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    Stadiums as High Art in a World Cup Fantasyland

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    From a desert tent to a golden bowl, the spectacular arenas Qatar has built in and around Doha showcase the majesty, and the folly, of this World Cup.AL KHOR, Qatar — It’s hard to convey how strange it is to come upon Al Bayt Stadium, an enormous stylized tent decorated with black stripes, for the first time. Designed for the World Cup as a homage to traditional nomadic dwellings, Al Bayt, the centerpiece of a manicured park 22 miles north of Doha, rises as if from nowhere and seems at once apt and incongruous, spectacular and otherworldly — an oasis in the desert, or maybe just a mirage.Completed just last year, Al Bayt is one of seven new stadiums built for the World Cup in and around Doha, the capital of Qatar. (An eighth is a spruced-up version of an old stadium.) Each is more spectacular, more unexpected than the next. Each contributes to the relentless sense of cognitive dissonance that pervades this World Cup.Qatar spent a reported $220 billion preparing for the tournament, conjuring new buildings, new neighborhoods and even an entirely new city. To be here now is to exist in a bubble of high unreality: a place in which everything is newer and better, and which exists, for the time being, only in reference to itself.On match days, it takes nearly an hour by bus to get to Al Bayt. All of the other stadiums are easily reachable on the underground metro system, or connected to it by free buses, so this has become a commuters’ World Cup, an event more reminiscent of an Olympics than previous tournaments. In Russia in 2018, for instance, some fans had to travel to Yekaterinburg, nearly 1,000 miles from Moscow, for a handful of matches. In Brazil four years earlier, the trip from Manaus to Pôrto Alegre was more than twice as far.But here you can visit all the stadiums in a single day.Education City Stadium in Al Rayyan.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesStadium 974 in Doha.Clive Mason/Getty ImagesTake the train west on the green line, for example, past the Qatar National Library (architect: Rem Koolhaas), and you find yourself in Education City, a 2,900-acre campus comprising schools, research centers and incubators. Walk a little way along the path and there is the 40,000-seat Education City Stadium, looming like a spaceship from a superior civilization whose inhabitants have a taste for bling. During the day, it changes color as the sun moves across the sky; at night, disco-style lights streak across it, fueled by thousands of diodes.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      in Golf

      At the U.S. Open, Saving the House That Built Golf

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      Francis Ouimet, an amateur who improbably won the 1913 U.S. Open at the Country Club, grew up across the street. Now his home will be given back to the game, and the course, that made him famous.BROOKLINE, Mass. — The small, 19th-century home with the golf course view is hardly noticeable to the hundreds of drivers whizzing by at 40 miles an hour on Clyde Street in the Boston suburb of Brookline. While the two-story house once stood like a sentry overlooking acres of cow pasture, the neighborhood is now replete with luxury housing, four-lane roads and a bustle worthy of a community just seven miles from downtown.The location does not look like a landmark to the birthplace of American golf. But it is, in ways both tangible and symbolic. This week, the site will be newly in the spotlight as the U.S. Open returns for a fourth time to the Country Club in Brookline.Neighbors of the Clyde Street property have recently noticed a flurry of activity at the residence as contractors’ vans filled the driveway daily for what is clearly a moneyed restoration project. In late April, two workers peeled back attic ceiling panels of the 1893 dwelling and then had to duck as a pair of antique golf clubs tumbled to the floor.“They’re Francis’s clubs!” one of the workers, Aldeir Filho, yelped. His colleague, Christian Herbet, dashed down the stairs to alert the crew of tradesman below.From the second floor, Herbet shouted: “We found Mr. Ouimet’s clubs.”The American golfer Francis DeSales Ouimet in 1913.George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress)In 1913, Francis Ouimet, then a 20-year-old self-taught amateur golfer, left the second-floor bedroom he shared with his brother at 246 Clyde Street and crossed the street to the Country Club, where he defeated the world’s two most accomplished British professionals, Ted Ray and Harry Vardon, to win the U.S. Open.The stunning upset by Ouimet, the son of immigrants and a caddie at the club, was front-page news across the nation and has been credited with spawning explosive nationwide growth in the game. While there were only 350,000 American golfers in 1913, that number had swelled to 2.1 million less than 10 years later. The fame of Ouimet’s groundbreaking accomplishment — no amateur had ever won the U.S. Open and few golfers from working-class roots