Robert Muir Graves

As the son of dastardly golf course designer Pete Dye, Paul Burke Dye, better known as P.B., has had a lot to live up to.

So when he achieved enough status in the profession to create his own signature course, he didn't leave anything in the bag. At P.B. Dye Golf Club, in a spectacular Piedmont setting northwest of Washington, D.C., he included not only an abundance of the family's signature bells and whistles -- railroad ties, multi-tiered greens and pot bunkers -- but also 11 blind or partially blind shots, three blind ponds, two clearing bells, three posted signs with blind layup-to-hazzard distances, a peninsula-green par 3, and closing holes that play to greens guarded by ponds.

When Golf Digest came out with a list of the 50 most difficult courses in America in 2007, P.B. Dye Golf Club was no. 26 and another of his creations, the Moorland Course at Legends in Myrtle Beach, S.C. was ranked no. 37. (Father Pete, of course, had three of the top-10 courses.)

Needless to say, a trip around any P.B. Dye-designed golf course is never ordinary.

Some of his most distinctive works are The Honors Course in Tennessee; Cobblestone Park in South Carolina; the original course at Punta Cana, often called the best course in the Dominican Republic; and Fisher Island in the heart of Miami, which Golf Digest ranked as one of the top 10 nine-hole courses in the nation.

In their youth P.B. and older brother Perry, also an acclaimed course designer, could often be found on bulldozers at the courses their dad was building. P.B. became an accomplished golfer, once qualifying for the U.S. Amateur. After graduation from the University of Tampa (Fla.) in 1980, he joined his dad's firm.

It didn't take him long to get jobs on his own. Of the approximately 100 golf courses on P.B. Dye's resume, many are at resort spots on the east coast or in the Caribbean. He also has collaborated with his dad on several stellar designs.

Some of P.B.'s success is owed to his willingness to shape his own courses with a bulldozer, a lesson he passed on to one of the world's great designers, Dye-disciple Tom Doak, who often credits P.B. for his own success.