Crooked Stick Golf Club – home to Pete and Alice Dye and their “firstborn” championship design – to stage 2021 edition on June 6-8
CARMEL, IND. (March 22, 2021) – Members of Crooked Stick Golf Club today announced they will stage the Pete and Alice Dye Junior Invitational at their club on June 6-8, 2021. The national event, inaugurated in 2020, honors Crooked Stick’s founders – champion golfers and world-renowned golf course designers Pete and Alice Dye. “The Dye” field for 2021, announced today, showcases top-ranked national and international boy and girl competitors facing off in 54-holes of medal play at Crooked Stick – the Dye’s earliest championship design, dating from 1964.
About the Championship
The Dye is the only invitational where elite boy and girl golfers play for a national title on the same Top 100 course at the same time. The 33 boy/33 girl field also competes for points from World Amateur Golf Rankings (WAGR), National Junior Golf Scoreboard (NJGS) and Golfweek Sagarin Junior Rankings.
Last year’s boy’s winner John Marshall Butler (now at Auburn University) took the crown at even par 216, finishing a stroke ahead of runners-up John Daly II, Jordan Gilkison and Drew Wrightson. Laney Frye (now at University of Kentucky) captured the girl’s title with a 2-under, 214 – finishing five strokes ahead of runner-up Kynadie Adams. Players returning in 2021 include top-five finishers from last year – boys: Daly, Gilkison and Wrightson, along with girls: Adams, Bailey Shoemaker and Reagan Zibilski.
Tournament Chairman Wayne Timberman said success and national media coverage of last year’s inaugural event exceeded expectations. “The strong field…the aura of Pete and Alice Dye and their beloved Crooked Stick…it all came together,” said Timberman, their life-long friend. “Pete and Alice took me under their ‘golfing wings’ when I was a junior player. Today, with this tournament, the Dyes are inspiring a whole new generation of junior golfers,” he said.
Live-stream and TV Broadcast
A live TV and internet audience – from 20 countries – tuned into watch the 2020 Dye Junior. “Once again, we will broadcast the final round,” said Tournament Media Director Chris Wirthwein. “Families, friends and fans everywhere in the world can see every player – boy and girl – compete at Crooked Stick,” he added. “Live TV coverage is one more thing that makes ‘The Dye’ special for players and fans.”
For more information – Details about the Pete and Alice Dye Junior Invitational, including the announced field for 2021 can be found at the championship’s website www.dyejuniorinvitational.com and social media: @TheDyeJunior (Twitter), thedyejuniorinvitational (Instagram) and @TheDyeJuniorInvitational (Facebook).
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION – The Dye Junior at Crooked Stick
About the host: Crooked Stick Golf Club
A perennial “U.S. Top 100” course, Crooked Stick first climbed into that echelon in 1971, just four years after Pete Dye completed construction of all 18 holes. In all, Crooked Stick has been awarded Top 100 rankings in six different decades. As a tournament site, “The Stick” has hosted five USGA National Championships, the 1991 PGA won by John Daly, the 2005 Solheim Cup (won by the U.S.), and two BMW Championships – won by Rory McIlroy in 2012 and Dustin Johnson in 2016.
About Pete and Alice Dye
Paul “Pete” Dye, Jr., born in Urbana, Ohio, learned golf on a course built by his father. He would become an accomplished junior player, winning the 1942 Ohio Boys High School championship. As an amateur, Pete played his way into five U.S. Amateur Championships, the 1957 U.S. Open (where he missed the cut but finished ahead of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer) and a British Amateur (1963). A 2008 inductee into the World Golf Hall of Fame, Mr. Dye designed more than 100 courses throughout the world in a career that spanned six decades. He passed away on January 9, 2020 at the age of 94.
Alice (O’Neal) Dye was born and raised in Indianapolis, Ind. and learned the game at an early age. She would go on to become a champion golfer and earn more than 50 amateur titles, including two USGA Sr. Women’s Amateur crowns and a place on the victorious 1970 U.S. Curtis Cup team. Mrs. Dye would later become the first woman member and first woman President of the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA). In 2004 she received the PGA of America’s First Lady of Golf Award and in 2017 Alice joined husband Pete as a recipient of the Donald Ross Award, ASGCA’s highest honor. Mrs. Dye died in February 2019 at age 91.
About “The Dye” Championship Trophies
Dye Junior Champions receive a unique award, a hand carved likeness of the club’s iconic ‘Crooked Stick.’ The award ceremony take place near the club’s 18th green, located a few hundred yards from the house where Pete and Alice Dye made their home for nearly 40 years. The 18th green is the same site where champions John Daly, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, the victorious U.S. Solheim Cup team and many other winners at Crooked Stick have been crowned over the past half-century.
