Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at B Dratty. We've been up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan playing a ton of golf this week, checking out a few different courses for the website and the podcast. While up here, I've been rocking a bunch of Bee Dratty gear on and off the course. The B Dratty polos are without a doubt, the best out there. It's been pretty cool up here in the mornings, and sadly
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This episode, it's a little bit different. We're trying something new here. Let us know what you think about it. But Garrett Morrison, our managing editor at The Frida Egg joined we just kind of talked about our trip to Prairie Dunes and Southern Hills where we odd on some Perry Maxwell. So we just talked about the differences and talked extensively about the recent renovation effort at Southern Hills, which is in line to host some major championships in
the near future. So we talked at length about Gil Hans's renovation there at Southern Hills, and also our experience over at Prairie Dunes and the golf course and Perry Maxwell and one of the more underappreciated architects in the world. So let us know what you think about this episode. I think we'll do more and more of these about specific courses and architects as as we go along.
I miss a Green, for example, I'm already upset.
When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
And when I find my ball in a frid Egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Friday, Frida egg egg, Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the course.
So, Garrett, how's how's life in Portland?
Life in Portland is great. It's very chill up here. The golf is good, and we're really enjoying ourselves. Yeah, Oregon's awesome.
That's that's good. It's uh, how do you find the golf scene there versus Pebble.
It's so much different, and in a lot of ways it's so much better because the the golf scene in Monterey was all about those great courses that were sort of destination courses for people, super expensive to play. If you were a local, you weren't on them very often, and so golf was a very kind of formal thing
on the Monterey Peninsula. You know, if you're a local, your your options are kind of like Pacific Grove, Monterey Pines, Poppy Hills, sometimes the Black Horse Bayet courses and even those places, like they're not the cheapest courses in the world and if you go there, you can expect a longish round And so that's kind of what golf was for me for a few years there. And now you know, now that I'm in this area, there are short courses, there are pitching potts, there are golf courses that have
like mini golf facilities attached to them. It's a lot different golf is you know, there's more variety and it's a lot less formal here. So I'm really enjoying it. I know a few of the courses in the area already because my parents live up here. But my dad and I are going to try to play a different course every Friday morning and so we'll kind of explore this scene that way. But last week we were at Eastmoreland,
which is a municipal course in Portland. Pretty cool, and yeah, we'll go someplace different tomorrow morning.
Oh that it's exciting. It's a nice little tradition, you know.
Yeah, yeah, it'll be It'll be a good way to kind of take advantage of the golf season because the golf season does end here. There's there's a there's a point at which you it's it's no longer fun to play golf in Oregon, it gets a little bit too wet, so we're going to try to get it out of our systems before that happens.
So we uh we took a trip a couple of weeks ago to down did a little Maxwell tour. This is your first exposure to Perry Maxwell. I'd seen some stuff. I'd been to Prairie dunees, so we we draw we uh went to Prairie Dunes and UH Southern Hills and figured we'd reconvene here and talk a little bit about Perry Maxwell and UH. In the two courses we saw, obviously, Prary Dune's iconic place that you know, most people have heard about, and Southern Hill is a you know, championship course,
but had just underwent a gil Hant's restoration renovation. I'm not sure what you would call it, you know, retrovation.
He well, restovation is sometimes the term people use, but he said twenty to twenty five percent renovation and seventy five to eighty percent restoration. That's the number he put on it.
So what did you know about Prairie Maxwell, Perry Maxwell. I call them Prairie Maxwell, Perry Maxwell. Coming into the trip in what kind of were your key takeaways from the architect that you know most people don't know a ton about.
