By Rand Jerris, USGA

Hutchinson, Kan. - This year the U.S. Senior Open has come to Prairie Dunes, a dramatic and scenic golf course in the sand hills of south-central Kansas.

Most eyes at Prairie Dunes this week will be focused inside the ropes, on the course and on the players. The galleries will follow closely more than 30,000 strokes that will be played by the field of 156 of the world's most talented players during the four days of the championship. And the course will no doubt test every aspect of their game – their accuracy of the tee, their creativity from the fairway and their deft touch around the greens.

But there exists another side to Prairie Dunes that will no doubt receive considerably less attention this week. This is the world that thrives outside the ropes, on the balance of the 420 acres that have not been cultivated into lush twisting fairways and exquisitely manicured greens. For one of the most remarkable features of the site is the richness and diversity of plant and animal life that co-inhabits a landscape that has become most famous for its golf course.

The golf course at Prairie Dunes winds and curls its way across a landscape that was built by the forces of nature through 250 million years of geologic history. In ancient times a vast inland sea covered the interior of what would become the North American continent, leaving extensive sandy deposits that were later sculpted by the forces of the wind into the immense sand dunes upward of 60 feet in height that tower over the surrounding landscape.

An American Gold Finch is seen among the Black Eyed Suzans that grow wild throughout the golf course. (John Mummert/USGA)

In more recent millennia, these dunes have fostered and supported a lush growth of plum thicket, prairie grasses and the distinctive yucca plant that appears on in the club's logo. Stately cottonwoods are scattered here and there among the 18 holes, largely outside and beyond the lines of play with a few notable exceptions on the back nine.

Although the action on the course holds greatest attention, it is hard to ignore the raw, natural beauty of the site as one walks among the dunes. In many places, broad paths have been cut through the dense vegetation to facilitate the movement of the galleries as they follow their favorite players. One particularly memorable path begins by the green of the par-3 second hole, cuts in front of but well below the third tee, then traces the high dune ridge that defines the left side of this hole from tee to green. The hole, known as "Wild Plum," is a short par 4, played from a tee perched on the highest spot on the course. The fairway in the valley below runs on a sharp diagonal from right to left, and the tee shot must carry at least 210 yards of dense thicket to find the short grass.

In truth, it may be difficult for the members of the gallery to follow the play occurring on the fairway beyond and below the designated path. But it does provide a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the richness and variety of plant and animal life that thrives at Prairie Dunes. Here, a careful observer will encounter dozens of different plants – low shrubs, lush prairie grasses, distinctive stalks of yucca standing proudly under the Kansas sun, and resplendent wildflowers in a rainbow of hues. According to one recent estimate, more than 100 species of plants and flowers abound at Prairie Dunes.

The prairie grasses, including big bluestem, little bluestem, Indian grass and switch grass comprise the densest cover in the local landscape. Scattered throughout are the many varieties of native wildflowers, including Arkansas rose, aster, black-eyed susan, Missouri goldenrod, wayleaf thistle, and wild indigo. And not to be forgotten are the small but cheerful sunflowers that trace the arc of the sun through the sky each day. Approximately 74 percent of the site remains in its natural state with native plants growing in out-of-play areas that form a natural buffer zone around most of the course.

According to a recent ornithological survey co-sponsored by the USGA, Prairie Dunes Country Club, and nearby Tabor College, the course is also home to as many as 70 species of birds, including the American robin, bobwhite, common grackle, least flycatcher, yellow-breasted chat and eastern kingbird.

Wild turkeys are often seen in the dense undergrowth in and among the cottonwood trees. The study, sponsored by a USGA Green Section Research grant and directed by Dr. Max Terman, a professor of biology at Tabor College, also identified some rather unusual species of bird deserving of particular care, such as Henslow's sparrow, Bell's vireo, dickcissel, grasshopper sparrow, yellow-billed cuckoo, and Mississippi kite. In recent years, a ring of 27 houses have been erected around the golf course for the several hundred fledgling bluebirds that are hatched on the site each spring.

The course also provides habitat for rabbits, white-tailed deer, and bull snakes (thankfully for the

Yucca, pictured in the Senior Open logo this year, is one of more than a hundred species of plants that adorn Prairie Dunes. (John Mummert/USGA)

galleries, the rattlesnakes that once inhabited the property were eradicated more than 50 years ago). And it would certainly be an omission to fail to mention the abundant insect life that thrives on the course, even if we all could do without the mosquitoes and ticks that seemed a bit too abundant earlier in the week at Prairie Dunes.

The abundance of wildlife – both plant and animal – is a proper reflection of the special care afforded the landscape when the course was constructed more than 70 years ago. Perry Maxwell, the prominent American architect who first laid out the course at Prairie Dunes, was a firm believer that nature was the ultimate designer.

In an era when many designers employed heavy machinery to move thousands of cubic yards in constructing a course, Maxwell stood firmly for minimal intervention in the landscape. "Millions of dollars annually are wasted in devastating the earth," he said in an interview that was published in The American Golfer in 1935. "Many an acre of magnificent land has been utterly destroyed by the steam shovel, throwing up its billows of earth, biting out traps and bunkers, transposing landmarks that are contemporaries of Genesis… The less of man's handiwork, the better a course."

One imagines that Maxwell would be pleased with the state of the landscape today at Prairie Dunes. The same plants that covered the sandy dunes when Maxwell discovered the site in 1935 still thrive here today. Indeed, the club has gone to extraordinary lengths to guarantee that its property has remained wild enough to qualify as a certified sanctuary by Audubon International.

Come Sunday, a champion will be crowned at the 2006 U.S. Senior Open. The crowds will disperse and the club will once again become a quiet enclave in the sandy hills of south-central Kansas. And the natural beauty of this landscape, the abundance of birds and wildflowers that defines this unique ecosystem, will once again reclaim its status as the true treasure of Prairie Dunes.

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