Can you make the argument that every hole at Prairie Dunes...

[Jason Thurman]

11 is a classically good hole with clear risk/reward propositions, a very cool green with varied surrounds, and plenty of teeth. I think it might feature the dullest terrain on the property, but you never really notice because it’s tough enough to demand your full focus. In that sense, and considering the architect had no choice about the previous green’s location, it might be one of the planet’s best transition holes.

[Tyler Kearns]

In the photograph of #8 that accompanied Dan Jenkins' Sports Illustrated article on his 18 Greatest Holes, the gunch between #8 and #9 appeared to be at shoetop level.  You only see it like that after one of the controlled burns every few years.


No picture but here is Jenkins' write-up on #8.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8 Prairie Dunes
Par 4 424 yds



Straight away in the distance, crawling across the horizon, are the sweeping sandhills. To the right and left, twitching in the normal 25 mph wind, are broad, swollen patches of knee-high native grass, festering clumps of yucca plants, plum thickets and sunflowers. This is the outlook from every tee at one of America's most unusual golf courses, Prairie Dunes Country Club, a course whose scenery and shot-making requirements are those of a Scottish links, but whose location—Hutchinson, Kans.—could hardly be farther from the Irish Sea.


As country clubs go, Prairie Dunes is certainly not opulent. The small clubhouse is white frame, the landscaping is, for the most part, Kansas natural and the lawn is spotted and unshaded. As for cuisine, it does exist, but a Hutchinson gourmet would prefer the Town Club for an evening out. Thus the country club is strictly a golf course, but a distinctive one.


This incongruous touch of Scotland on the Kansas plains was founded in 1937 as another golfing lark of the Emerson Carey family, a ruling dynasty in Hutchinson. It was built by Emerson Carey Jr. and his brother, Bill, who succeeded their father as benefactors of the town. Emerson Carey Sr., before his death in the '30s, had provided Hutchinson with four golf courses and a public park. The young Carey brothers hired Golf Architect Perry Maxwell to lay out a different kind of course on the unusual duneland in the area. Maxwell set forth each day with a bag of apples and a thermos to walk the ground, and he kept coming home confused. "There are 118 golf holes out there," he once said. "All I have to do is eliminate 100." Finally, he ran out of time—or apples—and he laid out Prairie Dunes.


By modern championship standards, Maxwell's 6,522-yard course is not long, but its rough more than makes up for any lack of distance. Even the best player has been known to take 15 swings or so trying to disgorge the ball from a yucca plant. The course first came to public attention in 1958, only a year after the second nine holes was completed, when a burly 18-year-old named Jack Nicklaus won the Trans-Mississippi Amateur there. Although he won, Nicklaus did not manage a round below 72, and to this day he still talks about the severity of the course. In 1962, Arnold Palmer and Nicklaus played an exhibition round at Prairie Dunes. They shot 72 and 77, and in the process Nicklaus demonstrated how to take an eight out of the matted rough.
There is also the wind. It can be so severe a factor that a hole which plays with a driver and a wedge on one day may require a driver, a spoon and a wedge the next.


The Prairie Dunes golfer constantly finds himself brooding on a windy hilltop—called a tee box by club members—from which he peers down into a swale of thorny growth. He can see little fairway on which his shot can safely land. Thus every hole becomes a challenge, but none is more challenging than the 8th. It is a long, forced dogleg to the right with no reward whatever for trying to cut across. The fairway rises gradually, bumping its way over four ancient dunes—formations that were apparently caused by the wind that whips into Hutchinson from the Arkansas River Valley. The first dune is 165 yards out from the tee and about six feet high. They get successively higher, the last one rising about 50 feet. A perfect tee shot will carry the first dune and have enough length and fade to clear the second, too. After that, the green, protected by four bunkers on the right and one more on the left, each of which is dotted with yucca plants, can be reached with a solid three-iron. The green itself, well uphill from the fairway, is large and severely contoured, inviting three excellent pin positions and making a long, curling putt a decided possibility.


