How Pete Dye’s ashes wound up at one of his most famous courses

“Bury Me in a Pot Bunker” was the title of Pete Dye’s memoir, and he meant it. That’s what he wanted. 

Gilles Gagnon helped fulfill that wish.

The director of golf emeritus at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic, Gagnon has been a fixture at the resort since the early 1980s, when he and Dye first met.

At the time, the property was already home to two Dye courses—the Links and Teeth of the Dog—and the famed architect dropped in often to refine his work.

He and Gagnon became close friends, and, in 2020, when Dye succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease at age 94, Gagnon made sure that his buddy’s will was done. A pot bunker on the 8th hole at Teeth of the Dog became the resting place for the architect’s ashes.

Gagnon relayed this story—and many others—in a recent wide-ranging interview on the Destination GOLF podcast, while reflecting on his own improbable career in the game. 

Unlike Dye, a lifelong golfer who played competitively before turning to design, Gagnon grew up in Montreal and was a hockey standout who found himself working in a golf shop in the tropics after a series of unlikely twists and turns. You can hear about his hard-nosed upbringing on the ice, how he made his way into a life in golf, why he owes a debt gratitude the architect Bill Coore, and what he learned over the years from his close relationship with Dye, by listening to the entire Destination GOLF episode here. 

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