(please refer to Ran's write-up, or the PD website for pictures)
I played in a small tournament at Prairie Dunes last weekend. My host is a long time GCA member, and he will likely contribute to this thread. It's a terrific place and it offered me the rare opportunity of playing a great course several times. I don't fall head over heels the first time around anymore. Great courses need more than one play to reveal themselves: the walk, the pacing, the shots, and the varying wind conditions.
The course was in very good shape. Greens were rolling around 9.5-10 feet, and the primary rough, which had been long and lush for the Senior Open this summer, was pretty dry and short, yielding a fair number of flier lies. In general, the pins were tucked into extremely difficult corners of the greens, some only three paces from an edge. I'm sure the locations were selected for the match play nature of the event.
It's a great place. Every time I played the course just made me want to play it again. With that said, let me list some observations and/or criticisms. My experience is that most great classic courses have easily identifiable shortcomings.
Holes 2 and 4 are very similar, both medium length, uphill holes to the top of the dunes, with the same wind direction. This is a similar criticism of the Kingsley Club. At Kingsley, holes 2 and 9 look quite different, but place the same demands on the player; hit a 6- or 7-iron within 5 yards of straight or you’re fighting for bogey. All four par 3s are uphill at Prairie Dunes, and all are quite difficult.
We played the back tees all weekend long. At 6700 yards the course isn’t terribly long, but is really tough. At a rating of 74.2/142, I would guess my handicap index would be 1-2 higher if I played there regularly. I didn’t break 80 in four tries. Prairie Dunes is difficult in a manner I find somewhat demoralizing. Indifferent shots are often rejected to the sides of the greens, where extremely difficult recovery shots await the player. It’s too tough for my liking, but that didn’t keep me from wanting another crack at it the next day.
Are there two holes more alike in great golf architecture than #17 at Prairie Dunes and #8 at Crystal Downs? Like twins separated at birth, one just grew hillier than the other. I would probably give the nod to #17, since I imagine it’s reachable in two for the power player, and there is more risk/reward involved.
Prairie Dunes was a very enjoyable walk, enough to get your heart pumping, but logical and not overly strenuous. Certain back tees required a backward walk, a common problem with old courses with added length.
The “gunsch”, or native grass and shrub areas that line the playing areas, come into play A LOT. Playing in this best ball tournament with low handicap players (2nd flight, 6-9 total team handicap), I counted 19 balls into the gunsch during the first 27 holes of competition. About 10 of these balls were found, well above average according to my host. A similar number found the junk during the final 18 holes of competition. That’s too much time searching around for balls.
Earlier this year we discussed how the native areas at Stone Eagle encroached on play. I can say with a great deal of certainty that the same players in a similar format would not hit as many balls out of play at Stone Eagle. Sometimes classic courses get a free pass for their shortcomings. If you think three foot grass is a reasonable way to defend par, then you and I disagree.
In particular, hole #13, which features a new back tee box 80 yards back, requires too demanding a tee shot. I think they need to widen the front portion of the fairway, and shorten the carry a bit.
Prairie Dunes is absolutely beautiful. But the difficulty was demoralizing, and I’d argue that the top half of Golfweek’s classic course list is populated by courses whose maintenance (Merion) or greenside severity render them too difficult for my liking. The irony is that home course Pumpkin Ridge looked too easy in comparison yesterday, not tough enough.