Architect Rankings
The Best Pete Dye Golf Courses in America
Pete Dye built 93 courses in our dataset across 26 states: municipal courses and private clubs, a course inside a motor speedway, a nine hole first design where he crossed a creek thirteen times, and the most famous par 3 in golf. Dye's idea of golf was an argument. A course should make you uncomfortable in planned ways, then reward the shot you almost did not have the nerve to hit. These are the seven where the argument is strongest. His courses anchor towns we rank separately, including San Antonio, La Quinta, and Cromwell.
1Stadium Course, TPC Sawgrass
Opened in 1980 as the first Tournament Players Club stadium course, with commissioner Deane Beman's spectator mounds built into the concept, and home of The Players Championship since 1982. The par 3 17th, the island green, is the most copied and most feared short hole in America, and the rest of the course earns the right to contain it: par 72, about 7,250 yards, and a closing stretch that has decided more championships than any Dye course ever built. A later remodel by Steve Wenzloff made the 12th a drivable par 4, adding temptation to a course that already specialized in punishing it. First place is not close.
2Stadium Course, PGA West
Dye designed the PGA West Stadium Course in La Quinta as a desert sequel to Sawgrass, opened in 1986 and built to be the toughest course in the West. Its original USGA rating of 77.1 was the highest ever issued at the time. The par 3 17th, an island green nicknamed Alcatraz, is where Lee Trevino made a hole in one worth a $175,000 skin in the 1987 Skins Game. The course hosted the Skins Game from 1986 to 1991 and six PGA Tour Q School finals, and it is the host of The American Express since 2016. The par 4 16th has the San Andreas Fault bunker, one of the deepest in golf. Sawgrass with mountains, and nearly as mean.
3Crooked Stick Golf Club
Pete and Alice Dye built Crooked Stick in 1964 in Carmel, north of Indianapolis, on land Pete secured and funded himself, then lived on the 18th hole in summer. It hosted the 1991 PGA Championship won by John Daly, who entered as the ninth alternate, plus the 1993 U.S. Women's Open, the 2005 Solheim Cup, the 2009 U.S. Senior Open, and BMW Championships won by Rory McIlroy in 2012 and Dustin Johnson in 2016. It will host the U.S. Senior Open again in 2028. Par 72, 7,567 yards, rating 77.7. This is the Dye home course in every sense, and its championship record spans five decades because the design underneath the events never stopped testing.
4The Honors Course
Opened July 2, 1983 near Chattanooga, founded by Coca-Cola bottling heir Jack Lupton with a mission focused on amateur golf, at the foot of White Oak Mountain on about 460 acres that once held a munitions plant. For the 2024 U.S. Senior Amateur it played par 72 with a slope of 154. It will host the 2026 U.S. Women's Amateur and the 2031 U.S. Amateur. GOLF Magazine ranked it No. 54 in America for 2024-25. Gil Hanse's careful replacement of the 10th and 11th greens in their original configuration shows what the custodians of Dye's best private work understand: you preserve it, you do not improve it.
5Pete Dye Course, French Lick
Opened in June 2009 on Mount Airie, one of the highest points in Indiana, after Dye initially called the slopes impossible and construction moved about 2.5 million cubic yards of earth across 300 acres. Named America's Best New Public Course by Golf Digest in 2009 and National Course of the Year in 2017, it hosted the 2015 Senior PGA Championship. Par 72 stretching to 8,102 yards from the gold tees, with views over 40 miles from some holes, and a clubhouse in Thomas Taggart's 1928 mansion. Late Dye at full scale and full confidence, building on a mountaintop because the mountaintop was there.
6TPC River Highlands
Founded in 1928 as Middletown Golf Club, completely redesigned by Dye in 1982 and reopened as TPC Connecticut in 1984, then renovated by Bobby Weed in 1989. It has hosted the Travelers Championship continuously since 1984. Jim Furyk shot 58 here in 2016, the lowest round in PGA Tour history, which the Dye haters cite and the Dye defenders answer correctly: the course is par 70 at about 6,840 yards, one of the shortest on tour, with a four hole finish around a four acre lake and a drivable par 4 15th regarded as one of the most exciting holes on tour. It is the friendliest Dye on this list, and the finish still bites somebody every June.
7The Club at Chatham Hills
The last course Pete Dye designed and built on site, in Westfield, Indiana, about ten minutes from his home. Par 72, 7,215 yards across 800 acres with 85 feet of elevation change, on land held by the Lindley family for eight generations since 1835. It hosted an NCAA Division I Women's Regional in 2023 and the Mid-American Conference men's championship in 2024, the 107th Indiana PGA Open in 2022, and the LIV Golf Individual Championship in August 2025. Dye's first course was completed in 1962 in Greenwood, Indiana. His last, more than fifty years later, was built in the same state, still on site, still arguing. That bookend earns seventh over richer resumes.
The honest concession: Dye's work gets overrated when difficulty is mistaken for quality, and some of the 93 in our dataset are hard in ways that punish without teaching. The seven above are not those courses. Each one has a shot, a hole, or a finish that explains the whole philosophy in miniature: an island green, a bunker you could hide a car in, a drivable par 4 with a lake behind it. Dye died with his courses still hosting championships on three tours. Architects who build easier courses have an easier time being liked. He never seemed interested.