PGA Village - Perfect Drive Villas

The Dye Course at PGA Village offers a challenging yet legitimate test for golfers, fusing elements of modern American and traditional Scottish designs in a seamless whole. Given Dye’s thoughtful mix of hazards, strategic fairways, and elevated greens, playing this layout proved a rewarding experience today.

Some Course Strengths:

–Plenty of hazards, but their placement is careful and not overdone, particularly the disciplined use of water hazards; they mainly penalize the wild or poor shot. Water, then, complements the use of bunkers, which are more frequent and threatening. Yet bunkers never utterly dominate tee-to-green play because fairway widths are generous. Bunkers appear in clusters, pots, and “standard” types of varying sizes and depths, while a few vast stretches of sand form waste bunkers. Woods and trees can also be hazardous but seldom crowd the fairways obtrusively. All of this combined makes for an effective driving test.

–Although a majority of holes teem with bunkers, you’ll still have more than adequate room to use the driver, as I did on all but one of the par-4s/5s. Strategic play, rather than target golf, governs tee shot placement, and you may frequently choose more than one line of play to the hole. Dye puts a premium on iron play into the greens, but you still need to be good with the driver.

–The front-side greens were all raised well above grade, with Dye favoring shapes that are long and on the slender side, making pitching much tougher when from the sides of putting surfaces.

–Lots of influence from UK courses. One example is the large raised bunker near or in the fairway, the kind evident in Sandwich, England at Prince’s or Royal St. George’s. Similarly, big falloffs around on some of the greens add further character. Ground movement, firm turf, and unpredictable slopes from tee to green underscore the links-like dimensions of this layout.

General Comments:

Pete Dye designed an intriguing layout that reveals his synthetic skills in blending a variety of influences, most notably modern American and traditional Scottish links styles. Dye’s early emphasis in his career on the extensive and tough placement of penal course features–sometimes used in brutal proportion–now seems a thing of the distant past. And such course hazards are somewhat toned-down here because their size and their footprints are, for the most part, restrained, leaving players more room to find the open fairways, which are still challenging but hardly mean. The net result is a demanding course–as the scorecard numbers clearly show–but also a fair and playable one.

The openness, including views across the Florida landscape, adds aesthetic beauty. Even still, Dye manages a small feat on several holes: on approach shots, greens are not often clearly visible, often because raised fairway bunkers or contours impede the line of sight.

Service Experience:

Two unusual things happened related to the booking of this round. First, the phone request/agreement for play on the Wanamaker Course had been changed without notice by the staff. Second, the booking was clearly made for 9 holes; that had been changed to 18. I spent unnecessary time trying to rectify both problems, during which the counter representative handled them fairly, in the end, but not without condescension: He suggested I should consider accepting play on the “easier” course–the Ryder–rather than the one that had been booked for me. Service was excellent, however, from Don, the starter, who was friendly, engaging, and accommodating. I also met another employee near the clubhouse who struck up a pleasant conversation about the virtues of the Dye Course.

Conditions:

First-rate attention to details in all facets of conditioning. Smooth, fast, and true greens. Well-kept fairways, tees, and greenside areas. Roughs lagged a bit behind the rest. On this breezy day, wind definitely affected clubbing.

Some Conclusions:

Pace of play merely was acceptable here, and the in-season prices apparently have skyrocketed compared to what I remember years ago, even accounting for inflation. Still, just nine holes of this consummate layout–a veritable tour de force that rewards careful, thinking golf–reinforced my opinion that Pete Dye is among the very greatest of golf course architects.

Even though I find the Dye Course to be the best-designed of the three golf courses at PGA Village, the Wanamaker serves as the facility’s flagship course. Ahead of 2025 PGA Professional Championship hosting duties, it just reopened from a summer-long renovation project that brought all new turf and reduced the bunkering by some 40% while giving the course a cleaner, more crisp overall presentation. Members are impressed by the changes, and while I certainly understand the impulse to give that new sheen to a course that will be on TV, I find myself missing some of the more rugged aspects of the course in its previous iteration.

Aesthetic preferences aside, the Wanamaker remains well worth playing, and PGA Golf Club remains one of my favorite golf places for its practically unmatched culture and membership of retired and active PGA professionals. It still accepts public play, and is well worth visiting.

This is Pete Dye at his finest. Angles and options abound. From the first hole to the last the layout presents myriad options. Those successfully taking on the challenge are rewarded. Those who fail, are duly punished. At the same time, there are always routes, albeit longer, around bunkers, mounds and hazards. The fairways are ample in width. The greens are loaded with humps and bumps, swales and dips. Every putting surface is open in front, which means you can play the ground game on the approach shots. I played with two PGA head pros who call PGA Village home for the winter. They said the Dye course is extremely popular with women because of the welcoming greens. However, if you miss the putting surfaces left or right, the short game will be put to the test. I can't recommend this course highly enough. I'm shocked I had never heard how wonderful it is.

