Dye was born in Urbana, Ohio, the son of Paul F. "Pink" and Elizabeth Dye. A few years before Dye's birth, his father became involved with golf and built a nine-hole course on family land in Champaign County called the "Urbana Country Club." As a youngster, he worked and played that course. While attending Urbana High School, he won the Ohio state high school golf championship, and medaled in the state amateur golf championship, all before entering the U.S. Army at age 18 in 1944 during World War II. Dye first moved to Delray Beach, Florida with his parents in 1933 and eventually established his own winter residence there. With his brother Andy, he had attended the Asheville School, a boarding school in North Carolina at Asheville. Dye entered the Airborne School at Fort Benning in Georgia to be a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, but the war ended while he was in training. He was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina where he served the rest of his hitch as greenskeeper on the base golf course. Dye explained,