Pete Dye, the grandaddy of golf course designers, talks lovingly about the family of courses he's nurtured over the decades. "They're like my kids," he tells an interviewer from his Indianapolis home during a recent phone conversation. And while he's reluctant to admit it, Pete Dye has his "family" favourites.

"Crooked Stick (his first major design and the place he still lives), the TPC at Sawgrass and Ocean Course on Kiawah Island (S.C.) are very special to me and the TPC Louisiana, well, that's pretty special, too."

TPC Louisiana is one of the new additions to the Pete Dye family - it opened three years ago as part of the Tournament Players Clubs - and is situated just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. It's now home of the PGA Tour's Zurich Classic and has quickly become a favourite among PGA Tour stops. That's all thanks to Pete Dye's genius.

Much like he did at Florida's legendary TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course, Dye, who is to golf what Rodin was to art, sculpted a shapely masterpiece out of a flat piece of Delta Bayou land. Dye once told an interviewer: "Mr. Finchem (PGA commissioner Tim Finchem) asked me to do this (build TPC Louisiana) and I think I know why. He finds a flat site and then he calls me. But I appreciate the confidence he has in me, and, what the heck, I still love digging in the dirt."

"Dirt" is the operative word when describing what Dye created at TPC Louisiana. In an effort to toughen up the non-descript piece of real estate he was given to work with, Dye compensated - we average golfers might say over-compensated - for the lack of challenge by installing numerous waste bunkers to go along with his tough signature sand traps to help protect mostly postage stamp greens.

"I learnt a lot about bunkering when I lived in Scotland," says Dye. "There's lots of flat land over there but Scottish courses are the toughest in the world - thanks to the bunkering." Once completed, 20 acres of the 80-plus acre TPC Louisiana course was covered in dirt along with 73 pot bunkers.

Another technique Dye employed in the designing of TPC Louisiana - he had help from noted pros Steve Elkington and Louisiana native Kelly Gibson - was to set off the bunkers from the putting surfaces with chipping areas between. Dye told another interviewer he used that technique because "we don't want the bunkers right up against the greens - we want to have a different look; maybe an optical illusion, and a different strategy to the holes."

The end result of Dye's creativity is 7,300 yards of pure delight that sits on low a property dotted with ancient cypress trees and other natural vegetation that makes this more nature preserve than golf course. Dye also introduced water hazards on six of the 18 holes at TPC Louisiana, which is surrounded on three sides by drainage canals.

TPC Louisiana offers four sets of tees and some of the best, short par-4s in golf - holes that Dye is particularly proud. "The short par-4s at TPC Louisiana are going to be the heart of the golf course," says Dye, who has now designed three TPC courses - along with TPC Louisiana and Sawgrass, he also created TPC Virginia Beach which opened in 2000.

There's no signature "Island Hole" here like at TPC Sawgrass but the desert-sized waste bunkers on 5, 7, 13, 14 and 15 at TPC Louisiana will make you think you're on a desert island. Tight, mostly arrow-straight fairways, are other enduring features of this amazing course, which ranks highly on every golf magazine's "must play" list.

The TPC course was hit hard when Hurricane Katrina blew through New Orleans a few years ago, uprooting over 2,000 of the course's ancient trees. That's when Dye came to the rescue. "Pete came back and changed 14 holes that were damaged by Katrina," remembers Pamela Vitrano-Buie, Director of Sales and Marketing for TPC Louisiana. "He worked very hard bringing the course back to what it was pre-Katrina," says the charming Vitrano-Buie in a southern drawl as smooth as Tiger Woods' swing.

Katrina's scars have all been removed from the TPC Louisiana course, which has welcomed over 25,000 players so far this year - 14 per cent of that number being from out of town. "Pre-Katrina we were attracting about 28,000 rounds a year, so we're almost back to that number," says Vitrano-Buie, who works closely with hotels in New Orleans to get guests out to TPC Louisiana, the best course in the state.

One of those properties Vitrano-Buie works with is the historic Hotel Monteleone, the grand dame of New Orleans hotels which sits in the famed French Quarter. Leaving the legendary Monteleone to lay golf, even at the famed TPC Louisiana layout, may be the toughest decision you'll ever have to make. The Montelone, which opened as a chic 65 room property in 1886, has grown to the largest hotel in the French Quarter, now offering over 600 rooms.

"Each generation (there have been four) of the Monteleone family (Antonio Monteleone, a Sicilian businessman, built the hotel) has added new wings," Andrea Thornton, the hotel's charming director of marketing and sales tells me. "Now we are not only the oldest hotel in the French Quarter, but also the biggest." Thornton could have also said the Monteleone is the best hotel in New Orleans, but she'll let you decide that.

The Monteleone offers several intriguing golf specials, the most popular of which is a four-night, four-round package which includes three rounds on TPC Louisiana - rest assured, you'll never tire of this track - as well as $35 per person vouchers that you can redeem for food at the TPC. The packages (for two) start at $1,500 in low season (May 15 to Sept. 15) to a high of $1,928.

"We get a lot of golfers here at the Hotel Monteleone and they all rave about TPC Louisiana," says Thornton, who informs me the property is one of only three in the United States - New York's Plaza and Algonquin are the others- to be honoured as a "Literary Landmark" because of the famous writers and authors who have either included the Monteleone in their works or who have stayed there.

And the literary list is long - Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway … (to name just a few). The list is almost as impressive as the huge suites that are now named after many of the famous authors. The Ernest Hemingway suite occupies the hotel's entire 16th floor.The Hotel Monteleone is located on Rue Royal in the heart of the French Quarter, a 5-iron shot away from Bourbon St. and all the fun New Orleans is famous for. It's also the first independent hotel in the United States to receive the prestigious J.D. Power award of excellence.

For reservation at the Hotel Monteleone, call 1-800-535-9595 or email them at reservations@hotelmonteleone.com. For more information visit their website at
http://www.hotelmonteleone.com/hotel/packages.html?package_id=24

For tee times at the TPC of Louisiana, call 564-436-TCP1 (8271) or visit their website at http://www.tpc.com/louisiana

Marc Atchison is the former Travel Editor of Canada's largest daily newspaper,
The Toronto Star. More of Marc' stories are also available at www.tnnworld.com