Golf
Like other great accomplishments, Pete and P.B. Dye's design began as a profound vision: start by imagining the best possible placement for 18 individual holes across an idyllic stretch of Southwest Florida wetlands...and build a course from there, constrained only by nature herself.
The father-and-son Dye team succeeded beyond expectation, creating a playing experience that is as much a walk with nature as it is a round of golf. You don't play between houses here; you play between out-of-bounds sanctuary sections and the daily coming-and-going of wildlife, who provide a colorful commentary of cheeps, tweets and chirps after each shot.
Seven sets of tees welcome every level of player to an equitable, yet challenging test of golf that favors finesse over distance. The ingenious and inventive player is rewarded with multiple options on nearly every shot. At times, the West Bay golf experience resembles a chess match with nature, forcing risk-reward decision making and calculations that involve ribboning contours, compelling topography, and inventive design features that only the likes of Dye could devise so delightfully.
Seasoned pros, including those holding Tour cards, consider West Bay to be a training ground to hone their shotmaking and par-saving skills, as precise iron and wedge play is required and rewarded. And, while most courses average 2 ½ acres of greens, West Bay is all in at just over 4 acres, welcoming worthy approaches and adding further intrigue through an array of interesting pin placements. From tee to green, each hole at West Bay eschews the notion of another bland, one-size-fits-all SW Florida golf course.
