Is Prairie Dunes a links?

[Matt_Cohn]

Several players including Bob Charles and Tom Watson - two guys who know some things about links courses - have said that Prairie Dunes is very links style. Maybe I should just take their word for it.

But having played the course 8 times, I never thought of it this way.

To me, "links" or "links style" means that what happens on the ground is as important as what happens when the ball is in the air. Once the ball is on the ground at Torrey Pines, the camera can cut away. Once the ball is on the ground at TOC, the fun is just beginning.

Prairie Dunes has some of the best green contours around, and they do affect how you play your approach shots. But you don't play Prairie Dunes along the ground, and the only shots you bounce in are by necessity when the wind is hard at your back. (Under those conditions, most holes are links style, right?) The ground is not rock hard. Many holes (2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18) are not really receptive to a running approach (although you can make it work on 5 of those if it's a necessity).

I'm not knocking Prairie Dunes. I love it and I think it's a brilliant, wonderful course. But, although it's open, windy, and rolling, I don't think it's accurate to call it a links or probably even links style.

Opinions?

[Anthony Butler]

The word 'links' is completely overused and abused in golf. Links describes a very particular piece of land. A sandy stretch of very firm turf that 'links' the land to the sea.

By that definition there are very few links courses in the world (but a large number of links-style courses.) I'm hard pressed to think of many places in the US that have the ground to support a links course. A couple of spots on the east coast come to mind (Eastern Long Island, Kiawah Island + other low lying spots down in Nth and Sth Carolina) but that's about it.

Kansas, as it is approx 1000 miles to the nearest sea, doesn't qualify as one of them...

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Anthony,
Your forgetting at one time the entire planet was covered by water, and well, obviously your somewhat wrong.

I've seen areas in near Death Valley that could qualify themselves as close to links as one could imagine because of their proximity to sand and run-off near a river mouth. The term by definition--our definition is like you said a most mis-used one. But if you pick-up Price's Scotland's Golf Courses, or even read his Feature Interview here, you would see that the true description is a broad one.

[Mark Bourgeois]

The turf at Prairie Dunes is just not quite firm enough -- needs more fescue.

On the other hand, the wind and the greens dictate a style of play that certainly is not American-style "target golf."

[Anthony Butler]

Anthony,
Your forgetting at one time the entire planet was covered by water, and well, obviously your somewhat wrong.

I've seen areas in near Death Valley that could qualify themselves as close to links as one could imagine because of their proximity to sand and run-off near a river mouth. The term by definition--our definition is like you said a most mis-used one. But if you pick-up Price's Scotland's Golf Courses, or even read his Feature Interview here, you would see that the true description is a broad one.

Tommy, I would call those areas 'links style'... then again perhaps I am being a purist. I would not qualify my own club in Sydney as linksland even though it's right on the ocean and definitely built on sandy soil. The extreme topography cancels it out Barnbougle Dunes is more along the lines of an Australian links course.

At the same time, you bring up an interesting point... perhaps you are putting a good spin on global warming... more linksland? Maybe that can be the definitiion, if the proposed sea levels under accepted global warming scenarios put your course underwater, then it's a links course.

At NSWGC, another 15ft of ocean would mean the 6th hole now rivals CPC 16th as the greatest par 3 in the world. Of course TOC will be underwater and Pinehurst will be considered to be the premier links course in the world.  

[Tom_Doak]

I would say it's not a links, because I'm a strict constructionist on that subject.  (If you have to debate in your mind whether it's a links, it's probably NOT a links.)

But it doesn't have to be a true links to be a great course.

[Anthony Butler]

I would say it's not a links, because I'm a strict constructionist on that subject.  (If you have to debate in your mind whether it's a links, it's probably NOT a links.)

But it doesn't have to be a true links to be a great course.

According to the Wikipedia definition of constructionism, a course would have to be built on linksland to earn the title 'golf links' in your mind... I'm hoping this doesn't also mean you're an Antonin Scalia groupie.

[Tommy Williamsen]

No.  Why do we try to make inland courses links because they have "linkslike" feathures? I agree with Tom, Courses don't have to be links courses to be good.  Let's not try to make them something they are not.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Here's Robert Price's definition:

Ran asked him:
What exactly is links land?

The characteristics of links land are described in detail in my book.  Although the terms 'links' (from the old Scots word 'lynkis' meaning ridges and hummocks or open rough ground) is usually restricted to tracts of low-lying seaside land, it has often been incorrectly used to refer to any golf course, i.e. to play on the links.  It should only be used to refer to land underlain by sand and gravel in the form of undulating plains, ridges, mounds and hollows immediately inland from the present coastline.

This short, very short description would probably back up what your saying to some measure. However, I've always wanted to present this question to Robert Price, and to also see what his thoughts were on a gauging of styles of links land. Say Type A would be held to a quality of low-lying links similar to the Old Course or North Berwick, etc. Have that be the model for "Type A".  "Type B" could be more like the stuff one would find a Bandon Dunes, etc. "Type C" would be more like the type of stuff one would find at Ballybunion or Carnoustie. One not better then the other per say.

As Tom says it doesn't have to be true links to be a great golf course, but it doesnt hurt if it was true links either!

