Prairie Dunes (With Photos)

[rjsimper]

Just returned from my first trip to Prairie Dunes and I've got to say I was more than impressed with it.  While I've always heard how highly regarded it was, I've always thought that I'd find it good but maybe not quite my cup of tea.

I found it to be exactly the opposite - immediately one of my favorite courses and a place I think everyone should go if they are able.

Without getting too much into discussions that have been had before (or overlapping Ran's writeup) I'd say that the things that struck me most strongly were these:

1) The course is nowhere near as narrow as reputed - You can lose a ball on every single hole, sure, but you know you've hit a very poor shot if you do.  The corridors are much wider than I'd imagined them to be.

2) The greens are possibly the best I've played - my favorite thing about them is that they are contoured without being crazy (like a Doak green, for example).  Often times a single feature dominates the playability of the green and even your approach shot.  The thought process is much more complex than simply being on the right level or in the proper quadrant of the green.  Take, for example, the hump short of the 11th green - You have to start thinking about this single feature from the tee.  Same goes for the fall-off left of 18 and even the hump on the right side of 1.

3) The course is much more fun that I'd thought it would be - when considering it against other highly regarded middle-america courses (Ballyneal, Sand Hills) which have been built with the fun factor looming large, I'd imagined Prairie Dunes to be the antithesis of fun - long, windy, narrow, and difficult.  While it is at times long, certainly windy, and without a doubt difficult, it's not narrow and it's a ton of fun - from the rolling fairways to the greens that have just the right amount of contour to them, to the various chipping areas and the often awkward recovery shots from them, it's just through and through a fun (and extremely challenging) course.

As for the pics (Sorry, don't have a scorecard in front of me for yardages)

1st tee just after sunrise


Behind the 1st green


2nd hole


3rd tee


4th hole - par 3


5th hole - par 4


6th hole - par 4


8th hole - par 4 - one of the best holes I've ever played


8th green - Can't even begin to capture the contours here


10th hole - par 3


12th hole - par 4


14th tee - very confusing on the first play


15th tee - par 3 with a menacing chute of trees to navigate


16th green


17th fairway - Par 5 - 517 yards


The extremely difficult 17th green


18th hole - par 4


Behind the 8th green with the 9th and clubhouse in the background

[Mike_Cirba]

Speaking of Prairie Dunes, where the hell is Tom Paul with his review and analysis??!??!  

Great pics, Ryan!

[Jon Spaulding]

Awesome photo work....I love the native grass framing; the par 4's look especially strong. Hope the trusted 3-metal served you well.

....and when will the write up be posted on greenskeeper.org ?

[D_Malley]

are both 2 & 4 par 3's?
isn't that a pace of play issue?

[David Stamm]

Magnificent! Great photo work Ryan. What a treat that must've been!

[TEPaul]

I'm sorry, MikeC, my review of Prairie Dunes is procrastinating---like everything else with me. But I promise I will do it. Actually, I started it and copied it to WORD.

Ryan:

I went out there myself for the first time within the last month and I felt that golf course was some of the most sophisticated application of really good golf architectural principles I've ever seen in my life, and believe me I have seen just about all the great golf courses and architecture.

[Mike_Cirba]

I went out there myself for the first time within the last month and I felt that golf course was some of the most sophisticated application of really good golf architectural principles I've ever seen in my life, and believe me I have seen just about all the great golf courses and architecture.

Tom,

That's exactly why I'm being such a pain in the ass to get you to write it.  

As someone who loves virtually everything about PD, with the exception of the severity of the gunch (which, with your straight ball I'm sure you never saw), I'm really eager to compare notes.

[grandwazo]

Great pictures and great analysis.  I have a friend who visited last year and hasn't stopped talking about it since, definitely a place I would make a special trip to.  
Thank you for taking the time to post.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ryan,

Thanks for the pictures.

Prairie Dunes is a wonderful golf course, although, with the newly NARROWED fairways I don't think it's as good as it was when it had more generous fairways.

Why do clubs that host big tournaments, that prepare the golf course specifically for highly specialized and superior field, leave the course as it was prepared, for vastly superior golfers, when the vast majority of the club members who will play the golf course for the next decade are average to high handicappers ?

[Brad Swanson]

Great photos Ryan.  I'm with Pat regarding the fairway mow lines.  Some of the fairways look mighty narrow, and the disconnect from the "fairway" bunkers and the fairway is dubious (speaking not from playing experience, however, but just photographic evidence).  