My drive cleared the first grass-covered dune—called Hockaday's Hill in honor of a club member named Ray Hockaday whose drives always landed there—and the second dune as well. As promised, I had a three-iron to the green, but did not quite make it, glancing off into a right-hand bunker. Fortunately, I was in sand instead of a yucca plant. My trap shot was uneventful and my 20-foot putt woefully offline. I made the next putt from five feet for a hard bogey and leaned, more than satisfied, into the wind blowing over the Kansas sunflowers from an invisible sea.

David,


Dan Jenkins describes the native areas as being "knee-high".


Tyler

[Sean Leary]

11 is a classically good hole with clear risk/reward propositions, a very cool green with varied surrounds, and plenty of teeth. I think it might feature the dullest terrain on the property, but you never really notice because it’s tough enough to demand your full focus. In that sense, and considering the architect had no choice about the previous green’s location, it might be one of the planet’s best transition holes.

The knob on the front of the 11th green might be the best piece of architecture on the whole course, Perry or Press.   Genius.

[David Kelly]

In the photograph of #8 that accompanied Dan Jenkins' Sports Illustrated article on his 18 Greatest Holes, the gunch between #8 and #9 appeared to be at shoetop level.  You only see it like that after one of the controlled burns every few years.


No picture but here is Jenkins' write-up on #8.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8 Prairie Dunes
Par 4 424 yds



Straight away in the distance, crawling across the horizon, are the sweeping sandhills. To the right and left, twitching in the normal 25 mph wind, are broad, swollen patches of knee-high native grass, festering clumps of yucca plants, plum thickets and sunflowers. This is the outlook from every tee at one of America's most unusual golf courses, Prairie Dunes Country Club, a course whose scenery and shot-making requirements are those of a Scottish links, but whose location—Hutchinson, Kans.—could hardly be farther from the Irish Sea.


As country clubs go, Prairie Dunes is certainly not opulent. The small clubhouse is white frame, the landscaping is, for the most part, Kansas natural and the lawn is spotted and unshaded. As for cuisine, it does exist, but a Hutchinson gourmet would prefer the Town Club for an evening out. Thus the country club is strictly a golf course, but a distinctive one.


This incongruous touch of Scotland on the Kansas plains was founded in 1937 as another golfing lark of the Emerson Carey family, a ruling dynasty in Hutchinson. It was built by Emerson Carey Jr. and his brother, Bill, who succeeded their father as benefactors of the town. Emerson Carey Sr., before his death in the '30s, had provided Hutchinson with four golf courses and a public park. The young Carey brothers hired Golf Architect Perry Maxwell to lay out a different kind of course on the unusual duneland in the area. Maxwell set forth each day with a bag of apples and a thermos to walk the ground, and he kept coming home confused. "There are 118 golf holes out there," he once said. "All I have to do is eliminate 100." Finally, he ran out of time—or apples—and he laid out Prairie Dunes.


By modern championship standards, Maxwell's 6,522-yard course is not long, but its rough more than makes up for any lack of distance. Even the best player has been known to take 15 swings or so trying to disgorge the ball from a yucca plant. The course first came to public attention in 1958, only a year after the second nine holes was completed, when a burly 18-year-old named Jack Nicklaus won the Trans-Mississippi Amateur there. Although he won, Nicklaus did not manage a round below 72, and to this day he still talks about the severity of the course. In 1962, Arnold Palmer and Nicklaus played an exhibition round at Prairie Dunes. They shot 72 and 77, and in the process Nicklaus demonstrated how to take an eight out of the matted rough.
There is also the wind. It can be so severe a factor that a hole which plays with a driver and a wedge on one day may require a driver, a spoon and a wedge the next.