had ever played in championships — has endured for 109 years, no doubt helped by a popular 2005 movie, “The Greatest Game Ever Played.”The house that Ouimet’s father, Arthur, just happened to purchase across from the Country Club has often played a prominent factor in Francis Ouimet’s winsome story. The humble dwelling astride a tony country club came to represent the two worlds Ouimet daringly traversed when he walked down his unadorned wooden front steps and marched onto the club’s gilded grounds for the last 18 holes of the 1913 U.S. Open. About four hours later, he was carried from the last green on the shoulders of cheering fans. The duality of Ouimet’s life on either side of Clyde Street, including the cramped, meager confines of his upbringing, are a robust part of the narrative. There are, for example, 17 scenes depicting life in the Ouimet house in the 2005 movie.And yet, until recently, preserving or formally recognizing the home’s significance was never a priority. While the structure remained in the Ouimet family for 94 years, it changed ownership multiple times. The exterior and interior were altered and a tall white fence rose in the front yard to eclipse most of the ground floor from the road.The dining room of the Ouimet HouseAlex Gagne for The New York TimesAlex Gagne for The New York TimesAlex Gagne for The New York TimesAs housing prices in Brookline soared across the decades, some at the nearby club, which is a founding member of the United States Golf Association, worried what might happen if the property was bought and redeveloped. Years ago, for instance, what had been the family barn next to the Ouimet house was sold, rebuilt and turned into condominiums.“If you let that house be torn down,” Fred Waterman, the club historian, said of the Ouimet house in an interview last month, “you’ve allowed a very important part of American sports history to disappear.”Tom Hynes, a member of the Country Club who has a Boston real estate background that stretches to the 1960s, casually befriended the owners of the house, Jerome and Dedie Wieler, not long after they moved to the neighborhood in 1989. Hynes lives nearby and would see the Wielers walking their dog almost daily.“When you’re ready to sell your house,” Hynes told the couple, “I’m your buyer.”The Wielers answered that they were not selling and were curious why Hynes would want it. Hynes explained Ouimet’s history to the Wielers, who knew nothing of golf. But the Wielers were intrigued by a heartwarming story.“Someday, maybe 20 years from now, you might be selling and please let me know,” said Hynes, who added that he would remind the Wielers about once a year. “I just wanted the house returned to golf.”Late in 2020, the Wielers contacted Hynes, who set foot in the house at 246 Clyde Street for the first time and 30 minutes later had a handshake agreement to buy the property for $875,000.The actor Shia LaBeouf as Francis Ouimet in the 2005 movie “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” Entertainment Pictures / AlamyFrancis Ouimet, center, with the professional British golfers he beat to win the 1913 U.S. Open, Harry Vardon, left, and Ted Ray.Associated PressHynes set about trying to defray the purchase cost by raising money with the intent of donating the house to the club, which could use it for myriad activities, including staff and guest housing on the second floor. The decision was also made to restore the house to make it appear as it did when the Ouimets lived there in 1913.“When you walk into the house we want you to have the feeling of what it was like to have walked into the family’s home 109 years ago,” Waterman said.But first, there was much work to do. While the house was in good shape, it needed innumerable improvements to meet modern building codes. The cost of the restoration swelled. As Hynes, the nephew of a three-term Boston mayor who has brokered some of the city’s most sweeping real estate deals, said: “I started going around town with my tin cup out.”Hynes had a potent, almost divine ally in his fund-raising mission. It was as if Francis Ouimet was mystically assisting him. Ouimet, who died in 1967, remained a lifelong resident of the Boston area and continued to win golf championships as an amateur for many years after 1913. He also had a career in finance.In 1949, a Ouimet college scholarship program for caddies was created. Since then, the Ouimet Fund has awarded nearly $44 million to more than 6,300 men and women. The need-based scholarships can be worth as much as $80,000 across four years of study.As Hynes began to solicit help for his restoration, he occasionally was surprised to find donors who were unflinchingly generous with their money. They were Ouimet Scholars, now middle-aged, who believed they would have never attended college without the fund’s assistance.Fred Waterman, historian at the Country Club.Alex Gagne for The New York TimesTom Hynes, who bought the Ouimet house.Alex Gagne for The New York TimesThe Ouimet house’s living room has been restored.Alex Gagne for The New York TimesAdditionally, more than 40 members of the Country Club have contributed, most donating $25,000 each. The first phase of the renovation was finished last week.A tour of the 1,550-square foot, six-room Ouimet house these days is like stepping back in time since its appearance has been curated to match an early-20th-century style. The wallpaper, lighting, drapes and shades are vintage. The furnishings are faithful to the period: chairs, sofas and tables from the early 1900s presented to the club by an architect who heard about the renovation. Common rooms were small then, but add to the cozy, familial feel.Just inside the first-floor entry is an old, preserved wooden wall telephone, the kind with a crank on the side. It is rigged so visitors can lift the receiver and hear a recording of Ouimet describing his U.S. Open victory. He is joined on the audiotape by Eddie Lowery, who was Ouimet’s 10-year-old caddie. The two remained lifelong friends.Elsewhere on the first floor are mementos acknowledging what took place nearby in 1913, including newspaper clippings and photographs. The tall, imposing street-side fence has been removed to reveal newly planted sod with a border of perennials.The second phase, which will renovate the building’s exterior by adding new clapboard, windows and a cedar shingle roof, will not be complete until next year. After that, Hynes hopes to hand off the house to the club. Since the club, which has about 1,300 members, has yet to take possession of the Ouimet house, its president, Lyman Bullard, said there was no decision yet on access or its primary use.Hynes, who mentioned being sensitive to neighbors of a property in a residential area, does not envision the house being open to the public, or offering tours like a museum. But Waterman felt there might be a sense of obligation to share the house, and its history, in some way.A photo taken in 1900 shows Francis as a 7-year-old, next to his mother, Mary, and father, Arthur.Courtesy The Country ClubIn the movie “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” there is an early bit of foreshadowing: a scene of the young Francis Ouimet dutifully but surreptitiously practicing his putting at night after his parents had gone to bed. If that might be Hollywood mythmaking, there is no disputing the golf-centric, stirring view from Ouimet’s second-floor bedroom window. Across Clyde Street, Francis could see the Country Club’s pristine 17th hole. The vista now is altered by the decades-long growth of trees sprouting on the perimeter of the grounds. But standing at the bedroom window, with the house’s revitalized original flooring creaking underfoot, the manicured 17th hole is still plainly visible.Francis Ouimet’s boyhood dreams seem present, not distant.His impact on golf, even American sport, is alive in the spirit of his home.In 1913, the golf icon Gene Sarazen, then known as Eugenio Saraceni, was an 11-year old caddie in the New York suburbs. The son of Sicilian immigrants, he read about Ouimet’s stunning victory over the renowned British professionals. As Waterman noted, Sarazen said to himself at the time: “If he can do it, I can do it.”When Sarazen was 20, like Ouimet, he won the U.S. Open, the first of the seven major golf championships he won from 1922 to 1935.For Waterman and Hynes, one of their fondest hopes is that the Ouimet house, newly returned to golf, is not done influencing future U.S. Open champions. Hynes floated the possibility that one of the golfers in this year’s field might wish to stay in the house during the competition.Calling that “the ultimate thing,” Waterman added: “It would be a player who says, ‘I want to wake up in Francis Ouimet’s bedroom because he walked down the stairs and won the U.S. Open. Maybe that’s what will happen for me.’ ”Ouimet’s win at the U.S. Open made the front page of The New York Times, top left, on Sept. 21, 1913.The New York Times More

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      in Soccer

      As A.C. Milan and Inter Return to Top, San Siro May Be Coming Down

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      As he watched the soccer game playing out on television, the Milanese writer and actor Gianfelice Facchetti felt an emotional tug that he thought might be leading him toward his next book.It was during Italy’s first coronavirus lockdown, and Facchetti’s favorite team, Inter Milan, had been forced to play its matches behind closed doors. The decision left its longtime home, the 80,000-seat Giuseppe Meazza Stadium, more commonly known as the San Siro, devoid of atmosphere, and amid the silence Facchetti’s mind began to drift.He thought back not only to fond memories and tense moments in the arena where his father, Giacinto, had represented Inter and Italy but also to news stories that had been circulating for months describing plans by the teams that share the nearly century-old stadium, Inter and A.C. Milan, to abandon the stadium or, worse, demolish it.The San Siro’s contrast of cylindrical towers and long red trusses has admirers among fans and architects alike.Camilla Ferrari for The New York Times“I was thinking, when I started to write: If you want to destroy this place, this special place, it would be helpful