Yeah, I knew embarrassingly little about Perry Maxwell going into this trip. I guess I knew that he had designed Prairie Dunes, and I was really excited about playing that course. I've been I've been looking forward to playing that course for many years now. But aside from that, I suppose I primarily knew him as an Alistair mackenzie associate, somebody who helped build a few of Mackenzie's courses, including Crystal Downs,
and so that's primarily where I heard his name. I was aware that there were some great courses that he built in Oklahoma and in that general region, but aside from that, just didn't know much about him. I guess I had heard the term Maxwell rolls before, right, which refers to the characteristics of his greens, his his kind
of rolling greens. But you know, at the same time, there are a lot of architects who are who are known for bold green contours, and so it didn't really stick in my mind as being something distinctive to Maxwell. So that's kind of what I knew before. What about you, like, so you had played Prairie Dunes before. I mean, what was your appreciation of Maxwell, like.
And I'd seen Crystal Downs to which he had, you know, he was pretty you know, he's obviously Mackenzie's associate there and had you know, large role in that golf course.
And you know, I think one of the things I take away from Perry Maxwell, and I think like Langford Moreau fall into this bucket too, is that we like we romanticize the Golden Age architects, and the ones that get the most love tend to be the ones that designed in the most high profile places and have had their their designs the best preserved, right where like Alisair Mackenzie is obviously one of the greatest architects of all time, but he also has the you know, he has like
museum pieces that have been well preserved in very high like Cyprus Point is a perfect example of that, where it's on Monterey Peninsula, like it gets it's got huge exposure and it is perfectly preserved, right And I think, like, you know, the same thing could be said about like the Rayner McDonald's out east, where they're in these high
profile areas and they haven't been that messed up. And I think Maxwell and Langford Moreau are two architects where their designs are in lesser known places, lots of small towns,
lots of rural areas. And they also were building golf courses at the very end of the Golden Age and had their careers kind of derailed and a lot of their work for many reasons because where they built it haven't hasn't been preserved the way you know, National Golf Links or Piping Rock or these types of golf courses have out East or tillinghas to work in New York.
So I think they're I think Perry Maxwell, you know, arguably is maybe the most underrated or underappreciated architect in the country of the US architects.
Yeah, he might very well be. And I think also part of it is and you alluded to this by saying that length Ford and Moreau and Perry Maxwell both built a lot of courses in rural areas, in small towns. Perry Maxwell built most of his courses in the same region in Oklahoma. I'm not exactly sure how many courses he built in Oklahoma alone, but it was a lot, and so to a great extent he was a regional architect.
You know. That's not to say that he didn't go elsewhere. Obviously, he built Old Town, he worked on Augusta National, He did some traveling, especially after he had gotten established as an architect, but the concentration of his work was in Oklahoma, in the area where he lived. And I think that regional architects do tend to be underappreciated compared to these globe trotting architects like Alistair mackenzie, or compared to architects who built near huge urban areas.
Yes, and Thomas, Yeah, like his Thomas you could say was like a regional architect in a way, you know, but but he was building it in la and you know, build these famous championship courses.
And I think the same is the same could be said of today's architects. Right. We have a set of globe trotting international architects who often will get to work on some of those courses near big urban centers. And then we also have these architects who are focusing their work in one region. Dan Hickson in Oregon, the Collagon Design Firm, Trade Camp in Texas, you know, and there's a lot of good work going on in these concentrated
regional places. But obviously a lot of the attention tends to go to the architects who are traveling the world, like Tom Doak or Gil Hans or David clay Kid.
Yeah, yeah, bring up. And then there's also these guys that now with the way architecture is today, is like they have to specialize in and they specialize in a certain thing. So like you know, Chris Spence with Ross Restorations, or Jeff Mingay has been doing tons of Avy mccannwork in Pacific Northwest, like.
In n C. He's very much. Yeah, he's kind of on this regional model, isn't he He's he's a lot of his work is in Washington and and I guess British Columbia.