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Tommy,
My point originally was, is that the land that Prarie Dunes is on is sand dunes left over from preceeding years of the ice age. Who knows hat part of it was some ancient beach or ocean bottom ridge or eskers.

Go on to Google Earth and look high at the area from the Colorado River to the Gulf of California and you'll see a huge and massive land flow of sand that eventually deposits itself into the Gulf. One remnants of the deeper elements of that "flow" is now known as the Salton Sea. Throughout that area and some of it flows from the Coachella Valley are vast dunelands as large as 100' tall. this even occurs right near the shores of the Colorado River.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Sean,
Tell you what, as soon as I find out from Price what he thinks, after all he seems to be the most educated and experienced in defining it, THEN I'll go by what he says!  Right now I think it is sort of wrong to go by what evolution has brought. I'm not saying one is the same as the other either. I just want to get the best definition of what exactly it is.

All of this is hypothetical: Say in 2000 years, Global warming doesn't really happen but the well of the world's ocean runs dry and St. Andrews advances 2 miles inland, will it still be a links by your definition? Say it went 200 miles inland? (a pure hyptothetical) Is it Linksland then?

I hope I'm making my point.

[Bill Gayne]

It's hard to tell from TV because the USGA set-up looks a lot like the one they use at every other championship regardless of the type of course.

[Matt Kardash]

my opinion is this: who gives a shit? It's a golf course, end of story  

[Bill Gayne]

I think the two most important elements that distinguish links golf is sand and wind. From the Prairie Dunes club history:

"The salt deposits and the sand dunes in Kansas were formed by the evaporation of the Permian seas around 245 to 286 milion years ago, according to geologists. The seas rose and fell in Kansas, covered the plains and dried up, leaving salt, gypsum, potash, and the sand....
The salt deposits extend from Nebraska through Kansas to Northern Oklahoma...
It was the ancient seas that formed the terrain and it was the influence of the Scottish seaside links that convinced William Carey that Hutchinson's sand dunes would be an ideal site for a golf course. He and brother June took action.
They chose Perry Maxwell because of his familiarity with the Scottish links."

"One more factor that contributes to a seaside atmosphere at Prairie Dunes is the wind, which constantly buffets the Scottish links and western Kansas as well. It was the wind whipping the sands around the Kansas prairie that created the dunes.
Western Kansas is among the windiest places in the United States. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration rank Dodge City, just 120 miles west of Hutchinson, the second windiest city in the United States."

When the course was first built there were very few trees. Today there are mostly mature cottonwoods.

There is virtually no water on the course except an irrigation pond by the 11th hole that doesn't come into play.

Per Judy Bell "A good links is one where a golfer can stand on a teeing ground and see several holes. This is exactly the case at Prairie Dunes."  

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it's a ....?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Thank you Bill Gayne!

My honor has been restored.

[paul cowley]

We might want to add a qualifier to he basic definition, as in 'inland links'....least we leave venues like Sand Hills and others high and dry.

This is also of interest to me because, aside from idling away my time with you fine fellows, I am awaiting the sun to rise over Lands End in Cabo so as to stake out a 'links' course that is part of a massive sand dune system sitting hard on the Pacific.
Although not covered with marram grass nor are there any fescues to note, it is covered with a variety of scrub/shrub low growing vegetation that can exist on the salt air and 6" of water a year......and that are soon to be neighbors with some exotics of the paspalum family.
There is a river system of sorts here in the form of a large arroyo that flows intermittently in the storm season....and cuts a 25m high swath through the primary dune as it exits into the sea.......and onto the same beach that saw an invasion of some 60,000 Macedonians three or four years back.
I have found evidence of the ensuing engagement [projectile points with red tips and the like], but no sign of Helen....a pity really because my only company of sorts out here are some rangy cattle, roadrunners, hawks, lizards and an occasional rattler

[TEPaul]

Look guys, if you want to call Prarie Dunes a "links" then it's a links. Just don't ask any crusty old Scot to confirm that appelation.  

[Brian Phillips]

Tommy,

From Robert Price's book Scotland's Golf Courses

Page 51

"These spreads, mounds, terraces and ridges, produced by the meltwaters of the ice sheet to cover Scotland, have been extensively used as sites for golf courses. They represent the nearest inland equivalent to the classic links ground of the coastal golf courses.  The similarities between windblown-sand landforms (links) and fluvioglacial sand gravel landforms (sandar, kames, terraces, eskers) are numerous.  Both sets of landforms are well drained and support firm turf.  Both sets of landforms are charaterised by ridges and hollows and by short, steep slopes which frequently change direction.  Both sets of landforms consist of materials (sand and gravel) easily worked by man either with or withour mechanical assistance.  Many of the early inland golf courses in Scotland were established on these relatively easily managed fluvioglacial deposits. It would appear that golfers and golf course designers have a considerable affinity for fine-grained, unconsolidated sediments whether they are deposited by wind or water."

Gleneagles plays like a links, looks like a links but it is NOT a links course.  It is a fluvioglacial golf course played on and over kames, sandar etc...

Much like the tee on the so called 'Redan' hole at Shinnecock is not below the hole....which I now have evidence for...

Brian