Pete Dye Stadium Course at PGA West getting revamped bunkers

Tim Liddy says the renovation of all 18 green complexes at the Pete Dye Stadium Course at PGA West is like an archaeological dig. In this case, Liddy and the agronomy team at PGA West are looking for the original greens on the golf course from 1986.

“The thing that I have struggled with that we got through with the owner is do you want a 1986 Pete or do you want a 2020 Pete,” said Liddy, who worked closely with the famed architect Dye for many years and is helping to return the course to its original concept of greens and bunkering. “They said we want a 1986 Pete. So that tells me, okay, that’s not what he would have done today, but it’s what we did in 1986.”

The renovation of all 18 greens as well as the practice putting area at the Stadium Course, the host course of the PGA Tour’s The American Express tournament each January, means the course will be closed throughout the summer.

Plans are to renovate more than 12 acres of turf and bunkers on the course in time for the course to reopen after a normal overseed in the fall, meaning the course will be ready for The American Express.

This summer is the completion of a three-year renovation project at the Stadium Course that saw work on fairways and the removal of trees that had grown drastically in the nearly 40 years since the golf course opened as one of the most talked about and controversial courses in the country.

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Dye’s extensive use of water, railroad ties, spectator mounding and a variety of bunkers from pot bunkers to moats caused criticism from players in the 1986 American Express, then called the Bob Hope Classic. But much of what Dye designed into the La Quinta course is now standard at many PGA Tour courses and even resort courses.

“He was ahead of his time,” Liddy said. “My impression was he saw the golf ball was getting longer and the driver was getting bigger and the players were getting more talented, more athletic. I think he foresaw all of that.”

The PGA Tour left the Stadium Course after that one playing in 1986, but the course returned to the tournament in 2016 as host course.

In the 38 years since the players grumbled in 1986, the courses have naturally changed. Liddy, director of agronomy Brian Sullivan, resort courses superintendent Denver Hart and a construction team from LeBar Golf Renovations want to take the course back to when it opened.

Shaving the course

Tim Liddy, a golf architect who…