 2019, the golf world mourned the loss of architect Alice Dye, Gordon Brand Jr., Dan Jenkins and several others.
The world of golf lost several notable figures this year.
A 29-time PGA Tour winner, the wife and partner of a renowned course architect, a celebrated golf columnist and one of the founding members of the LPGA are among those who died in 2019.
We take a moment to honor each and remember their many contributions to golf.