Yeah, it's it's interesting and I think it so seeing seeing too, you know, now very well preserved Maxwell courses, you know, with with the original nine, So Perry Maxwell did our original nine at Prairie Dunes for those that don't know, and it was it's widely considered kind of
the last design of the Golden Age. You know, it's probably argued it's you could argue men, but you know, it's considered you know, kind of like the last great design of the Golden Age, you know, and then his son Press came in and did a subsequent nine that's apparently to the plans that Perry had laid out when
when he designed Prairie Dunes in the late thirties. So he did this in the height of the depression in Hutchinson, Kansas on you know, the Sandy site, and did it with pretty much no money, which is one of the amazing things I think with Maxwell's how many courses he designed during the Great Depression.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's remarkable. And he designed his best or best known courses in nineteen thirty five, nineteen thirty six, nineteen thirty seven, right, and that was a really hard time to get anything built in America, much less golf courses. But there were some I mean, we can get into this further later, maybe, but there were some unique circumstances about where he was and who he was that enabled him to do this. You know, he was, first of all,
an independently wealthy person. He didn't really go broke like other Golden Age architects did, and so in some senses he was an exception and took advantage of circumstances in his area. Nonetheless, he built these courses for for very little money, uh, even even at the time.
Yeah, you've read Maxwell's book. I've read some of it. Uh that The Midwest Associate that.
Uh Chris Klauser.
Yeah, Chris Klauser, And I was curious, what how did Can you give us a little background on Perry Maxwell?
Sure? Absolutely, I now so I'm definitely not a Perry Maxwell X expert. I've just read this this book by Chris Klauser called The Midwest Associate. Also read a couple of kind of specific things about the Southern Hills and Prairie Dunes club histories. But from what I was able to gather from cliffs Chris Klauser's book, Perry Maxwell grew up in Kentucky in a wealthy family. Eventually relocated when he was making a family of his own to Ardmore, Oklahoma,
where he worked as a banker for many years. And he was a very well respected and well known local person. People all over the region, in fact, knew who he was and and uh and really respected him as a as a banker and a significant member of the community. While he was still working at the Bank in Ardmore, and this happened to be actually a very wealthy little pocket in Oklahoma at the time because of the oil money. So there was a lot of money running through there.
There were there were a lot of kind of newly rich people, and he was he was part of that part of that cash flow. I guess you could say Perry Maxwell got interested in golf architecture. And his first course he actually built on his own land, So that was Dornic Hills and it's right there in Ardmore, on the on the Perry Maxwell estate, and that's where he kind of worked out his initial theories and methods of golf architecture. It looks like it used to be one
heck of a golf course. I mean, just fascinating. There's still sketches of what the holes look like. It still exists there, but I think in very much altered form. And so that's how he got his start, and you know, from there he you know, throughout the nineteen twenties he was building courses in Oklahoma and the surrounding areas, some courses in really remote places and some really rough places, a few sand green courses, and he just eventually developed
a great reputation as a golf architect. Eventually, Alistair mackenzie heard about him and used him on a couple of projects, including, as you mentioned earlier, Crystal Downs. And then when the depression hit, Perry Maxwell was one of the few golf
course architects who was still really producing significant work. So in nineteen thirty five he was He built Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that opened in nineteen thirty six, and then right after that he built the original nine at Prairie Dunes, and those are probably his two best known original designs. Now, in any case, he's a he's a remarkable person. There's a lot more to his life story. But a couple of the ways in which he's distinct
from other architects of the Golden Age. First of all, you know, there there were no other you know, architects that we know of now who were in his region or anywhere close. And so it's just you know, there's this genius golf architect who came out of Oklahoma.
He visited Scotland too, you know.
Yes, that's right in nineteen twenty, I believe.
Yeah, So like that, I think that's something that where you see so many of the the Great Golden Age architects learned from Scotland. And I remember reading he got he got interested because of National golf links and he went and talked him to CB MacDonald and then went to Scotland and and that kind of It's it's amazing how many, you know, how the architects that built golf courses in America that went to Scotland and those that like I, you know, it's just a really fascinating dichotomy.
And it's like, you know, the most seemingly the most prolific ones came either from the UK or went on a pilgrimage to Scotland.
The pilgrimage was part of the education, right, it was almost a necessary step. And I think Parry Maxwell really took the lessons that he learned in Scotland to to heart.
