Continuing the Dye Tradition

Pete Dye died in 2020 after a storied career and projects that included Colorado courses Glenmoor Country Club, Riverdale Dunes, Plum Creek, Gypsum Creek and Copper Creek golf courses, and the County Club of Colorado. Pete did some of that work alongside his son Perry, who designed more than 80 courses himself and was the principal designer of Green Valley Ranch Golf Course in Denver.

Cynthia Dye McGarey – Pete’s niece – and her son, Matt McGarey, are continuing the tradition as Dye Designs Group, based in Denver. Cynthia and Matt’s firm this summer completed extensive bunker renovation at The Club at Inverness in Englewood. They also oversaw the construction of four new holes at Copper Creek Golf Course, at Copper Mountain Resort, returning the resort’s course to 18 holes after a new conference center was built on some of the course’s original layout.

Cynthia’s work has taken her all around the world – including projects in Iraq, China, Azerbaijan and South Korea. She began by working on landscaping and design projects for her cousin, Perry’s, projects. Slowly the scope of her work expanded and when Perry Dye passed in 2021 at age 68 she continued the family legacy.

“My first job working where I routed the golf course and did all the plans and was there every week it was the Paiute Golf Course in Las Vegas,” Cynthia said this summer after completion of the Inverness project. “Before that, I worked with Perry at the (Las Vegas courses) Royal Links and Desert Pines.”

She – and a generation later, so did her son Matt – began by digging in the dirt. They landscaped, staked trees and edged bunkers by hand, then moved up to shaping with bulldozers, and grew their skills as the golf course design industry evolved. In the early 2000s, the Dye’s had an office in China, where there was a gold rush of golf course construction. Then the government clamped down, citing concerns that some of the projects were part of corrupt local land policies. In 2017 the national government closed 111 courses and ordered Communist Party officials to avoid the game altogether.

The Dye’s pulled back, but are now focused on course renovation work as well as new design. This summer’s renovation projects were part of a trend in which courses built in the 1970s and 1980s now need updating. At Inverness, the original bunker layout was the only defense for the course. Now the trees are decades older and tower over some of the bunkers. “We removed about half of the bunkers,” Cynthia Dye said. Dye Designs worked with Total Turf of Longmont to implement the new designs. They relined and reshaped every bunker in work that was done just in time for the summer season.

“We got what we believe were the best of the best,” said David Steinmetz, the director of golf at Inverness. “Those two (Dye Designs and Total Turf) worked unbelievably well together.”

Cynthia Dye said her firm has put in proposals for more Inverness work as the course continues to modernize.

“We’re trying to come up with a couple more phases,” Steinmetz said. “The next one focusing on trying to get water conservative in the master plan – converting some of the non-playable areas to native grasses.”

Matt says he is ready to keep the family tradition going. “I kind of feel like it’s my calling,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to do this. I’ve tried other kinds of things – maybe in rebellion. But I’ve never been happier. I’m most happy being out there building in the dirt, shaping. It’s what I know best. It’s not something I had to do; my parents advocated for us to do what makes us happy. It’s always come back to golf.”