"The first time I played the course, I knew it was the best I had ever seen, even though it was only nine holes." -- Wichita-native Judy Bell, two-time member of the U.S.A. Curtis Cup team and Past President of the USGA

By Rand Jerris, USGA

Hutchinson, Kan. - Prairie Dunes was born in the heartland of America in the heart of the Great Depression. It was the vision of two brothers, William D.P. Carey and Emerson "June" Carey, Jr. The former was a Rhodes Scholar who found himself enamored of the Scottish golf courses he played while a student at Oxford. The latter was a football star at Cornell who won the Kansas Amateur in 1931 and 1935 and dabbled in golf course design.

In 1935, the brothers enlisted Perry Duke Maxwell, a rising star in the world of golf architecture, to carve a new course out of the remarkable landscape of south-central Kansas. The Careys had originally settled on a site just to the north of the town of Hutchinson (pop. 40,000), but it was Maxwell who persuaded them to look a bit further to the east, at a piece of property the architect had spied from the train on his way into town.

The site Maxwell selected was remote. Paved roads stopped two miles shy of the property, and access came only by way of sandy footpaths. But the landscape was extraordinary – a 420-acre expanse of rolling dunes left by an ancient sea, sheathed in dense thicket of thorny plum, soap weed, yucca and native grasses.

The sixth hole will play 394 yards during the Senior Open. (USGA Photo Archives)

Maxwell immediately declared the site the finest he had ever seen. "There are 118 good holes there," he said. "I just have to eliminate 100 of them." He might better have said "109," because for many years, Prairie Dunes was just that – a nine-hole golf course.

The Carey brothers had originally intended to build a regulation18-hole course at Prairie Dunes (indeed, there were once plans to construct a second 18 as well), and Maxwell had laid out just such a course. But this was the height of the Great Depression, and the financial support and manpower required to build out the full design were in short supply. A decision was thus made to construct nine holes – the nine sitting closest to the clubhouse.

Construction began in 1935, with labor supplied by President's Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration. The first nine-hole routing was complete by late summer of 1937, and the course officially opened for play on Sept. 13.

Among the players at Prairie Dunes on opening day was Johnny Dawson, one the nation's leading amateurs (and later a member of the 1949 USA Walker Cup team). Dawson was effusive in his praise, calling the course "a true test of golfing skills" and labeling it the best nine-hole course in America.

Maxwell, usually self-effacing and restrained, told one local reporter, "I told you the boys would agree with me when I said there isn't another nine-hole course like it in the United States."

And the following year, the Kansas State Golf Association (then celebrating its 30^th anniversary) awarded the 1938 state amateur championship to Prairie Dunes, despite the fact that the course comprised just nine holes.

Maxwell's original layout survives today, as holes one, two, six, seven, eight, nine,10, 17 and 18 of the present course. The original configuration measured 3,165 yards and played to a par of 35. Holes two and seven (today two and 10) were par 3s, while the eighth (now the 17th) was the lone par 5. Four of the original nine are recognized today among the strongest holes on the course – holes two, five, seven and eight (today two, eight, 10 and 17). Three of these holes (the original second, fifth and seventh⁾ were recently named among the Top 100 holes in the United States by Golf Magazine, while the original fifth hole has long been celebrated as one of the great par 4s in all of golf.

The original nine holes are virtually unchanged from the design first developed by Maxwell. Most changes to the course were comparatively minor – a bunker was added at the second, bunkers at other holes were expanded or reshaped, and a small number of fairway bunkers were added to stop errant shots headed into the dense thicket.

At the third (today the sixth), a new tee was constructed that added 52 yards but did not substantially alter the playing characteristics of the hole.

The original fourth (today the seventh) was once a long par 4, stretching 440 yards but often reachable in two due to the prevailing wind. The later addition of a new tee stretched the hole some 70 yards, in the process converting it to a par 5. At the same time, the bunkers that guard the green on the front left and front right were extended to wrap around the front of the green and defend the opening.

Maxwell's eighth (today the 17^th) originally played tougher than it does today. When first constructed, the tee sat further to the west, closer to the tee of the present 11^th hole. This created a severe dogleg right, which challenged the player who wished to reach the green in two to carry a significant expanse of dense thicket. Today the hole is shorter, and plays straightaway from tee to green.

Several factors, most notably the onset of World War II, delayed the construction of more holes at Prairie Dunes. A prolonged cold-spell in 1940 killed much of the Bermudagrass on the fairways. Soon thereafter, heavy rains left standing water on many fairways, further damaging the turf.

In 1955, 20 years after construction commenced on this extraordinary site, the members of Prairie Dunes finally decided the time had come to expand the esteemed nine-hole layout - $125,000 dollars was raised to build an additional nine holes and expand the clubhouse.

J. Press Maxwell, son of Perry Maxwell, was summoned to Hutchinson to complete the work his father had begun. It can only be surmised that the son was familiar with the routing his father had devised for the course (at one time a plan showing the original 18 holes existed, but sadly this precious document is now lost). What can be stated definitively is that Press Maxwell artfully and seamlessly integrated nine new holes into the landscape that were both complemented and respected his father's work. Three new holes (holes three, four and five) were inserted to create the front nine, while six new holes (the 11^th through the 16^th) were added to complete the back.

The new layout opened on June 2, 1957, to wide acclaim. In the years that followed, Prairie Dunes rightfully assumed its place, no longer to be known as the best nine-hole course in America, but widely regarded among the premier courses in the world.

Dr. Rand Jerris is the Director of the USGA Museum and Archives. E-mail him with questions or comments at rjerris@usga.org.