to know the history,” Facchetti said.The book that sprang from that first impulse, “Once Upon a Time in San Siro,” was part history and part coping mechanism, Facchetti admits. He and many Inter fans, like those who support Milan, are still coming to terms with the fact that their “seconda casa,” or “second home,” could one day be no more.On the list of sins that stir the emotions of soccer fans, assaults on tradition surely rank near the top, particularly when maximizing revenue is seen as the motivation. Even minor changes, such as a new shirt design or an alteration of a club crest, can be like grabbing soccer’s third rail. For the same reasons, stadiums hold a special place in the minds of many supporters, serving as a physical embodiment of a lifetime of sporting experiences. A club’s decision to replace one, then, can bring not only monumental costs but also howls of protest.Yet replace them they do.From 2010 to 2020, 153 new stadiums were built across Europe, at a reported cost of more than $20 billion. Madrid got one. So did Stockholm and St. Petersburg. London opened two.Only 1 percent of this investment was made in Italy, though. Most professional teams’ stadiums in the country are both antiquated and publicly owned — only two have opened this century. And a new generation of deep-pocketed foreign owners with American tech, finance and retail fortunes are eager to create new revenue streams that they feel their clubs need to compete with richer rivals in England and elsewhere.Luciano owns a truck selling Inter and A.C. Milan merchandise. The latter held off its city rival to claim the Serie A title on Sunday.Camilla Ferrari for The New York TimesChange, though, is not as simple as drawing up plans and digging a stadium-size hole. When Milan and Inter announced their intention to build a new stadium more than three years ago, the subtext was that the San Siro — one of the largest stadiums in Europe and the site of four European Cup finals and matches in two World Cups — was no longer fit for its job in an age of luxury suites and corporate hospitality. Ever since, a debate about the arena’s future has split not only the teams’ wealthy owners and longtime fans but also politicians, preservationists and architects.“Italy is like an open-air museum: We have a lot of heritage,” said Massimo Roj, a Milanese architect and Inter fan who put forward one of the proposed designs for a new stadium in Milan. “We have to think that the San Siro is an old building. Your memory now is there, but, in 10 years time, we’ll be in another stadium, called San Siro again.”The first iteration of the San Siro opened in 1926 and was revolutionary for Italy because it was English in design, featuring four independent stands that sat square to the playing surface and no running track. It was expanded after the 1934 World Cup and again in the 1950s after Inter became a co-tenant.The most recent alteration came before Italy hosted the 1990 World Cup, when the architects Giancarlo Ragazzi and Enrico Hoffer and the engineer Leo Finzi added what became the stadium’s trademark: 11 cylindrical towers with helical ramps that allowed spectators to reach a new third tier. A roof made of red trusses was placed on top, its lines an angular — and to devotees, iconic — contrast to the circular forms that supported them.Yet in the decades after, the need for further refurbishments became increasingly apparent, fans said, as the Italian industrialists who once bankrolled the Milanese clubs sold their teams and Russian billionaires and Persian Gulf petrodollars rewrote the economics of elite European soccer.Many clubs in Serie A, arguably the world’s richest and most attractive league in the 1990s, now face growing debts and unsustainable budgets. Inter, for example, had to break up last season’s title-winning side just to meet its payroll.“In terms of revenues, we have, both Milan and Inter, revenues of around 35 to 40 million euros a year” — roughly $37 million to $42 million — “from the stadium, while our competitors are about €100 million,” the chairman of Milan, Paolo Scaroni, said in an interview. The San Siro reflected in the window of a tram that stops outside. Plans for a new San Siro nearby, and the destruction of the current one, have divided Milan.Camilla Ferrari for The New York TimesThe teams say they initially considered changes to the current San Siro but quickly concluded logistical issues and delays would be too much to overcome. What they have proposed instead is a 60,000-seat arena to be built next door. Once it is constructed, the current San Siro will come down and make way for public space that may include elements of its iconic towers and ramps, according to the designs by Populous, the American architecture firm whose proposal was chosen.