This is the famous green that’s 45-yards deep and falls eight feet (!) from back to front. Here was a century-old layout, home to the 1924 PGA Championship (won by Walter Hagen), with all sorts of interesting pathways to the greens and some really intense putting surfaces.īy coincidence or design, we got to experience one of the great hole locations in all of golf – way back, top shelf, on the par-4 eighth hole. The next day on the resort’s Donald Ross Course we got a more relaxed version of the angles that make for interesting golf. But all the pretty pictures in the world can’t come close to the wisdom of a first-hand account from someone who works in the dirt. I had started off the event at dinner the first night with a PowerPoint presentation about modern architecture. Standing in front of a white board and drawing simple but elegantly illustrative lines, Liddy showed the group that “golf design is all about creating angles.”

Here was a course that kept you on the edge the whole time. Temperatures in the 90s didn’t help, but as Liddy explained, the real issue was how his boss, Dye, created a sense of sharp lines and the feeling of impending doom right alongside the safest, most receptive part of a golf hole. There’s no question the Pete Dye Course at French Lick is a tough track. But Liddy’s the guy who has steadily been putting Dye’s notes, thoughts and rough field sketches to paper so that there’s a document trail and a set of detailed plans for the dozens of courses they’ve worked on together – everything from this high-end resort to the exclusive Ford Plantation community south of Savannah and an affordable municipal layout in Bloomfield, Conn.

That’s because he’s not as famous as the fellow he’s worked for the last 25 years. Okay, Tim Liddy’s name isn’t on the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort in Indiana.

One thing we learned during our first-ever Golf Advisor Getaway, June 17-19: there’s nothing like hearing from the guy who designed the course you just played.

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