The Prairie Dunes Influence

[Ian Andrew]

I found myself looking over various photos and writings on Prairie Dunes in the last week. I had always thought the foundation of Minimalism was the early work of Pete Dye and places like the Golf Club. But in the last few days I’ve really come to question that premise and begun to lean more in the direction of Prairie Dunes.

When you follow the time lines you find Bill Coore working with Prairie Dunes back in 1984. This must have been the ideal preparation for what he would face with the property at Sand Hills. When you start to think about it, working with Prairie Dunes was probably the best preparation he could get for “another” inland links.

What got me started down this road was a couple of particular fairway bunkers that look clearly “ripped” out of the earth. It struck me that I was looking at the forerunner to the Coore and Crenshaw bunker style. I would continue to argue that this was in turn the foundation for the variations that have been created by many other architects. While many other bunkers on the course are simple – it’s the rugged and raggedy ones that really have the biggest visual impact on the course.

So as I continued through I began to see a whole host of similarities to a couple of course that I really admire. There is little earthmoving, and what little there may be is well disguised. While some of the more striking green sites sit up, there are many that are simply extensions of the fairways. The greens are heavily contoured to the point of often becoming the most dominant architectural feature of the hole. The green surrounds often have the natural vegetation creep right up to their edges, while in other instances the short grass extends well out from the greens offering options around the greens.

There may be no course with a better sense of place. It’s so hard to tell where the native landscape ends and the architecture begins. When you look at Minimalist courses, the real ones, they are also striving for this effect.

Throw in the excellent routing, the wildly rumpled fairways, rustic nature of the architecture, highly contoured greens, short grass surrounds, native vegetation in the bunker faces, the way bunkers appear found rather than created and you can see a pattern that goes from Prairie Dunes and out to many of our favorite layouts.

Is Prairie Dunes a far greater influence on Golf Architecture than its given credit for?

[David Kelly]

Well Bill Coore has certainly talked a lot about how PD has influenced him and has even said that if Prairie Dunes hadn't existed then Sand Hills might not have been built.  So if that is the case then I think Prairie Dunes' biggest influence was in giving birth to Sand Hills, which to me has been THE influence in golf architecture since its opening in 1995.

Prior to Sand Hills' opening Prairie Dunes was known as a great golf course but was always talked and written about as an interesting one-off, as if it was just a result of Perry Maxwell taking advantage of the perfect and unique land conditions of the site.  I can't think of many courses prior to Sand Hills that you could say were influenced by Prairie Dunes even though it had been around almost 60 years.

However since 1995 we know of dozens of courses throughout the world that can be said to have been influenced by Sand Hills either because of the site, the location, the method of construction, the conditions, its business plan, etc. 
 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ian,

I'd love to listen to C&C and hear how PD  influenced their style in general and SH in particular.

This is an interesting subject, golf courses that influenced some of today's top GCA's.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Ian,

Dave Axland (and Bill Coore) did some really cool bunker work at Prairie Dunes prior to the US Senior Open held there, a few years ago. When you mention those bunkers that "clearly look 'ripped' out of the earth", are you referencing historic or contemporary photos?

[Mike_Cirba]

Where did High Pointe spring from?

[ed_getka]

Ian,
   Very interesting premise. It certainly makes sense and I knew Bill Coore had been consulting at PD, but I didn't realize it had been since 1984. I think this topic would be an outstanding feature interview with Bill Coore.

[PCCraig]

Ian,
   Very interesting premise. It certainly makes sense and I knew Bill Coore had been consulting at PD, but I didn't realize it had been since 1984. I think this topic would be an outstanding feature interview with Bill Coore.

I agree...I didn't know that he had been working there for so long. Would be a fantastic interview.

[Chip Gaskins]

prairie dunes certainly has sense of place.

i love the way the bunkers just tie into the native on the left...







i love the crumpled fairways!

[Tom_Doak]

Ian:

The first letter I wrote to Ben Crenshaw, in 1979, I asked him what courses I should study.  His response mentioned National, Shinnecock, Pine Valley, Merion, Cypress Point, and Prairie Dunes.  So Ben's interest in the place goes back pretty far, too.