“I think these buildings are containers, and therefore the old buildings have such emotion attached to them that the idea that some of it can remain, if it can be there as a marker of history of what was before, is quite a nice idea,” said Chris Lee, a managing director of Populous. “One has to be careful about trying to transfer too much of that, literally, into new buildings, where it can easily tip into the pastiche of trying to recreate a building.”Opposition is to be expected, Lee said. In Milan, it has emerged in various forms.Milan’s mayor, Beppe Sala, while generally supportive of the project, has warned both clubs that the city-owned San Siro would remain until at least 2026, when it is expected to host the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics.A different group, the Si Meazza committee, has taken a hard-line approach, challenging the mere idea of the demolition of the San Siro, which its most prominent voices — lawyers, concert promoters and former politicians — described as a symbol of Milan known around the world, a stage on which Diego Maradona, Bob Dylan and Beyoncé have performed. Other critics pointed to the ecological impact of tearing down a stadium and highlighted renderings that they argued proved the job could be done for half the cost while saving the original arena.Some fear, though, the die may have been cast: A future without the San Siro received the tacit approval of Italy’s heritage authority in 2020 when it raised no objections to the stadium’s demolition. In November, the project was declared in the public interest (with certain conditions) by city officials.A month later, the clubs chose the Populous design: It features a stadium enveloped by a steel-and-glass galleria, reminiscent of the famed luxury-shopping district in the center of Milan, as the centerpiece of an expansive park on the site.But the legal fight over building any of it may not be over.The stadium has hosted two World Cup and four European Cup finals. Camilla Ferrari for The New York TimesThe next steps for the clubs will be to put their proposals to the public; that is expected to happen this summer. Municipality decisions can be appealed, and other bureaucratic hurdles can take months to resolve, said Scaroni, the Milan chairman. Aware of those potential delays, the clubs have said that they are also considering a Plan B: a site elsewhere in Milan.“More than three years, we are still debating about our master plan,” said Alessandro Antonello, the Inter chief executive. “Unfortunately, yes, we started with a very exciting energy three years ago, and now, after three years, we are still waiting for some answers from the municipality. So, now, for us, the main priority is to build a new stadium, whatever the location.”For opponents like Facchetti, though, the delays are just one more hopeful sign their beloved San Siro might yet be saved. Another good omen, he said, came this spring: His publisher has approved a second printing of his book.“It’s a sign,” Facchetti said. “People still want to speak about the San Siro and its destiny.” More

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      in Golf

      Golf Courses Are Adjusting to Longer Shots

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      With advances in equipment, balls are going farther, posing risks to people who live nearby.Thanks to advances in golf equipment, shots travel farther and higher than golf course designers had envisioned years ago. With enhancements to both clubs and balls, even duffers can hit for greater distance.As a result, courses are being reimagined to keep them challenging for elite players. But in the process, golf course architects are looking anew at golf course communities — often developed decades ago — to ensure that the game remains safe for people in adjacent homes. Adding to the trend of longer shots is the fact that more casual players are getting fitted for their clubs, which may improve distance and accuracy. And many golfers are more fit, spending several days a week training.“There’s a whole crop of people who can hit the ball much, much farther,” said Jason Straka, a golf course architect based in Dublin, Ohio, who is also president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects. “It’s not necessarily bad that balls can go farther; there’s just no consensus on what to do about it.”How much farther balls travel depends on the player, of course. Todd Beach, the senior vice president of research design and engineering at TaylorMade Golf, said that in the 40 years since the Carlsbad, Calif., company began operations, clubs have moved from steel to graphite and titanium. (TaylorMade just introduced “Carbonwood,” a new line of drivers that, as the name suggests, is composed of carbon.)Professional golfers can now drive a ball roughly 40 yards farther than they did in the past, Mr. Beach said, while average players are hitting drives that travel a few extra yards. That’s why architects are rethinking distances, hazards and screening as they renovate courses and golf communities. To be sure, the risk to homes, residents and pets remains low. According to Forrest Richardson, a golf architect based in Phoenix, “it’s only occasionally that the ball can go farther and cause a problem.”Nonetheless, older communities are examining how to improve safety. Because property setbacks cannot be altered, a starting point is to move the tees closer to property lines so that golfers hit away from residential areas. In addition, sand bunkers or water hazards may be incorporated closer to homes so that players aim in a different direction, Mr. Straka said. Trees or other vegetation may also align a golfer closer to where he or she should be hitting.