Remembering Alice Dye

When news came Friday that Pete Dye's spouse Alice had died just weeks before her 92nd birthday, I assume a variety of people were stunned.

The tribute articles are already hitting the 'Net. Here are links to 1 at pgatour.Com and every other at golfdigest.Com, however there are a long way greater than that obtainable and I suspect many extra could be up by the point most of you study this. And many of the ones writers knew here for my part, so their tributes will say much greater than mine.

Still, I wanted to pay my respects. This is the lady who came up with the seventeenth at Sawgrass, in the end, and changed into herself a Curtis Cup player at age 49. She learned the way to play with hickory-shafted clubs, for Pete's sake! Alice has been in golf her whole existence, and became very a success in every aspect of the game.

Did you already know she became the first female member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, in 1983? Or their first female president in 1997? Or the first woman named to the PGA of America Board of Directors, in 1999?

Here's pgatour.Com's precis of her beginner career:

Those kingdom beginner wins in Indiana ? Dye triumphing the last of her 9 in 1969 on the age of forty two ? Were most effective a part of a remarkable gambling resume. Alice Dye also gained the 1968 North and South Women?S Amateur; went lower back-to-back in each the U.S. Senior Women?S Amateur (1978-seventy nine) and Canadian Women?S Senior Amateur (1983-eighty four); and triumphed in 3 women?S kingdom amateurs in Florida (1973, ?74, ?Seventy nine).

In 1970, Alice Dye produced arguably the key point in the Americans’ 11 ½ - 6 ½ triumph over Great Britain & Ireland in the Curtis Cup at Brae Burn CC outside of Boston. Two down with four to play against Julia Greenhalgh, Dye rallied to win; instead of a presumed 4 ½ - 4 ½ tie, the American side scratched out a one-point first-day lead thanks to Dye, and never looked back.

Another prideful honor was being named American captain at the 1992 World Amateur team championship in Vancouver.

The golfdigest.com article writes about her design ability:

In the 1990s, I [author Ron Whitten] asked Alice if she’d ever wanted to design a golf course by herself, start to finish. “I’ve already done that,” she said, pointing to Heather Hills in Indianapolis (now Maple Creek Golf & Country Club), billed as Pete’s first 18-hole design. She took the lead on that project while Pete was off chasing work in Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska and elsewhere. She handled the routing, negotiated with government officials, prodded lenders, supervised construction and deferred to Pete only in the contouring of its greens. Her involvement was fairly well covered by the Indiana press in 1961, where she was invariably identified as Mrs. Paul Dye. Such was the fate of a rare female golf architect in those days.

She and Pete were married for something like 70 years. And most of her time lately has been spent supervising Pete's health care, since he's suffering from Altzheimer's. Those two lovebirds have been inseparable their whole lives.

An era in golf has passed. Alice Dye will be missed.