I first went there in 1981 (about four days after I met Bill Coore at Waterwood National), but I don't remember the bunker styling being as you describe -- I am wondering if you were looking at a Dave Axland - modified bunker?  A lot of the bunkers near the greens at Prairie Dunes were round to oval back in 1981, although it was hard to tell that on others because so much plant material was growing into them!

I think you are right that Prairie Dunes had a lot of influence on Bill Coore -- as did Maxwell's Old Town Club, where Bill went to college.  But I think it's wrong to ascribe the advent of minimalism to any one course more than others.  For me it was seeing 100's of old courses in the UK and US, and for Ben I believe it was the same.

[TEPaul]

TomD:

I think that's true about Old Town if you track back something that had a greater influence on Bill Coore even before he got into the business. He's said how much he loved Old Town starting from his college days there.

But I don't think there is much question that if you really pinned down both Bill and Ben they probably would admit that over-all Perry Maxwell's architecture has had the most influence on them in various ways. Not that others haven't but I think they'd admit that all in Maxwell probably had the most.

[Lou_Duran]

A little bit off the subject, but the only thing that put me off from PD was the heavy, often impenetrable rough and native areas, some very close to the playing corridors on a very windy site.  I also didn't care for the yucca type plants, some growing in the bunkers.  The results of this maintenance approach are lost balls and a few blow-up holes, such that a low handicap non-resident member I know had failed to break 80 in some 20 rounds or so under his belt.

By comparison, I found its sister course, Crystal Downs, much more enjoyable, and just as natural and rustic, but with roughs and surrounds exacting "only" a half to a full stroke.  Perhaps MacKenzie's philosophy that a golfer who hits an indiffirent shot might be able to redeem himself with an exceptional recovery lives in Crystal Downs, but the Maxwells didn't necessarily subscribe to it or adopt it at PD.  

[David Kelly]

Coore first visited Prairie Dunes in the late 70s and he talks extensively about the various ways it has influenced his work in a book called, "Fifty Places to Play Golf Before You Die".

http://tinyurl.com/coyzph

[tlavin]

I'm glad to read that Coore and Crenshaw were influenced by Prairie Dunes, because it makes perfect sense to me.  I had the privilege of playing Sand Hills before I played Prairie Dunes.  The Sand Hills experience was simply overwhelming and it instantly became my favorite course.  A few years later, I made it to Prairie Dunes with my pal, Brian Doyle Murray, who is a member.  On the third hole, I said, "this golf course is the grandfather of Sand Hills."  As an earlier poster implied, it is likely that there would never have been a Sand Hills had Prairie Dunes not come along earlier, but the most astonishing fact about the place is that it was conceived 70 some years ago.  In the intervening decades, it had no real architectural-style competition that I'm aware of.  Sure, there are courses that were built in those years on similar sand hills landforms, perhaps most notably in the Pinehurst area, but for many years, Prairie Dunes stood as sui generis until Dick Youngscap got hooked up with C&C.  The vision and the genius of Perry Maxwell and the faithful completion by his son, Press, is surely one of the most significant achievements in golf course architecture in this country.  If Prairie Dunes is not the progenitor of Sand Hills, then nothing is.

[TEPaul]

Lou:

When I was out there they were really going to town on some of that very dense vegatation between and on the side of some holes. I particularly noticed what they were doing between #17 and #18.

[Tom_Doak]

Terry:

But, then, Crystal Downs, where Maxwell worked for MacKenzie on a similarly out-of-the-way project, must be the older cousin of Prairie Dunes.

[Ian Andrew]

Ian:

The first letter I wrote to Ben Crenshaw, in 1979, I asked him what courses I should study.  His response mentioned National, Shinnecock, Pine Valley, Merion, Cypress Point, and Prairie Dunes.  So Ben's interest in the place goes back pretty far, too.

I first went there in 1981 (about four days after I met Bill Coore at Waterwood National), but I don't remember the bunker styling being as you describe -- I am wondering if you were looking at a Dave Axland - modified bunker?  A lot of the bunkers near the greens at Prairie Dunes were round to oval back in 1981, although it was hard to tell that on others because so much plant material was growing into them!

