Prairie Dunes Country Club Hosting the US Senior Open
Wednesday, July 5, 2006
Golf in American’s heartland.
When the top senior golfers in the world tee it up this week at Prairie Dunes for the US Senior Open, they may feel as if they are playing a British Isles links-style golf course. In fact, they will be landlocked in southern Kansas. Often compared to the seaside courses of England and Ireland, Prairie Dunes is narrow, rolling, and guaranteed to be windy. It is an amazing championship golf course, with unique design, a fascinating history, and it has been meticulously carved out in the middle of America’s heartland.
In 1935, Emerson Carey, a successful Kansas businessman and avid golfer, decided that the small town of Hutchinson (between Dodge City and Wichita) needed a masterpiece golf course. Carey commissioned the work to course architect Perry Maxwell, the designer behind Southern Hills, Colonial, and the redesigns at Pine Valley and Augusta National.
The original nine holes at Prairie Dunes were hand built, using only horses, mules and plows to clear and shape the greens and fairways. Roots of native Kansas grass were removed by hand, one wheelbarrow load at a time The only mechanized vehicles used in the construction of Prairies Dunes were the Model T and Model A Fords that transported the workers to the site each day.
It took more than two years for the nine holes to be completed, including time out to repair the damage a classic Kansas twister left on the landscape. The second nine at Prairie Dunes was not finished until 1957, when Maxwell’s son took on the task and added the finishing touches – this time with the help of modern technology.
At the US Senior Open this week, you’ll see the ever-blowing Kansas wind redirecting the players’ shots, and the plum thickets, cavernous bunkers and cottonwood groves claiming far too many balls. You can expect the USGA to have “polished” the greens to lightning fast speeds. So sit back and watch Champions Tour legends Fuzzy Zoeller and Gary Player compete, along with Tour newcomers Loren Roberts and Greg Norman. Of course, at SellMyTimeshareNOW, we’ll all be cheering for Bobby Cole – he’ll be wearing our logo as he takes on this challenging course. And if you planned ahead, you’ll be there to see all the golfing greats at play from your Kansas timeshare resale or Kansas timeshare rental.