Cheers,
Brad

[ed_getka]

Ryan,
  Thanks for the post. After my first trip there I started a post about what keeps PD from being the best course in the US. I too think it is an exceptional test of golf while still being quite fair and enjoyable. As you stated you have to hit a pretty poor shot to be in serious trouble. The course can be summed up in 3 words, ....no let up. All four aspects of your game will be equally tested: driving, approach shots, short game and putting. The other course I put in this category is Royal Dornoch.

Patrick and Brad,
   I don't think the fairways are much if any narrower than when I was there a couple of years ago. #17 is the only one I see in these pictures that looks a bit narrower. Some of our resident members will have to chime in with the definitive answer.

[Peter Pallotta]

Patrick, Brad

I can't speak about the narrower fairways from any kind of  architectural or playability angle, but on first seeing Ryan's pictures (thanks Ryan) my 'eye' was certainly thrown off by the rough/narrow fairways. In picture after picture, it just felt like the fairways were meant to extend all the way to the fescue/gunch. I can't properly explain why, but maybe it's the overall feeling of 'expansiveness' that I get from the property/site that makes very wide fairways make 'sense', or at least makes narrower fairways seem 'disproportional'. I know this is a very poor way to put it, but in the face of so much open space and air, some of the fairways seem 'stingy'.    

Peter

[Sean Leary]

Ryan,

Thanks for the pictures.

Prairie Dunes is a wonderful golf course, although, with the newly NARROWED fairways I don't think it's as good as it was when it had more generous fairways.

Why do clubs that host big tournaments, that prepare the golf course specifically for highly specialized and superior field, leave the course as it was prepared, for vastly superior golfers, when the vast majority of the club members who will play the golf course for the next decade are average to high handicappers ?

Pat,

Do you feel the same way about Merion? PD and Merion are similar in this respect with narrowed fairways.  PD's rough is usually kept shorter and less penal than Merion's (of course Merion does not have the gunch)..

[TEPaul]

"As someone who loves virtually everything about PD, with the exception of the severity of the gunch (which, with your straight ball I'm sure you never saw), I'm really eager to compare notes."

MikeC:

I do admit I was inordinately straight once, but even with that I would probably feel then as I do now about that.

That gunch out there all over Prairie Dunes doesn't bother me (and I sure did get in it last month) and if you noticed a simulacrum of it is actually their logo.

What I didn't like about PD, and I believe the only single thing I did like, were those really wide swaths of rough cut on either side of that gunch on most all the holes (par 4s and par 5s).

I actually wrote an email to the guys I went out there with and the PD GM saying I didn't like that and why. And when I talk to Bill Coore (or Ben) I'm going to tell them the same thing.

The reason I didn't like it is it didn't look right to me and it also, in some instances, took away the most perfect risk/reward areas for even good golfers--like on #1 left, #8 right, and perhaps #3 right. Other than that those really wide rough swaths took away some really great conservative risk/reward areas like on #6 left and #11 and #12 left.

I said although I realized it was a cost item I thought if a course had gunch that penal and ball-eating there should be a ton of fairway latitude to off-set the penality of that gunch and those really wide rough swaths were a serious aesthetic and strategic compromise to that.

Nobody answered me so I guess my suggestion was like a bad smell. That's OK with me.

You know, the deal with this kind of thing is sort of Max Behrian-----eg it's not about the degree of penalty of the hazard feature---it's about the amount and degree of latitude to let any golfer feel like he has the CHOICE to avoid it.  

[David Kelly]

In picture after picture, it just felt like the fairways were meant to extend all the way to the fescue/gunch.

They weren't meant to extend all the way to the gunch and they have never been cut out to the gunch.  If they were then they would have been some of the widest fairways in golf.  I think what you are seeing especially with regards to the pics of 17 is kind of a forced perspective.

There is a fairly large landing area available off of the tee on 17 because you are teeing off at an angle.  After that the fairway does tighten as it gets closer to the hole but as there are no trees, fairway bunkers or cross-hazards on the hole the narrowing fairway is one of the major defenses of the hole.  That and the wind which is generally in your face and the diabolical green.

I agree with Ryan that there is ample room off of the tee and the fairways are more than wide enough.  

[TEPaul]

I don't care if those wide rough swaths on either side of the gunch (and fairways) is the way it's always been at PD.

