PGA Championship has 8 members of Dye Preserve competing for Wanamaker Trophy

Posted by Admin May 10, 2024 Golf

Craig Dolch
| Special to The Post

When filling out fantasy pools for next week’s PGA Championship, here’s a suggestion: Consider selecting members from the Dye Preserve in Jupiter.

Amazingly, eight of them are in the field. Not many private clubs can claim to have more than 5 percent of the PGA field.

Then again, Dye Preserve’s membership has been on a recent roll at golf’s highest levels. Taylor Pendrith of Canada claimed his first career PGA Tour title last Sunday with a one-shot victory at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson in Dallas.

Fellow Dye Preserve member Alex Noren of Sweden finished two shots back in third place as he almost earned his first PGA Tour win. Longtime Jupiter resident Daniel Berger, who became a member at the Dye Preserve when he was 13 and has helped many of his Tour-playing brethren join the club, finished 13^th as he continues his comeback from a back injury.

Pendrith became the third Dye Preserve member to win a PGA Tour event this year, the last two coming in historic fashion. Matthieu Pavon prevailed at the Farmers Insurance Open in late January to become the first Frenchman to win on the PGA Tour in more than a century. Pendrith was the first Canadian to win the Byron Nelson.

Grayson Murray won the Sony Open in Hawaii, the year’s first full-field event, in a three-way playoff for his second PGA Tour victory.

Success of Dye Preserve members also shows up at LIV and European Tours

The success of the Dye Preserve members also has been evident on LIV Golf Tour and the DP European Tour. Joaquin Newmann of Chile has won twice this year on the LIV tour and also won the Australian Open last December, earning him special exemptions into the Masters and PGA Championship.

Dean Burmester of South Africa won a pair of DP European Tour wins in his homeland late last year and followed that up with a playoff win over Sergio Garcia at last month’s LIV Golf Miami.

Cristobal Del Solar of Colombia, another Dye Preserve member, shot a record-breaking 57 this year on the Korn Ferry Tour, the lowest round ever in a PGA Tour-sanctioned event.

“We are very proud of what our professional members have accomplished – and will continue to,” said Kurt Thompson, the Dye Preserve’s general manager. “We’d like to think the high quality of our Pete Dye-designed course and the practice facilities have played a role in their success.”

Dye Preserve officials have kept a running leaderboard on the success of its cadre of professionals, based on wins, top-5s and top-10s. It’s needed a lot of updating.

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Many of the Dye Preserve’s professionals say they joined the club in large part because of the course, which was designed by the brilliant Dye in 1988 (when it was known as Cypress Links) and renovated by him in 2002.

It helps to be able to play well on Dye’s unique designs because they are used at four PGA Tour events this year: American Express, the Players, RBC Heritage and Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

It also helps that many of the Dye members are world-class players – seven of them are in the top 100 in the world rankings (No. 20 Pavon, No. 31 Denny McCarthy, No. 52 Corey Conners, No. 57 Noren, No. 58 Pendrith, No. 59 Murray and No. 91 Niemann). The aforementioned seven are all playing in the PGA at Valhalla Golf Club, in addition to Burmester, who was given an exemption this week.

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“Good players want to practice with other good players, because it makes everyone better,” said Berger, who will not play in the PGA for the first time since 2014 because of his injury. “What most of us love about Dye Preserve is it’s all about the golf.”

Besides Berger, another notable Dye Preserve member isn’t in the PGA: Mito Pereira. He would have won the PGA two years ago if not for a double bogey on the 72^nd hole.