Living half an hour away, I am lucky to get to play this golf course at least once or twice a year, and every time I play it, I like it more and more. It hits sweet spots for both inspiration (how much it makes you want to play more golf) and aspiration (how much it makes you want to play better golf). The variety of holes, shots it calls for and green complexes it throws at you makes it as thorough a test as you will find among publicly accessible courses in the Sunshine State. With very few forced carries and big corridors, it won’t beat you up too badly and will leave you wanting to turn right at the fork in the path and, instead of returning to the clubhouse, just head back to the first tee.

This course is super nice and in immaculate condition from tee to green. I've played at more than a handful Tom Fazio courses, and this is by far his best design. Out of the three courses at PGA village, I rank the Dye and Wanamaker top 1 and the Ryder course a more distant second. Ryder is just meh, but Wanamaker and Dye are South Florida's best courses. I would say that Wanamaker is a little more forgiving off the tee than the Dye is, as well as the approach shots to the green. Both layouts are uniquely designed and beautiful. The only negative is that the course had an 88 player shotgun outing on our course, so when we reached the group it was slow as molasses, so poor planning on the PGA village golf staff. However, the course was so nice, I'll let it pass.

This course just like the Dye course was in absolutely superb condition. Although, I would give Dye a higher ranking when it comes to the conditions and the design, this course ranks really high among Fazio courses. I haven't played Wanamaker yet, but I would rank Dye first, then Ryder second. Some players like this course over Dye as Dye seems a little more punishing with its strategically placed bunkers and difficult green complexes. Ryder has more receptive greens, but Ryder on the other hand has more water and it really punished me, as I lost quite a few balls in the water. Next, I'll try Wanamaker and see how it ranks compared to Dye and Ryder.

First of all, I can't believe golfadvisor is giving this course 2.4 stars. Either the previous reviewers went to a totally different course from what I experienced or the golfadvisor website is buggy. All to say that don't trust the 2.4 rating, this course is easily 5 out of 5 stars, and if I could I would give it 6 stars. Absolutely everything about this course was perfect. This has been the best golf course I've played at in South Florida, ranking up there with Trump Doral's facilities. The tee boxes were so flat, plush, green and spacious, they looked almost fake. I actually made it a point not to take divots off the tee box, because they were so nice, I didn't want to ruin them. The course is a beautiful classic Pete Dye creation, with bunkering, mounds and hazards laid out perfectly all throughout to make sure you stay concentrated all throughout the entire round. Even the holes which seem to play easy will punish you if you let your foot off the gas. Distance and accuracy are a must all throughout the 18 holes. I found the how to play the hole by hole tips on the course website to be extremely helpful, without them I would have probably had a much worse score. The fairways are absolutely perfect, nice and flush, with zero blemishes. The greens are world class, rolled very true, with tons of undulations, multi tiers, table tops, and shaped in a way that force you to play strategically and demand you to have accuracy. The practice facilities from the driving range to the putting greens to the chipping areas are a golfer's dream. Balls are complementary at the driving range and chipping area, and they're premium chromesoft balls. Lastly, take time to enjoy the atrium by the pro shop, where you'll find the trophies from all the major championships, among other cool trophies and famous golf displays, it's pretty breath taking.

This course requires the experience of playing it a second time to get the best strategy down to make approaches work for you.

The contours of the green complexes are challenging.

Great conditions and great place.

The Ryder Course provides a great challenge without the gimmicks of the Dye Course.

The conditions were firm and fast.

Definitely I would play again.

Of the three courses at PGA Village this was the worst one head and shoulders.

I can overlook the gimmicky bunkering in the fairways and approaches. Most of the diabolical traps can easily be avoided.

The greens are just not designed for the firm and fast conditions we had while we were there along with the significant wind that hit the Treasure Coast during our stay.

The Dye course does not give you the option of running the ball up to the green. They are elevated and many have bunkers in front. The undulations when they are firm will propel your ball into awful collection areas surrounding the green.

It was a long day when I hit 15 greens but could only get the ball to stay on 4.

Everything was great!

Need an invite to play the Dye course.

Actually played the Dye Course at PGA Village. Probably the only dry course within three counties! Great turf conditions. No limitations for riding carts! Awesome 19th hole at Taplow Pub..NFL Sunday ticket to see your favorite team after golf!

Unfortunately we had to do cart path only due to heavy rains. Course was very wet but more playable than others this week.

Look forward to returning on a better weather day

Played the Dye course today as a single with several members. Outstanding experience. Great turf conditions. Wonderful 19th hole. Worth the expense.

WOW!!!!!! BEAUTIFUL!!!!! I've played over 30 courses since moving down to Florida 20 months ago and this was by far the BEST COURSE!!!! Played from the grays , just a tad over 6,200 yards and wasn't that difficult. Just have to keep it straight!!!