Prairie Dunes CC

[PCCraig]

All-

Prairie Dunes is a often discussed here on GCA, with both Ran's profile as well as recent threads on the merits of the course. However I was wondering if anyone on here could elaborate on the more overall experience of visiting the club;

Where did you come from and how hard was it to get to?
Where did you stay once in the area?
What is the overall culture of the club like?
Does the course get much play?
When is the best time of the year to visit?

Thank you in advance.

PCC

[K. Krahenbuhl]

Pat,

I actually just booked my flight tonight for a trip there this spring.  We are flying into Wichita and staying at Flint Hills which I think is about an hour away?

[PCCraig]

Pat,

I actually just booked my flight tonight for a trip there this spring.  We are flying into Wichita and staying at Flint Hills which I think is about an hour away?

Kyle-

Thanks for responding...how long are you going for? Are you only playing PD?

[PThomas]

Pat,

I actually just booked my flight tonight for a trip there this spring.  We are flying into Wichita and staying at Flint Hills which I think is about an hour away?

bring your straight tee ball there my friend!

[K. Krahenbuhl]

Pat,

I actually just booked my flight tonight for a trip there this spring.  We are flying into Wichita and staying at Flint Hills which I think is about an hour away?

Kyle-

Thanks for responding...how long are you going for? Are you only playing PD?

We are just flying up on Continental fro Houston for a weekend.  36 @ PD and golf at Flint Hills and Wichita CC.

[Mark Arata]

last time we flew into Tulsa, played Southern Hills, and then drove down to PD, was about a 2 1/2 hour drive, not bad. We played Flint Hills on the way back to Tulsa.

In October the place is just drop dead goregous.......
The Hampton Inn in Hutch is a nice place with an indoor pool and whirlpool.

[ed_getka]

Pat,
    Wichita is where you fly into for greatest convenience. The course is about an hour away to the northwest. Food and lodging in the are are pretty non-descript so it just depends on how much you want to spend for a room. The best food in town is the Blue something or other if my faulty memory serves.
    The club is very low-key and relaxed. I would imagine late spring/early summer or autumn are the best times to visit to avoid the heat. Wind is a factor, but I have no idea what time of year for that. The course gets steady play I would guess. I've not seen it empty or bursting at the seams. There are many others here who can better answer your questions than me.
     Easily one of the best golf courses in the world IMO. I started a thread a couple of years ago asking why it isn't the #1 course in the world. Some very interesting replies in there if you can find the thread.
     Have a great time, no matter when you finally get there it is worth it.

[George Freeman]

    Easily one of the best golf courses in the world IMO. I started a thread a couple of years ago asking why it isn't the #1 course in the world. Some very interesting replies in there if you can find the thread.
     Have a great time, no matter when you finally get there it is worth it.

Any idea what the title of that thread was?  I searched "Praire Dunes" but didn't find the one you're referrencing...

Thanks!

[Tony_Chapman]

Pat -- I won't be much help for you here, but I grew up about 3 1/2 hours from Hutch in Nebraska. My dad was good enough to surprise my brother and I with a trip before my senior year of college. We left at 6 am and drove down and played all day and came home. An awesome day, and memory, for us. My brother currently lives in Wichita and it's about 45 minutes to an hour from where he lives out by the airport.

I'd assume a flight into Tulsa, KC or Wichita would be prudent. You also may want to check our Jeff Brauer's Sand Creek Station if you are in the area. It's very fun and can be had for under $50, I think.

While volunteering at the 2006 Senior Open, and reading the book Prairie Dunes, I have become convince the nine hole Perry Maxwell routing may be the best nine holes in golf.

Have you ever walked a golf course at dusk, when the sun sits low on the horizon and the air becomes still as a whisper? If you have, you will understand the ability of the landscape to restore an exhausted body and energize a tired mind. No where in golf have I experienced the restorative capacity of the American landscape as much as I have felt it this week at Prairie Dunes. To those who will come to U.S. Senior Open in the days that follow, I hope that you will find the time to cherish the landscape of Prairie Dunes as much as you enjoy the outstanding golf that will be played.