“We might put something in the way of where a lot of people might otherwise want to land their shot to force a golfer to hit in a more controlled way,” Mr. Richardson said.In other instances, Mr. Straka said, it may mean straightening out a so-called dogleg hole by shortening it, which may mean transforming it from a par 4 to a par 3.Another option for older communities, which often have houses on both sides of the course, is to make the courses smaller, said Art Schaupeter, a golf course architect based in St. Louis. To renovate those courses to accommodate bigger swings, “we are converting some by making them into smaller courses, whether eliminating some holes or taking a regulation 18-hole course and converting it to a par 3 course” or one that is a so-called executive length to allow more distance from the existing homes.Ultimately, “it’s all about examining the landing area, where balls are most likely to go off line,” said Ron Despain, a senior vice president of Troon Golf, which operates golf courses worldwide.Nets are another option for residential areas and courses adjacent to public spaces and roads, but these are costly because they need to be at least 120 feet high. Adding in the cost of steel poles, Mr. Straka said, nets can exceed $1 million. And apart from the cost, a net’s aesthetics often mar the open spaces associated with golf course life.The risks also extend to driving ranges and practice areas. Three Carpenter, who manages the Crow Valley Golf Club in Davenport, Iowa, faced the problem when land adjacent to Crow Valley’s driving range was getting developed for offices and townhomes. For one of the areas, the developer planned a project 15 feet from the property line, Mr. Carpenter said, and the initial solution was to build a berm. But because even that was insufficient to shield all errant balls, the driving range now requires a so-called “limited flight ball” which cannot travel as far, a solution that some golfers dislike because it is an imperfect measure of a swing, Mr. Carpenter said. Separately, the club has purchased additional land abutting the driving range because buying the property was less expensive than constructing an extensive net.There is by no means a one-size-fits-all solution, and not just because golf courses vary in shape and length. Factors like the terrain, climate, wind conditions and altitude all affect how far a ball can travel. In addition, designers are looking at who the players are — amateurs or more elite. New developments can anticipate these issues. Jim Birdsall is one of three co-owners of TPC Colorado, a multiuse community in Berthoud, Colo., that includes a championship golf course that can be stretched to just under 8,000 yards. That length, he said, can accommodate longer drives. But, he said, added length comes with the additional expense of maintenance, including water and fertilizer.He said that newer balls, which seek to add spin to a shot, can be problematic. “If a weekend warrior doesn’t know how to control the spin of a shot and they overcook it, there can be unintended consequences,” including the errant ball that winds up in someone’s yard.The harder hitting among elite players is leading some to contemplate dialing back equipment. The U.S. Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, Britain’s governing golf entity, two years ago suggested studying the issue — the Distance Insights Project.Mr. Beach of TaylorMade said his company is working with the golfing organizations but hopes there are no restrictions on advances in equipment, which he said would be costly and difficult to monitor. But for some golf course architects, technical advances are not the primary motivation for golf course renovation. “Golf courses are natural. They evolve and they can get worn out,” Mr. Schaupeter, who designed TPC Colorado, said. “There can be just one house that gets a dozen balls in their backyard over the weekend. That’s when you might shorten the hole or move the tee.” More

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      in Golf

      The Ocean Course, Long Absent From Golf’s Spotlight, Is Back

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      The masterpiece on Kiawah Island, designed by Pete and Alice Dye to be as challenging as it is breathtaking, has not been the site of a major tournament in almost a decade.KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — The P.G.A. Championship is returning this week to the Ocean Course, a daunting place rich in golf lore. Despite the course’s almost spiritual status in the sport — “The Legend of Bagger Vance” was filmed there — this will be only the second major championship held on the site.Pete Dye, who with his wife, Alice, began work on the course at Kiawah Island in 1989, never questioned whether his creation would be one of a kind. In 2012, as he walked the course one quiet evening a month before the P.G.A. Championship that summer, he stopped to wave a hand across the windswept landscape, where the crash of ocean waves is an ever-present soundtrack.