You know, he he when whenever he spoke about golf course architecture, he wasn't as prolific in hiskind of public speaking about or writing about golf course architecture as Alistair mackenzie or C. B. McDonald were, But whenever he did speak about golf architecture, he talked about, you know, learning from Scottish courses, that nature was more interesting than anything
that man could create. There's, in particular, this interview that appeared in the magazine and American Golfer in I think nineteen thirty five, and it's just you know, quote after quote, and this interview is just fantastic. So he says things like, it is my theory that nature must precede the architect in the laying out of links. It is futile to attempt the transformation of wholly inadequate acres into an adequate course.
Invariably the result is the inauguration of an earthquake. The sight of a golf course should be there, not brought there. Later on, he says, the less of man's handy work, the better. Of course, he was really a fanatic about about naturalness. And I think that he probably you know, that conviction of his was confirmed by going to Scotland and seeing how those courses were laid out on the land.
Yeah, I think. I mean, obviously you see a lot of the way he uses land, the land at at Prairie Dunes. I mean, he did it with his tiny budget. It's it's one of the amazing stories that he did with essentially an ox and a cart. He built this golf course and and the only way you build a golf course that way is by using the natural terrain. And and I think one of the things, you know,
there's the blindness. And he was kind of the last of the of the you know, the artists that before we entered this new era of golf architecture where you know, the the designs became kind of built versus you know, found, and uh, it's it's an interesting thing. I think one of the one of the parts of his legacy that just you know, and this is everybody favoring to talk about Alistair Mackenzie, but you know, Maxwell was so vital in the development in what today is is Augusta National.
I mean, you know, for example, the tenth hole got you know, is pretty much entirely Maxwell. He moved the greens, you know, ninety yards. That's why there's that Mackenzie bunker sitting there in the in the middle of the fairway. And you know, also made a ton of modifications on the greens while also being extremely involved in the building of Augusta National. I mean, he was partnered up with
Mackenzie to do that project. You know, Mackenzie worked with Robert Hunter on the West Coast, and pretty much everywhere else he worked with Perry Maxwell.
Yes, right, if you go through that great article that appeared in Golf Digest a couple of years back, the complete changes to Augusta National, and you just go through hole by hole and look at what Perry Maxwell did there, you begin to understand that to a significant degree, that course is the result of a kind of cross generational collaboration between a number of architects, but very high among those is is Perry Maxwell. And especially when you see that tenth green, you know that is a that is
a Maxwell Green. There are some other Maxwell Greens on that courses as well, and people often forget that.
Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about Prairie Dun't. What were your impressions of Prairie Dunes. We we spent a couple of days there played it. I don't know, played how many holes fifty four holes about?
I think is because that one evening we played nine.
Yeah, it was it was a very very hot. It was you know, in the end of June, so it's like one hundred degrees every day, and uh, you know the but the I mean, I'm curious as as somebody that hadn't been there, what what would you expect and what did you come away thinking?
So I was very excited about playing Prairie Dunes. I had been looking at pictures of that course and maps of that course since I was a golf architecture nut as a kid, and and and I had always thought of it as one of the courses that I really wanted to play. It just looked cool, and so I was really excited about it. My expectations were very high, and they were, you know, completely met by by my
experience at the course. You know, I don't I don't see how they how they couldn't be just uh, once you drive into that region of land, right, you're sort of you know.
So it's about fifty minutes from Wichita's right, Yeah, it's Hutchinson, Kansas. So you know, like the last spot in America that you'd expect a great golf course, you know, maybe not the last one of the last.
Well, you just don't expect that land to all of a sudden appear out of the prairie. Right. You're going around you fly into Wichita and you're kind of driving around there and it's perfectly lovely and everything, but you
just don't see it yet. But then you know, about thirty miles twenty thirty miles away from Prairie Dunes, you start to see the land rumple a little bit and you start to see these sand dunes and these kind of exposed sandy blowouts, and there you are in the middle of the country and you see this kind of ocean shaped stuff. And so that's the first thing that strikes you is just how completely ideal the land is.
