Prairie Dunes Country Club

Overview: Prairie Dunes occupies rolling sandhills outside Hutchinson, Kansas, where native grasses, ridges and hollows create an inland links with a distinctly Scottish visual character. Perry Maxwell’s original nine and Press Maxwell’s later nine use the land’s natural movement rather than flattening it, producing deceptive elevation changes and greens that reward controlled approaches. Wind and firm sandy ground are constant parts of the design, even though the course is far from the sea.

History: Emerson Carey and his sons commissioned Perry Maxwell in 1935 after Carey had travelled widely and studied leading courses. The first nine opened on 13 September 1937. Twenty years later, Perry’s son Press designed the second nine, which followed in 1957, creating the complete 18-hole course. Prairie Dunes was shaped with horses, mules, plows, scoops and wheelbarrows, with the construction teams working through difficult Kansas weather and preserving the character of the existing sandhills.

Did You Know? Perry Maxwell reportedly described the 480-acre site as containing 118 possible golf holes before deciding which ideas to keep. That remark captures the unusual richness of the ground: Prairie Dunes was not created by importing a links aesthetic onto flat land. The architects were selecting from a landscape already full of ridges, folds and natural playing corridors, then refining those features into a coherent championship course.