“It is the only course we built that walks and swims,” Dye said. “It is of the land and it is of the water.”Head down, Dye marched about 10 strides, then turned to add, “You can go from Miami to New York and you won’t find a golf course like it on the Atlantic Ocean.”The P.G.A. Championship’s return to the Ocean Course has been made more poignant by the deaths of Pete last year at age 94 and of Alice in 2019 at 91. The Dyes, who were married for nearly 70 years, were golf architecture royalty: Pete as the most influential designer in the last half of the 20th century, and Alice as his constant partner who became the first female member and the first female president of the American Society of Golf Architects.Pete and Alice Dye in 1991, the year their Ocean Course at Kiawah Island opened.PGA TOUR Archive, via Getty ImagesTheir work at Kiawah Island symbolized their bond. During one of the couple’s surveys of the property as the final nine holes were being laid out in 1991, Alice said: “Pete, I can’t see the ocean on this nine. I don’t want to just hear it, I want to see it.”The fairways were raised several feet, which provided more than an upgraded view. Elevated fairways exposed the closing holes to seaside winds so fickle that they bedeviled the charging, or fading, tournament leaders. The gusts have become a hallmark of the endlessly memorable course.The Dyes will be missed this week at the masterpiece they created, but their presence will be felt, even by those who were toddlers when the course made its debut.Webb Simpson, who is ranked 10th in the world, did not make the cut at the 2012 P.G.A. Championship, but he left Kiawah Island forever impressed.“I did not play well, but I didn’t blame the golf course,” Simpson, 35, said in an interview this month. “I loved Kiawah. I remember leaving in ’12 and thinking it was like a British Open course where you have to trust your lines over corners, over bushes, over marsh. There’s a 66 or an 80 out there every day for any golfer, which is exciting for a major.”Keegan Bradley tied for third at the 2012 P.G.A. Championship, which was won by Rory McIlroy. Bradley, 34, believes the Ocean Course’s relatively rare appearance on the calendar of elite golf events is part of its appeal.“It’s not a major championship venue that we go to every five years,” said Bradley, who won the 2011 P.G.A. Championship. “It’s become a special place for us to go.”Tiger Woods preparing to putt on No. 9 during the final round of the P.G.A. Championship in 2012. He finished tied for 11th.Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesThe Ocean Course was not always held in such regard.Seated in matching white wicker chairs at their South Florida home during a 2011 interview, the Dyes recalled the course’s earliest days.“I saw its future the moment I got there, even if there was nothing but myrtles and ugly bushes,” Pete said. He laughed. “Of course, the first time the P.G.A. folks saw the land they almost threw up.”Then Hurricane Hugo blew through the southeastern United States in September 1989. Kiawah Island was declared a national disaster area. At a 1990 news conference for the 1991 Ryder Cup, Pete was asked where he planned to put the huge galleries of fans expected to attend.“Galleries? How do I know?” Pete answered. “We don’t even have holes yet.”Alice’s memory of the day was slightly different.“You had a plan, Pete,” she said in 2011. “You just didn’t want to tell them yet.”Alice and Pete later agreed that Hugo had oddly helped their project. It ruined the work already done on several holes, but the destruction gave the Dyes the opportunity to rebuild sand dunes and other natural elements to their liking. Flood lights were set up so work crews could put in 16-hour days to get the course ready in time.The course revealed to the golf world ahead of the 1991 Ryder Cup was stunningly beautiful. Playing it was less than pleasant. David Feherty, a television commentator who was on the European Ryder Cup team that year, called the course “something from Mars.”Ian Woosnam in a bunker on the 17th hole during the Ryder Cup at the Ocean Course in 1991.Stephen Munday/Allsport, via Getty ImagesThe competition, won by the American side after three exhilarating days, became the most famous Ryder Cup, in part because of the treachery of the finishing holes at the Ocean Course. The television ratings for the event eclipsed those of that weekend’s N.F.L. games, a first for any golf competition.The Dyes’ creation at Kiawah Island immediately climbed near the top of the rankings of America’s best courses.But it was always impossible for the Dyes to choose a favorite among the more than 100 golf courses they designed.“We think of them like our children,” Alice said, “not pieces of history.”This week, the Ocean Course, after nine years on the sidelines of major championship golf, will take another turn in the spotlight. And with it will come another chance to appreciate the brilliance of Pete and Alice Dye, a golf team like no other. More