And when you drive into Prairie Dunes, you know, the first thing you see is not necessarily the golf course. You don't necessarily notice that, hey, there's the golf course. It's more like, you see this incredible land, these huge sand dunes, these really interesting landforms, and then you start to notice, okay, there are some fairways and greens that
are that are draped across these landforms. And so, you know, that was my first impression, just driving down that driveway and seeing the incredible undulation of that piece of property. And it's a it's a really unique looking place because while it's sand dunes, right, and and so it's familiar in the sense that you've seen these kinds of undulations on links courses before. But the flora, the trees and the grasses is very much prairie stuff. And so it's
a perfectly named golf course, right, it's prairie dunes. It's not your you know, I don't I don't know if there's a typical sand dune, but it's not your typical kind of seaside sand dune looks yeah, yeah, like you or you see in Bandon or something. It is its own completely unique ecosystem there. I've never seen anything quite like it. These cottonwood trees and the guns and you know, all this stuff, it just looks it's not just pure
seaside stuff. It's it's something different. It's a hybrid of of landscapes, and it's really really striking and really beautiful. And obviously Perry Maxwell was smart enough in building the original mind and and you know, to his credit, Press Maxwell allowed this to happen too, that they didn't violate these this terrain. They just kind of put the golf course on top of it, you know.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that's the neat thing. And I mean, you see it with Golden Age architecture so much is is where you know, with the lack of earth moving equipment they had they had, they had no choice but to use the land. And then you know, you can tell with Prairie dunes, like the effort was so focused on on the green complexes where they were gonna you know, generate interest at the green and through
the land the natural topography. You see those micro contours of uh where you know you're rarely hitting from even lies.
At prairie dunes, you know a lot of side hill lies, uphill downhills if you're you know, especially on you know, some select holes where you know the eighth today, eighth and ninth holes you know have this unbelievable you know kind of rolling small like eight foot contours to them which create you know, all types of different lies and you just you know, you hit it and you pray that you get a good one versus and it's it's much more. You know, it's a it's a very Links feel.
I would say it's an American Links golf course without a doubt. And and the greens and I think I think, like you know, I had always heard Maxwell rolls and until I really had bend to Prairie Dunes I didn't really understand what that was. But the way he built these roles is it's so much different and more unique than the shelf that use shelves you see at you know, like your traditional say course down the street, where you'll have like a you know, an undulation going up and
then it's a flat tier. Right, the way Maxwell built them was there you're sloping up and then it hits the peak and then there's a slope on the back. So that what makes these greens so unique is when you're on the wrong side of a Maxwell roll, you have to hit a putt up over a hill and then that it's going to run back down a hill in a way, so it just requires so much more of a deft touch to navigate then your kind of uphill flat putt that you see at so many golf courses.
Absolutely, and when you are on the greens, you're not thinking to yourself very often, oh, this is an absolutely crazy green, or you know what an insane green this is. There's a subtlety to them, but the movement is constant on them. Every part of those greens is moving in some way or another, and you start kind of reaching for these metaphors. Are they like potato chips? Are they scalloped?
Are they? You know, like, uh, there's just a kind of a wonderful unity to all those green complexes, and they're just a lot of fun to play around because each of them you haven't really seen them before, you know, how you most greens you go to, you can kind of compare them to something else. Each of those greens, especially on the original nine at Prairie Dunes, is pretty unique and really fun to play.
It's interesting comparing because you know at Prairie Dune, so that the second nine was built by Press and you know they're kind of mixed in between in between, so you play you know one, two, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, seventeen, eighteen is the original nine, but all the other holes are press is nine And I think like what you see is that you see there's a distinct difference in the greens in the press holes are exceptional golf holes, but you can see that the difference in the Press
maxwell greens and like, and you can just see the difference, you know, really like you know, you don't want to, but like the skill of parry versus press is so evident in those greens, because when you're twenty feet away on a press green, you're going to have a very makeable putt, But on a pary green twenty feet away, you're gonna have you're gonna have to hit an unbelievable putt to make it.
