Golf Central

On this day in 1925, Pete Dye, one of the most famed golf course architects of the last 50 years, was born in Urbana, Illinois, apparently on a mission to make the lives of pampered Tour professionals miserable.

Let's just say that Dye and Old Tom Morris probably would not have gotten along. Whereas the ancient golf designers like Morris used the natural contours of the earth to fashion a course, Dye - a self-professed "digger" - never met a bulldozer he didn't like.

To give him credit, Dye's designs are among the most creative and revolutionary in the world. And the par-3 17th hole at his signature TPC at Sawgrass course - home of the PGA Tour's PLAYERS Championship - stands as one of golf's most memorable and tough holes, often called the "world's most terrifying tee shot". But more on the famous 17th at Sawgrass later ...

Among Dye's world class portfolio of golf courses are Harbour Town Golf Links (Hilton Head, SC), Kiawah Island's Ocean Course (the 1991 Ryder Cup venue in South Carolina), Crooked Stick in Carmel, Indiana (where John Daly won the '91 PGA Championship), the California desert courses at La Quinta Resort and PGA West, and the brilliant Teeth of the Dog Course at Casa de Campo, Dominican Republic, which is considered the best course in the Caribbean.

They all share similar characteristics, not all of which are universally popular. Tour players and hackers alike aren't fond of Dye's diabolical use of forced angles, tiny pot bunkers and poststage-stamp greens. Purists don't like him because of "artificial" gimmicks like the use of railroad ties as bulkheads around water hazards and bunkers, which are a Dye trademark.

But Dye has pulled off some brilliant tricks, including designing the world's first "stadium" golf course, the famed TPC at Sawgrass. A canny, well-positioned spectator can find a good spot and without moving much, watch almost all the drama unfolding on the 16th, 17th and 18th holes.

Although the designer claims that the notorious island green at No. 17 at Sawgrass came about nearly by accident, there's no question it provides great theatre as the world's best players have to land their tee shots on that island, which looks smaller and smaller from the tee depending on the size of a player's margin on the leaderboard.

What have the pros had to say about No. 17 at Sawgrass?

When it first opened, Jack Nicklaus moaned: “I’ve never been very good at stopping a five-iron on the hood of a car.” Ben Crenshaw whinged: "It’s Star Wars golf, designed by Darth Vader.”

Although the green has been softened, making it much easier to hold, Sawgrass' 17th still makes pros and amateurs squeamish. Surrounded by all that water and a mob of a vocal crowd drunk on the Florida sunshine, that little iron shot is no fun in the final round of the PLAYERS.

Tiger Woods has complained that 17 is "gimmicky", saying "I don't think a hole like that should decide a tournament". Fred Funk says "It can just ruin the whole week." And the ever-quotable Mark Calcavecchia said of 17: "It's like having a 3 o'clock appointment for a root canal; you're thinking about it all morning and you feel like crap all day. You kind of know sooner or later you've got to get to it."

So Pete Dye makes the pampered pros bitch and moan. We like him more and more, that is, until it's our turn to play ...

For all you aspiring course designers out there, you might want to read Pete Dye's excellent autobiography, Bury Me In A Pot Bunker. ...

So, December 29 is pretty much a tough day all round. Also on this day:

In 1170, the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket was hacked to bits by knights sent by the king in Canterbury Cathedral ...

In 1845, Texas was admitted to the United States as the 28th state, making it really tough on the rest of the good old USA. Without Texas, neither George H.W. or George W. Bush could have been president, we would be spared the abomination that is Tex-Mex "cuisine" (spoiling perfectly good Mexican food), and there'd be a hell of a lot fewer locusts in the US ...

In 1890, the US Army perpetrated the massacre of more than 400 men, women and children of the Sioux Nation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ...

In 1940, just after London was breathing easier after the summer Blitz, the Germans hit the capital with firebombs, killing 200 in what became the "Second Great Fire of London" ...

In 1997, it was tough on chickens, as Hong Kong began a cull of 1.25 of our feathered friends in an effort to snuff out a potentially deadly bird flu ...

And in 2000, Britain grinded to a halt as Arctic conditions covered most of the country in snow, including six inches in Wales.

Somebody must be having a good day today, you say? Well, it's Quchjaj qoSlIj!, as they say in the Klingon language, to the amazingly resilient British druggie singer Marianne Faithfull, the wholesome-looking former squeeze of Mick Jagger, who is a grand old 61 today despite years of chemical abuse and being found at Ketih Richards' house wearing only a fur rug.

It's also birthday greetings to American comic actor Ted Danson (60) of Cheers and Becker; to Glasgow's own Jim Reid (46), singer of the Jesus and Mary Chain; to Jennifer Ehle (38) of the Pride and Prejudice mini-series; to the gifted actor Jude Law (35) of Lewisham; and to England and West Ham striker Kieron Dyer (29), who's a bit of an underachiever unless you count crashing cars, "roasting" groupies, peeing in public, brawling with teammates, and flashing hotel clerks as feathers in the cap.

It also would have been a birthday for the great Victorian statesman William Gladstone (b. 1809), who was made British prime minister four times and might have gone for a fifth had it not been for his ultimate promotion in 1898.