On this date, ninety-seven years ago (2/19/1927), Alice Holliday O’Neal was born in Indianapolis, IN. Alice was a very accomplished amateur female golfer, as she won 11 city golf titles in Indianapolis, captained the women’s golf team at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL, won the 1968 North and South Women’s Amateur, was a member of the 1970 United States Curtis Cup team, and won the 1978 and 1979 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur as well as two Canadian Women’s Senior Championships. But it was at the aforementioned Rollins College where she met and fell in love with a golfer on the Rollins College men’s team, Pete Dye!

Pete and Alice got married on Groundhog Day in 1950 (2/2/1950), and after a stint in insurance sales back in Indiana, they got into the golf course design business with their first design being the 9-hole course at El Dorado Country Cub in 1961 (now called Dye’s Walk Country Club) in Greenwood, IN. Their first 18-hole course was also completed that same year at Heather Hills Country Club (now called Maple Creek Country Club) in Indianapolis, IN. This was the start of a legendary partnership in golf course architecture, as their courses are some of the most revered (and difficult) courses in the world. As Pete professed in his autobiography Bury Me In A Pot Bunker, Alice was “the most important thing in my life. I love her as much today as the day we married”.

Alice worked hand in hand with Pete on his 150+ golf courses. She was the inspiration for much of his design work, with Alice providing input into the majority of his projects. The island green at TPC Sawgrass (Stadium Course) was Alice’s idea. Alice was also a huge proponent of courses having multiple ladies tees to ensure that their courses could be played by varying levels of difficulties for both males and females. She also is the reason that Pete designed cart path routings to come up to the right side of ladies’ tees, since “women don’t like showing their behinds to the rest of the group when they bend over to tee the ball up!”

Alice Dye was a pioneer for women in the the golf industry. She was the first female member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA), and became the first female president of the ASGCA in 1997. She also was the first female Director of the Professional Golf Association, and was a member of the USGA Women’s Committee, the LPGA Advisory Council, as well as a member of the Board of Directors of the Women’s Western Amateur (with whom she as given the ‘Woman of Distinction Award’).

Alice Dye was also inducted into the Indiana Golf Hall of Fame in 1976 and in 2004 was voted the PGA’s First Lady of Golf Award. Alice passed away in Gulf Stream, FL on February 1st, 2019 at the age of 91 years.

Happy Birthday, Alice! You’ll always be remembered as the “First Lady of Golf Architecture”!!