the stick
"What is modest about building the best club…in a community of three quarters of a million people! I think we have a right to be proud of what we propose"
–Gene Pulliam, December 1964
Crooked Stick is Pete and Alice Dye’s first championship golf course design. It has been recognized as a Top 100 golf course since 1971 and has hosted six USGA National Championships including the U.S. Women’s Open and Senior Open and U.S. Women’s Amateur. In 2020 Crooked Stick launched the Dye Junior Invitational, hosted the Western Amateur, and, in 2021, the Big Ten Conference Men's Tournament.
The Challenge of the Course
A player at Crooked Stick will find that no consecutive holes are laid out in the same direction, one must constantly adjust to wind from a different tack, long holes are followed by short holes, and shots calling for right-to-left flight are followed by shots requiring a left-to-right path. Pete and Alice Dye have designed Crooked Stick to test a player’s “poise, courage and intelligence,” as well as his or her skill. You can look ahead or look back and the natural beauty of each hole extends before you. But the more familiar you are with the course, the more you see what is waiting for you. It does not let up, and it never lets you down.
The goal of our membership is to make “The Stick” continue to live the promise of great golf for every player, every shot, every time out. Just as Pete would want it.