This mother and son duo is taking on the world of golf course design together

Getting into the family business wasn’t something Cynthia Dye McGarey ever planned on doing. Many of her family members had become involved in golf course architecture. Most famously, her uncle is Pete Dye. But Cynthia had gone to school to become a landscape architect. She never thought she’d be where she is now: decades into a career of golf course design, currently in business with her son, Matt.

Cynthia grew up playing golf on the course her grandfather designed. Her father, Roy Anderson Dye, and uncle Pete worked together at the design office in Ohio. She grew up around the office, making golf course models out of cardboard with her sister. She enjoyed her upbringing around golf, but felt her true passion was plants. She went to school and got her degree in horticulture, with no intent to get into golf course design.

But then her cousin, Perry Dye, called. Perry, who passed away in 2021, was involved in the golf boom in Japan that started in the late 1980s. By the end of his career, he’d designed over 20 courses in Japan.

“He took me to Japan to do the landscaping and then I went to Korea and Indonesia, Singapore,” Cynthia recalled. “That's where I really got into the family business.”

Working on the landscaping aspect of course design for others morphed into Cynthia designing courses herself. True to her background, she still does the landscape plans herself.

“It's kind of the way I look at a golf course in the setting and everything around it, especially if it's a new piece of property. I look at what I can bring from the setting into the golf course,” Cynthia said.

While pursuing her career as a golf course designer, she had five children. She’d grown up going on trips to the golf courses her dad was working on, so it felt natural to bring her kids along on projects when she could. She relied on her husband and nannies, some of whom were shapers in between jobs.

“There are golf course architects today that were once our babysitters,” she said, proud of the community within golf her family has around them.

Having raised her kids around golf course design in the same way she was, some of her own children were bound to catch the bug, too.

“I grew up all around it my whole life and looked up to the shaper guys like, ‘Oh, they're in bulldozers and excavators, that’s cool,’” Matt McGarey, one of Cynthia’s sons, said.

He had his hands in the dirt from a young age. In high school, for spring break, he went to Ocean Trails in Palos Verdes where his mom was working. “I went out there and finished greens with my uncle and loved it. I loved the detail and laying down the greens and making little tweaks here and there. I really loved the detail work,” Matt said.

He left college at one point to go to Spain and work with uncles Pete and Perry and his mom on San Roque Club.

“I was handed a pick and was told, ‘You’ve got to learn how water works and how drainage works.’ That was my first actual construction job. I came back and worked in the office a little bit, but I'm not much of an office guy. Kind of get stir crazy,” Matt said.

He moved to the beach, tried his hand at real estate, but nothing was quite right. Then his mom called with an offer to go to Nassau Country Club. “I got to do a couple bunkers and I was like, this is what I want to do,” Matt said.

After that project, he went to the next and the next. Fifteen years later, he’s still working in golf course construction.

Cynthia and Matt were working in the same realm, though they weren’t formally working together. They’d talked about it, but both were doing their own work. Matt was being hired by other teams to shape. In 2023, the mother-son duo finally started working together officially at Dye Design Group.

When you ask them what their favorite project has been, they say Portugal in tandem. It had everything: beautiful beaches for surfing and fishing, easy access to the city for good food and drink. Cynthia became the house mom, cooking up feasts for eight people all working on the job. The ideal day was to work, play nine holes at another course, and come back to the rental house for a big dinner with everyone. And then do it again tomorrow.

“Those are the special moments,” Cynthia said.

“It was pretty magical, I’d live there,” Matt said.

They admit that working with family isn’t always magical.

“The best part is, you’re working with family. The worst part is, you’re working with family,” Matt said, laughing. “We know each other’s style, how we like to work and live. And that’s great. But family can be stubborn. I’ll make something and I love it, and then if I’m told it’s not quite right, and I can be stubborn about that.”

They’ve learned that “family first” has to be the motto.

“You have to leave the work out of the family at certain points,” Cynthia said. “You can’t just be all golf all the time. And you can’t bring your problems out of the office.”

“That used to make me crazy back in the day, I don’t want to hear about golf all night,” Matt said.

There’s no knowing if the Dyes will design into the next generation. For now, Cynthia is hoping for a project close to home in Colorado. She plays with golf course models with two of her grandchildren.

“You never know who's going to fall in love with it,” she said.