I think you are right that Prairie Dunes had a lot of influence on Bill Coore -- as did Maxwell's Old Town Club, where Bill went to college.

Tom,

Thanks for the observation on the bunkers - it's quite likely that some of the bunkers that caught my eye were added or altered.

Ian:

But I think it's wrong to ascribe the advent of minimalism to any one course more than others.  For me it was seeing 100's of old courses in the UK and US, and for Ben I believe it was the same.

I guess it came off that I was pointing everything back to one course - and that was not the intent. I think the point I was trying to make was that it appears to have played a very important role in shaping the opinions and style of some very important architects in the “Minimalism Movement” (good how I hate that label).

You’re absolutely right; our philosophies are never the influence of a single course, but the summation of all our experiences. But I do think we are inclined to have certain architects and certain courses create the foundation for what we believe and what we do.

The other point I was trying to make is that the influence is not always direct. Often it comes through the influence of a secondary designer who was influenced by the original architect.

[tlavin]

Terry:

But, then, Crystal Downs, where Maxwell worked for MacKenzie on a similarly out-of-the-way project, must be the older cousin of Prairie Dunes.

That's why my motto is, "Often wrong, never in doubt"...

[Jason Hines]

If I could back up,

I am playing PD this summer for the first time and have been soaking everything in about the course history and design. 

Being a former Nebraskan that has played SH several times, (You’d be amazed at the size of the local membership) I am looking forward to the comparison, but also the uniqueness of PD.  However, I cannot imagine any other course being at SH than the one today.  My opinion is that Youngscap had more of a vision of what SH should become than anything else.

Most of my Midwestern friends try to get into the debate between which course is better, SH vs. BN as an example.  My explanation is that I have two sons, I love them both equally.
 
This summer I plan to add PD to that list of courses that I doubt that I could never choose one over the other.

[Dunlop_White]

Tom Doak,

Your thoughts, please? Everyone talks about the smallish "round and oval" shaped bunkers at PD, and especially SH? In contrast, most of Maxwell's original bunkers at Old Town were much more sprawling and charismatic in nature -- more like MacKenzie's bunker style, I guess. See pic below of Hole 12 at Old Town circa 1939. Notice the broom sedge that encases this large, elaborately-shaped bunker and the scabs of turf within it.  Beautiful in my opinion but far different from anything I've seen elsewhere in the Maxwell repertoire.

Thanks,

Dunlop

[TEPaul]

"I'm glad to read that Coore and Crenshaw were influenced by Prairie Dunes, because it makes perfect sense to me.  I had the privilege of playing Sand Hills before I played Prairie Dunes.  The Sand Hills experience was simply overwhelming and it instantly became my favorite course.  A few years later, I made it to Prairie Dunes with my pal, Brian Doyle Murray, who is a member.  On the third hole, I said, "this golf course is the grandfather of Sand Hills."  As an earlier poster implied, it is likely that there would never have been a Sand Hills had Prairie Dunes not come along earlier, but the most astonishing fact about the place is that it was conceived 70 some years ago.  In the intervening decades, it had no real architectural-style competition that I'm aware of.  Sure, there are courses that were built in those years on similar sand hills landforms, perhaps most notably in the Pinehurst area, but for many years, Prairie Dunes stood as sui generis until Dick Youngscap got hooked up with C&C.  The vision and the genius of Perry Maxwell and the faithful completion by his son, Press, is surely one of the most significant achievements in golf course architecture in this country.  If Prairie Dunes is not the progenitor of Sand Hills, then nothing is."



Terry Lavin:

You're probably right about that but I suppose the surest way to tell would be to simply get Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore to weigh in on this kind of analysis.

But even without that I'm going to throw something of an observational test at you anyway.

Just go to Ran Morrissett's course review (and extensive photographs) of both golf courses. Go first to SH. Pay close attention to the look of just miles and miles of rolling, treeless "prairie" with very little vegetative overgrowth other than prairie grasses.