-- Rand Jerris

[Chip Gaskins]

We flew into Wichita and spent the night.  Rented a car and drive over to Prairie Dunes.  Played in the morning and then headed up to Sand Hills.

Bring your straight tee ball or your weed eater....the rough is crazy. CRAZY!

The greens are fantastic, some of, if not the best complexes I have played.

Enjoy yourself!

[rjsimper]

All-

Prairie Dunes is a often discussed here on GCA, with both Ran's profile as well as recent threads on the merits of the course. However I was wondering if anyone on here could elaborate on the more overall experience of visiting the club;

Where did you come from and how hard was it to get to?
Where did you stay once in the area?
What is the overall culture of the club like?
Does the course get much play?
When is the best time of the year to visit?

Thank you in advance.

PCC

1) LA, and fairly easy with a direct LAX-Wichita flight.  Rental car from Wich to Hutch
2) The Four Seasons in Hutchinson...AKA Hampton Inn
3) Culture of the club based on my visit is very casual, comfortable, and anything but what you would expect from a world class club.  Feels more like a community club.
4) Couldn't tell you on a yearlong basis, but there was definitely a fair amount when I went in August (which can't possibly be the busiest season given the heat)
5) As with anywhere else in the country, I can't imagine any reason why Spring and Fall would not be the best.  Is there anywhere in the country south of Chicago that that's NOT true for?

George Freeman....you're getting no hits because you're misspelling Prairie.

I started a thread in Aug of 07 with photos from my trip.  It's also available at the delicious.com/golfclubatlas site.

[George Freeman]

Ryan,

Brilliant!...thanks.

Here is the link if anyone is interested:

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php?board=1%3baction=display%3bthreadid=23297%3bstart=0

[James Bennett]

George Freeman....you're getting no hits because you're misspelling Prairie.

Ryan

Outstanding to pick this up.  You should be an editor, or an error-seeker on compters.  Your eyes must be young.

James B

[Ken Moum]

Where did you come from and how hard was it to get to?
Where did you stay once in the area?
What is the overall culture of the club like?
Does the course get much play?
When is the best time of the year to visit?

It's not as if Hutchinson is in the middle of nowhere... like Mullen, NE, for instance.

It's close to Wichita, which is the largest city in Kansas, and there are several motels in Hutch. It does, after all, host the Kansas State Fair.

Try the Airport Steakhouse (it's in the terminal, and you don't need to worry about security)

If you're into homestyle restaurants, the 10-minute trip to Yoder, KS and Carriage Crossing is a must...
http://www.yoderkansas.com/ccr/ (Check out the family-style dinners!)

Ken

[John Kirk]

Pat,

The course gets about 30,000 rounds a year.  Steady play.

A brilliant test of golf that relentlessly reveals a player's shortcomings.  Beautiful golf course as well.

[PCCraig]

Thanks for all the great responses so far!

30,000 rounds seems steady but not busy considering their golf season is somewhat longer being that it is pretty far south. However I can attest that in the plains it gets darn cold at night in the fall.

Does anyone know where the majority of the members come from? It sounds like Hutch is a really small town and wouldn't have a big golfing community. Are there many "National" members that come down to play the course?

[TEPaul]

Pat:

I think it was the summer of '06 I went to PD and played it for about three days (along with a Faldo course out there). I went out there with a member from the Philly region, one from DC and one from Texas and it seemed like we flew to pick up the two other guys here and there. I just remember flying from Philly to Hotlanta and after that I can't remember where the hell we went to get there. I think we may've stayed in that Hampton Inn (it was really big).

As for PD, I felt it was in the top handful or two of the best over-all architecture I've ever seen and I put all my detailed opinions about why on a thread on here a couple of years ago. I have always been a huge fan of Perry Maxwell anyway (I feel he was probably about the best green designer/creator architecture has known) but PD was the best from him I've seen.