This is a good example of how maintenance practices today can make some courses, even great ones, better than they've ever been.

This is a time and a great example of how the thoughtful "minds" of this unusual website can and should speak up about how architecture (and particularly through maintenance practices) can be better than it's ever been.

Those really wide rough swaths at PD are BS aesthetically and strategically in play, whether they're traditional or not.

Take those things out and I can't imagine a single reason why that golf course is not IDEAL.

[John Kirk]

As I said before, I enjoyed the course very much when I played it.  I also found it to be quite difficult.

I made a long post late last year.  In my post, I mentioned that I witnessed 18-20 balls hit into the gunch in 45 holes of tournament golf with 0-5 handicap players.  Therefore, the chances that a low handicapper would spray the ball into the gunch was about 10% per hole.  Most of these balls were not found.

The fairways are pretty wide.  The course is a gas to play.  But the long grass areas come into play regularly.

Doak may build wild greens, but I have never seen a Doak green more severe or punitive than the #2 green at Prairie Dunes.

[Adam Clayman]

Patrick, I don't disagree with you but it should be pointed out that Stan George did widen the mow lines after the Senior event held there recently.

I feel like Peter that covering that wonderful terrain with rough grass is an example of a blight on the modern maintenance presentation.

The picture of the little fairway rolls, visible in the picture of the 17th, that extend into the rough, is likely the spot where I came to this realization.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ryan,

Thanks for the pictures.

Prairie Dunes is a wonderful golf course, although, with the newly NARROWED fairways I don't think it's as good as it was when it had more generous fairways.

Why do clubs that host big tournaments, that prepare the golf course specifically for highly specialized and superior field, leave the course as it was prepared, for vastly superior golfers, when the vast majority of the club members who will play the golf course for the next decade are average to high handicappers ?

Pat,

Do you feel the same way about Merion?

Absolutely.
And, I've posted my objection numerous times.
If you read my last paragraph, it's a universal criticism, not a select one.[/color]

PD and Merion are similar in this respect with narrowed fairways.  

Are you saying:  If Merion makes a mistake and other courses make the same mistake, that it's not a mistake ?

Or, are you saying that hallowed Merion gets an exemption, and therefore, that exemption inures to the benefit of courses that follow suit ?[/color]

PD's rough is usually kept shorter and less penal than Merion's (of course Merion does not have the gunch)..

I've been in the "thistle" at PD and it's no picnic.
On the other hand, when looking for a ball in the "Thistle" perhaps taking a picnic basket wouldn't be a bad idea.[/color]

[Patrick_Mucci]

David Kelly,

If the fairways are "wide enough" now, why were they much wider years ago ?

Do you think Maxwell erred in designing the original playing corridors ?

Adam Clayman,

Your statement is one of relativity, not absolutes.

If a fairway was narrowed from 40 to 26 yards and then widened to 30 yards, you're not going to tell us that the fairways have been returned to their original widths, are you ?

Saying that they've been widened since the departure of the Senior Open is misleading as the viewer might interpret that as going back to the original widths, which they haven't.

The question I posed in the last paragraph of post # 8 remains unanswered.

[Scott Szabo]

I've never been there, but the rough appears totally out of place.  Is it thick enough to keep balls from rolling into the gunch, thus making the course more playable?  I'm thinking the rough may be a savior for many balls heading for their death in the gunch.

[Peter Pallotta]

"The picture of the little fairway rolls, visible in the picture of the 17th, that extend into the rough, is likely the spot where I came to this realization."

Adam - good catch; I didn't 'see' those myself the first time around, but I think you're spot on.

And I think TE puts it the better way, i.e. instead of the 'narrow' fairways, it's the 'wide rough swaths on either side of the gunch (and fairways)' that don't fit/please my eye...for the reasons I already mentioned

Peter

[Joe Hancock]

Is the "narrow fairway/wide rough" look unusual though? I think that is the same wardrobe that Merion wears......

If that is todays business attire for championship golf, I'm all for a more casual sun dress...not just for looks, but for comfort as well....

Joe

[KBanks]

How long was PD nine holes? When did Press Maxwell build the second nine there?

What a great looking course.

Ken

[Sean Leary]

Doak may build wild greens, but I have never seen a Doak green more severe or punitive than the #2 green at Prairie Dunes.

FYI. #2 green is being softened by Bill Coore next month to create more hole locations.