Now go to PD. This will take some imagination on your part, but try to imagine PD with no trees, no vegetative overgrowth, no houses, powerlines or poles, nothing but the way it must have once been with miles and miles of rolling, prairie grass as far as the eye can see.

Now go back again with that in mind to SH and look again carefully at its architecture in its setting and compare it to the architecture of PD in that same setting that it probably once was.

If you can do that as I just did, I think you will find that it's pretty hard to find, with just a few minor exceptions such as the interesting tree strategies on PD's #12 and #14, two courses and their architecture that are as similar in look and seemingly style as those two are! 

Was it a coincidence? I doubt it but obviously the only ones who could say with assurance would be Ben and Bill. 

[Jason Way]

I was fortunate enough to spend last weekend at Prairie Dunes.  As many of you already know, it is magic.  I did a recap and photo tour post on my blog:


https://geekedongolf.com/2016/07/23/one-for-the-ages-a-weekend-at-prairie-dunes/


Having played Crystal Downs a few weeks prior, it was interesting to see the similarities, and differences.  I have plans to head out to Sand Hills in September, and now that I understand the lineage of influence and inspiration, I am even more excited for my trip. 


This old thread was the beginning of an interesting discussion about creative influence and inspiration, as well as the part that Prairie Dunes has played in influencing what I consider to be the best of modern architecture.  I'm not sure that the title of "most influential" needs to be assigned, but it certainly seems that Maxwell belongs in the same discussion with Pete Dye for deserving credit for this renaissance that we are currently experiencing.

[Tom_Doak]

Another way you could look at this is that Maxwell was MacKenzie's talented lead associate who supervised the shaping of Crystal Downs, and then built Prairie Dunes soon after.  And much of the minimalist approach is modeled on that relationship:  we all value talented associates and construction people, and some of the best of them go on to build their own projects which mirror the ones they helped out on.

I would say that Prairie Dunes, Crystal Downs and Royal Melbourne are the three courses where bunkers serve as the transition point to native areas, which has become the dominant style today.

[Joe Hellrung]

Nice photos and website Jason.  Thanks for posting.  PD has been on my bucket list for a loooong time - even before I got into GCA.  I wish more courses where I play had such a rugged look.

I was fortunate enough to spend last weekend at Prairie Dunes.  As many of you already know, it is magic.  I did a recap and photo tour post on my blog:


https://geekedongolf.com/2016/07/23/one-for-the-ages-a-weekend-at-prairie-dunes/


Having played Crystal Downs a few weeks prior, it was interesting to see the similarities, and differences.  I have plans to head out to Sand Hills in September, and now that I understand the lineage of influence and inspiration, I am even more excited for my trip. 


This old thread was the beginning of an interesting discussion about creative influence and inspiration, as well as the part that Prairie Dunes has played in influencing what I consider to be the best of modern architecture.  I'm not sure that the title of "most influential" needs to be assigned, but it certainly seems that Maxwell belongs in the same discussion with Pete Dye for deserving credit for this renaissance that we are currently experiencing.

[KMcKeown]

Does anyone know if the cottonwoods that hang over 12 fairway are original? When it's not 100 degrees and the greens are firm, it's one of my favorite greens on the course. There are so many spectacular green complexes at PD it's in my personal top 5 and gets better every time I play it. I feel like Doak tried to to take some of those green complexes to Ballyneal, just too bad they can't get the grass to grow like it does at PD. In all fairness, I didn't get to play it this season and PD has nearly 100 years of roots!

[Tom_Doak]

Does anyone know if the cottonwoods that hang over 12 fairway are original? When it's not 100 degrees and the greens are firm, it's one of my favorite greens on the course. There are so many spectacular green complexes at PD it's in my personal top 5 and gets better every time I play it. I feel like Doak tried to to take some of those green complexes to Ballyneal, just too bad they can't get the grass to grow like it does at PD. In all fairness, I didn't get to play it this season and PD has nearly 100 years of roots!

KMcKeown:  Obviously I love Prairie Dunes but I don't think the shots around the greens at Ballyneal are too similar.  I was at Ballyneal last week working on a new par-3 course, and I can report that the greens were very good ... probably not as fast as Prairie Dunes, but almost certainly firmer.