Yes, the press greens are just a little bit less complex. Now there are exceptions to this, right The third green, which is a press maxwell green, is pretty cool, you know, and has some of those characteristics that the Perry greens have, But in general they aren't they aren't quite as bold. But you know, whenever you compare the Perry and the press holes, which is something that is you know, you can't resist doing it. You always have to keep in mind. I think that the press holes, as you and you
alluded to this, are still really, really, really good. It's just that that original nine is just about the greatest golf course that I've ever played, you know, that original nine hole course. Every single hole is absolutely brilliant, And so you can't help but make the comparison. But I was wondering, so what are some of your what are some of your favorite holes at the on the course, whether they're Perry holes or press holes. What are someones that you would want to highlight.
Yeah, I think like the sixth hole is maybe my favorite hole hole on the golf course. And obviously I think, like I have to say, like, you know, one of the things it's a terrific course. Like one of the things that's crazy about Prairie Dunes is this one of
my favorite courses that I've played. And the simple fact is that you know, it might be the best course that I've ever played that still can get like twenty thirty percent better just with presentation, because like the six is a perfect example where like the mo lions are just it seems like since they when they hosted the US Senior Open that they never seem to get their mo lines back out, and just by widening out the fairway, they'd restore so many of the features that are there.
And the six is a perfect example where you know the fairway has you know, essentially shrunk to where you know what used to be a central bunker is now in the left roff, and you know then there's another bunker that's you know, twenty yards in the right ruff. You know the rough out there isn't isn't crazy thick, The gunch is horrible stuff. But I think I think the six is really neat. It's one of the neatest drive and you know drive wedge par fours that I've
played with the just the green and anything. And then obviously the eighth hole is tremendous. I mean the terrain. We talked about that a little bit and it's it's it's it's a long par four with I think one of the things out at Prairie Dunes is the amazing thing is you always get wind out there. We played it on like very calm days, but even you know, one of the days, having like a eight mile an hour wind out there is much stronger than your typical
eight mile hour wind. And I've played it on days where there's it's blown twenty five and it's like you're just praying for dear life. And I think that's one of the unique things with the with what Maxwell did was he he was you know, afforded the great land, he built great greens, and then the wind takes care of it. Like when the wind blows out there, it's hard of a golf course as you could possibly play.
Yes, especially with the gunch the way it is, and maybe we could talk about that more later. But the the high grass beyond what's main maintained regularly at Prairie News is stuff where you're often not going to find your ball, and if you do find your ball, you're probably not going to be playing it out of it. And so if the wind blows and you're not completely in control of your golf ball, you're going to lose a few out there. And the course gets really hard
really quickly. And I think the course, even without a lot of wind, is very very difficult for somebody who is struggling to hit it straight off the tee. Like it's just going to be a non starter from the beginning, I know. I you know, for especially the first couple of rounds there, I didn't have great control over my golf ball and and things just start moving very very very quickly.
Yeah, that's I think. I mean, obviously the gunch is some and they work so hard on fixing there, and I mean it's it's one of the native areas or some of the toughest things to maintain, and it's it's so much better than the last time I was there.
But the you know, i'd love to see that return, like you can see with some old photos they have like this like kind of chunk sandy with like a native in it, and they're more exposed sand, and that would be that'd be cool to see with the sand dunes getting a little bit more exposed, uh and thinning that stuff out. But the it's I mean, it's just an amazing place, and I think you know that it kind of sets a it sets a tone well for you know, understanding Maxwell. You get a really good feel there.
And then I was I was actually the course that really kind of blew me away was was Southern Hills. I had ever been, but i'd you know, watched the PGA and the US Open there or back in the day when when Tiger won and then the one that Goosen won and I uh, you know, like showing on TV the way it did with the bunkers and the trees, it just it did not look like an interesting course. And getting out there, I was like, that's that's kind of where a light bulb went on for me with
with Maxwell and how good he was. Now for a quick word from our sponsor. Today's episode is powered by TDM Yor Trade. Whether on the course or in the market, it helps to have a second set of eyes to keep you on your game. That's why tedom or Trades Trade desk is here to help gut check your strategies so you always feel confident teeing up a trade. Visit tedomritrade dot com slash fried Egg to learn more about what their trade desk can do for you. Member s
I PC. Now back to our talk about Southern Hills and Prairie Dunes.
