P.B. Dye builds $1.5M Buck's Point GC

Golf Course News, Sep 2002 by Overbeck, A

By A. OVERBECK

LIBERTY, Ind. - After eight years of work, P.B. Dye is set to open his own golf course here on the shores of Brookville Lake in eastern Indiana.

Dye and his partners, longtime construction superintendent Mike Davis and high school buddy Jack Harris, have teamed up to develop Buck's Point Golf Club for a meager $1.5 million.

Dye is leasing the land from Brookville Enhancement Partners, which has a 100-- year lease on the 350-acre property from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. The 18-hole public course is now the centerpiece of a development which already includes an established resort, restaurant and marina.

"I was brought in eight years ago to look at the property," said Dye. "Then I got diagnosed with cancer and took a two-year hiatus from the golf world. But we got back going on it in 1999 and I brought Jack Harris in to operate and manage the project."

Harris and Davis are major keys to the development of Buck's Point. Both have made five-year commitments to the project and bring valuable experience along with them. Harris, who has been in upper management at steel and paper mills for the past 35 years and is a master machinist, is handling the general manager and mechanic duties and Davis, who has worked with Dye since 1987, is overseeing construction and is the superintendent.

Once the course was approved in July 2000, Harris quit his job in North Carolina and moved to the area to begin construction on the course with Dye. They broke ground in November and the last seed hit the ground a year later. Despite a wet spring, which temporarily flooded the seventh and 1 lth holes, grow-in is almost complete. All 18 holes are scheduled to open this month.

The wide-open, 7,104-yard course sits on rolling land and offers outstanding views of the lake. The course has Pennlinks bentgrass from tee to green and a mixture of fescue, ryegrass and bluegrass in the roughs.

"I built the best golf course on the piece of land that I could and just kept going," said Dye. "It is a very playable design. But there are a couple of par-3s out there that are tougher than yachts braid. Once this thing gets fully-grown in there will be no hay in play. I hate hay. We want to have people find the golf ball and play it. I tried to create as big a playing surface as I could. This is just a good old farm golf course."

Part of the secret of the low development costs were the scaled back construction methods used to build the course. The greens are all topsoil and less than 250,000 cubic yards of earth were moved to form the layout. Dye also brought in his own shapers and equipment from other jobs to piece the construction of the course together.

Other cost cutting measures included using used Rain Bird irrigation heads that were bought for $5 a piece and buying mostly used equipment.

"We have one brand-new piece of equipment," said Davis. "The rest I have bought used. This winter I found a tine seeder for $160 and a five-gang pull-behind mower to use during grow-in for $150. Jack is such a good mechanic that anything I buy, he can fix."

Dye is out to prove that quality golf can be built for less.

"I didn't approach this project any differently, but I built it for half the price. We are trying to build a very inexpensive 18-- hole golf course," he said. "The market will support low greens fees and we will come in below $40, including golf cart and range balls. We want people to go out there, beat the ball around and have fun."

With more than 1.2 million people visa iting the lake every year, Harris is confident that the course will succeed. "We are less than one hour from Cincinnati and the lake attracts people from Indianapolis and Dayton, Ohio," he said.