The Prairie Dunes golfer constantly finds himself brooding on a windy hilltop—called a tee box by club members—from which he peers down into a swale of thorny growth. He can see little fairway on which his shot can safely land. Thus every hole becomes a challenge, but none is more challenging than the 8th. It is a long, forced dogleg to the right with no reward whatever for trying to cut across. The fairway rises gradually, bumping its way over four ancient dunes—formations that were apparently caused by the wind that whips into Hutchinson from the Arkansas River Valley. The first dune is 165 yards out from the tee and about six feet high. They get successively higher, the last one rising about 50 feet. A perfect tee shot will carry the first dune and have enough length and fade to clear the second, too. After that, the green, protected by four bunkers on the right and one more on the left, each of which is dotted with yucca plants, can be reached with a solid three-iron. The green itself, well uphill from the fairway, is large and severely contoured, inviting three excellent pin positions and making a long, curling putt a decided possibility.


My drive cleared the first grass-covered dune—called Hockaday's Hill in honor of a club member named Ray Hockaday whose drives always landed there—and the second dune as well. As promised, I had a three-iron to the green, but did not quite make it, glancing off into a right-hand bunker. Fortunately, I was in sand instead of a yucca plant. My trap shot was uneventful and my 20-foot putt woefully offline. I made the next putt from five feet for a hard bogey and leaned, more than satisfied, into the wind blowing over the Kansas sunflowers from an invisible sea.

David,


Dan Jenkins describes the native areas as being "knee-high".


Tyler

I'm sure it was but not between 8 & 9 on the day they took the picture.  I think there is a copy of it posted in the hallway over by the men's grill at PD.  I may have it in one of my books and if so I'll scan it and post.

[Terry Lavin]

11 is a classically good hole with clear risk/reward propositions, a very cool green with varied surrounds, and plenty of teeth. I think it might feature the dullest terrain on the property, but you never really notice because it’s tough enough to demand your full focus. In that sense, and considering the architect had no choice about the previous green’s location, it might be one of the planet’s best transition holes.

The knob on the front of the 11th green might be the best piece of architecture on the whole course, Perry or Press.   Genius.

Playing this hole one day, I blurted out “this course has more false fronts than...”  My member pal quickly replied, “than a Hooters swimsuit competition.”  True that. 


A great little knob in the front of that green. Brilliant ground diversion.

[Scott Warren]

Sean and Terry,


I’m excited that we’ve reached the part in the round where we get to talk about Press Maxwell’s Knob!


My ode to the bulge in the front of the 11th green:
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,53264.msg1223873.html#msg1223873

[David Kelly]

What's maddening about the knob is that you generally can't just fly the ball over it as the shot is usually downwind and the green slopes slightly front to back. If the hole isn't playing downwind then the approach is going to be pretty long.

[John Kavanaugh]

Exactly but you can land the ball 30 yds short right if the knob and a magical funnel will direct your ball to the middle of the green. 

[David Kelly]

David,


Dan Jenkins describes the native areas as being "knee-high".


Tyler

Here is the picture from Jenkins' article and as you can see, while the gunch is "knee-high" in most places it looks like it was being cut down and maintained (somewhat) to the right of #8 fairway.


https://www.si.com/vault/issue/42857/35

[Morgan Clawson]

Tyler Kearns scouting the approach to the 11th.

[Terry Lavin]

Sean and Terry,


I’m excited that we’ve reached the part in the round where we get to talk about Press Maxwell’s Knob!


My ode to the bulge in the front of the 11th green:
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,53264.msg1223873.html#msg1223873

A lovely and articulate paean that is!  I’ll be visiting the Knob early next week. I’m sure to be humbled by this mischievous agronomic swale.

[John Kavanaugh]

Can we skip over #12? The only time the trees come in play is after a poor drive. They are damn dead solid perfect strategic specimens.

[David Kelly]

12 was worse 15 years ago before a vicious storm trimmed the tree on the right.  I would like to see them keep that big tree on the righ but remove at least some of the trees on the left.  The bunkers and gunch on the left side are enough of a deterrent that the trees on the left seem like overkill.


The 12th green is so diabolical that I'd like to see more players hitting it with irons then chipping on or coming in from the greenside bunker. On my first trip to PD I played the 12th four times and had two birdies and also putted off the green twice and had two double bogeys.

[Jeff Schley]

Question for those who have played here during multiple years.  In drought conditions, which we seem to have with regularity now does the course brown out and play very fast?  Or do they just irrigate as needed?