Have you ever run into a good golfer who seems like he sort of fires on all eight cylinders all the time with no  particular single part of his game exactly standing out noticeably above the rest? Well, that's the way I felt about the architecture of PD----nothing exactly made you go WOW but put all together it's just about as good as it gets, and the site (topography and feel of the place) is the same kind of thing.

For a real architecture analyst I would also say he should be able to pick up on the fact that the over-all "angles" of that design (both big and small), if you know what I mean, are remarkably sophisticated but again even that doesn't just exactly jump out at you either. 

Like the original Frederick Law Olmsted in landscape architecture, I don't think Maxwell ever looked to create some kind of "WOW Factor" in anything he ever did, just sort of a true aura of contemplativeness (of the golf architecture variety), and at PD it's pretty palatable. See that quotation of Rand Jerris's above? I think some of that has to do with the look and aura of that area of Kansas but just as much of it has to do with how Maxwell worked his golf architecture on that course.

PS:
There is some old down-home ribs place out there you should not miss! And stop in and say hi to the pro/GM there; he's a great guy and he's good on the club and course history.

[John Mayhugh]

Hutchinson has about 40,000 residents so it's plenty big enough to support a country club.  I believe there is at least one other in town.  

Not sure about their membership breakdown, but it is very much like a typical country club that just happens to have a world-class course.  When I was there last year, I saw the foursome of older ladies followed by their husbands, saw high school and younger kids out there (some walking, some riding).  At the time I remarked on what a rude awakening it would be for those kids when they figured out most courses are quite a step down from what they grew up playing.  

The food at the club is pretty good.  I would opt for it over the places we went in town, though we never made it to the Airport Steakhouse.

 

[Sean_A]

It seems like an awful lot of people play PD.  Is it private or private in the sense that GB&I clubs are private?

Ciao

[PThomas]

It seems like an awful lot of people play PD.  Is it private or private in the sense that GB&I clubs are private?

Ciao

more like the latter, Sean

[tlavin]

The flight from Chicago to Witchita is a snap and the drive to Hutch isn't all that bad, probably an hour.  There is a member scene there, with seven or eight foursomes that play the course every day and the rest of the play seems to be national members who bring a bunch of guests for a few days of golf.  The attitude of the members and staff is terrific.  They know they're at a jewel of a golf club in the middle of Kansas.

Agronomically and topographically, this place reminds me of Sand Hills.  All of a sudden, you're driving around dead flat farm land and there's an eruption of sand hills and dune grass.  The company that developed the course in the 30's (as a nine-holer) mined sand in the area.  Some people have speculated that there was an ancient inland sea or salt lake in the area.  The land is absolutely perfect for a golf course and Perry Maxwell and his son Press created an absolute masterpiece, IMHO.  The elevation changes are just right.  The routing is simple and enjoyable.  There is a wide variety in the par 3's and 4's and the 17th hole just might be the best short par 5 in America.  The greens are wacky like Tom Doak's great greens at Lost Dunes.  All in all, a 10 on a scale of 10 for this golfer.  I put it right up there with Sand Hills, Cypress, Pacific Dunes, Pebble Beach and Los Angeles CC.  A national treasure.

[corey miller]

Actually Tom I am not sure you did give us your detailed thoughts on Prairie Dunes. My recollection is you discussed the first two holes but then, sadly, the thread got hijacked by someone from 2000 miles away who had never seen the course telling us it could not be a "fun course"

This site would have greatly benefited by your full analysis of this wonderful place.

I am told that the Blue Duck closed.

[PCCraig]

Last night I looked PD up in the Confidential Guide and Tom D mentioned that PD's best asset was that it invoked the great links courses, but that it didn't totally succeed because the ground isn't quite as firm in Kansas. However he noted how great the greens are.

Can anyone elaborate on how firm and fast the course plays? It looks like with the sandy soil the ball would run for miles.

[Jim Franklin]

I thought it was firm when I played there. The only thing I didn't like about PD was the proshop was weak. The course is in my top 10.

[PThomas]

and not a lot else to do out that way, so 36 or more a day is definitely the way to go!