[Morgan Clawson]

Jason Thompson, Ryan Hillenbrand and Criss Titschinger on the 12th tee.

[Morgan Clawson]

Another look at the 12th.

[John Kavanaugh]

I don't know how you managed to take pictures that negate the elevation of the tee. Snakeview lens?

[John Kirk]

Can we skip over #12? The only time the trees come in play is after a poor drive. They are damn dead solid perfect strategic specimens.

No, we can't skip over #12!  I've been waiting for the discussion to get here to make one more observation before going back into hiding.

I am in complete agreement with The JK.  With the exception of a few beloved sandy and treeless courses, every course benefits from having a couple shots where the accuracy requirements are extreme due to trees.  At Prairie Dunes, you have the Cottonwood hole and the Chute hole. That's why I like the 6th and 7th holes at Pasatiempo more than most people.  You've got to test extreme accuracy under duress at least a couple times.

At Prairie Dunes #12, even a slightly mishit tee shot requires a thoughtful recovery around or over a mature tree. I loved the Cottonwood hole.  And since I've noted my fondness for two of the traditionally least cited holes on the course (#5 and#12), there must be merit to the statement that every hole is the best hole on the course.  My only reservation is the tee shot from the back tees on #13, which is too far for me to reach the fairway. 

[Bill Seitz]

On my first play, I felt like there was maybe a 5-10 yard wide stretch of fairway that you could hit where the trees wouldn't be in play.  I'm not sure that's completely wrong (though maybe exaggerated), but the next day, it dawned on me that the prevailing wind, being left to right, meant a shot on the middle-right of the fairway could use the wind to find whatever part of the putting surface the player is going for.  That said, depending on the length of the primary rough, I'm not sure that banging one way right to the forward tee on 13 isn't a smart play.  Totally takes the tall trees out of play, and all you need to do is pop a wedge or short iron over much smaller trees.

[Scott Warren]

My memory of #12 is of one of the most beautiful and intricate greens on the course. Slightly domed and with just enough internal contour to confuse you a bit.


It has been seven years, two months and about two weeks, so maybe I am glorifying it in my memory, but I don’t think so.


Does anyone have good pictures of it? Mine are inaccessible until I get a new power cable for my old hard drive.

[Tyler Kearns]

Tyler Kearns scouting the approach to the 11th.

Morgan,


Both rounds that frontal knob repelled a long running approach shot from the right hand rough, great little feature.


Tyler

[Tyler Kearns]

David,


Dan Jenkins describes the native areas as being "knee-high".


Tyler

Here is the picture from Jenkins' article and as you can see, while the gunch is "knee-high" in most places it looks like it was being cut down and maintained (somewhat) to the right of #8 fairway.


https://www.si.com/vault/issue/42857/35

David,


The rough in the picture looks much more manageable than today, and probably closer to what it should be to add a bit more enjoyment to a round at Prairie Dunes. 


Tyler

[John Kavanaugh]

Isn’t it enough for those who don’t own their swings that the USGA instituted the charitable drop rule after a lost ball? You may not find your ball in the gunch at Prairie Dunes but you will find three others.
 

[Ryan Hillenbrand]

If it makes the Mashie guys feel any better, the gunch is at its worst in late summer I'm told - especially after this hot, wet summer we had. I was there early June and most in our group were findings their balls and had a chance to play out of it.

[Bill Seitz]

Isn’t it enough for those who don’t own their swings that the USGA instituted the charitable drop rule after a lost ball? You may not find your ball in the gunch at Prairie Dunes but you will find three others.

Maybe.  Some places you'd have a hard time finding a basketball.  You may find a ball if you accidentally step on it.


As for the drop, I was confused during the Mashie.  If someone hit it in the gunch, people kept saying "lateral" and then would drop up near where the ball likely finished.  It was never clear to me whether the rule was "Go to where the ball finished and drop laterally", which would make sense for pace of play, or "play it as a lateral", which is a MUCH different interpretation of the rule.