Yeah, I'd agree with that. Yeah, and Prairie Dunes you expect to be great, you know, it could hardly help being great with that land. Obviously, the the Maxwell's used the land brilliantly and turned that into an unbelievable golf course. But when you go to Southern Hills again, it's a great piece of land, but you but it's not obviously as as sublime as the sand Dunes up in Kansas, And so walking around that course and seeing how it's
put together really brings Maxwell's brilliance into relief. I think, all right, so what are what were your first impressions of Southern Hills. Now we got there in the in the evening and we kind of walked with the superintendent down onto the grounds. What were some of your first impressions as we as we went in there, because it really does make a first impression.
Yeah, it's you know, it's TV is historic. You know, everybody talks about it. It flattens everything and I couldn't believe how bland and generic TV. And you know, I guess kind of the the way the golf course was presented then had made it look because you walked out there and like you're standing on the first tee, which you know, the clubhouse is on this high hill, and
then everything kind of unfolds from there. The first tea and the tenth t go from this high hill, and the front nine goes out and kind of spirals around and comes back up the hill, and then the back nine goes off the hill and spirals around and comes back up the hill. And I think, like the thing that your first impression is like, holy cow, this this
is like a grand property like that. That seems to be the word that I always always get fixated on when I'm describing Southern Hills is it's just like a grand place, Like it is a true championship course. It's got space, it's it's bowl, it's big, and it's brawny
and in the land. That land in a way reminded me in parts of Augusta National because it's got this they have this creek that runs through the property and everything around that creek it is is just it's got this really nice movement to it and these big broad slopes that you know bank you know, fairways off of just like you'd see at Augusta with like the thirteenth. The twelfth at Southern Hills really reminds me of that where it's banking hard on right to left, just kind
of like the thirteenth at Augusta. And I just I was blown away with the property and I think that it's a course I can't wait to see, you know, major championship golf played at it again.
Yeah. You just want to see a crowd on that course.
And it's going to be a really really fun place to go see a big championship, I think, because and it probably was, you know, in the two thousand and one US Open, in the two seven PGA Championship, but even more now after the restoration, because you can see across that property so well now, I mean there are still trees, but there are gaps between them and When you walk down into the valley from the hill where the clubhouse sits, you can just see in every direction.
You can see to the edges of the course and it's just a playground out there, and a lot like Augusta. You know, there are these huge scale slopes and everything generally moves away from the clubhouse and it's bigger than it looks on TV. So those are some similarities with Augusta. But the underrated thing is that the routing creates these
little areas of activity. Augusta does that as well, and so if you're watching a golf tournament there, you can camp out in certain places on that course and see action on multiple different greens at once. If you go down by the first green, you'll be able to see what's going on obviously on the second T, but also on the third green and the fourth T and the eighth green, the ninth T and the seventeenth green, and the seventh green is just across the second hole. There.
That's just a hub of activity, and even without anybody there, it's an exciting place to be. You just feel like golf is happening around you. And then there are these great kind of greens all clustered around each other, and I saw. I think that the course creates excitement in that way, it creates a concentration of energy. And so for that reason, it's just going to be a really really fun way, fun way fun place to see a
golf tournament. And I think if it's covered correctly, I think it is shot correctly on TV, that that will really be brought out because now you can see across the property a little bit better.
What do you think of Gil's work there in terms of the there were a couple things that he changed to modify for championship golf. You he wrote a great article kind of going in depth about the whole renovation restoration done there, and I'm curious. So there were a couple modernizations, there's some new te'es. It's not like put fully back, but you know, this is a golf course that wants to host champ major championship golf, right.
Yeah. That was the theme of my article that I eventually settled on, was how Gil Hans on the one hand, obviously is committed to restoring golf courses, right he's inspired by Golden Age golf architecture. Southern Hills is certainly an instance of Golden Age architecture, and so I don't think he would have gone there and not tried to restore as much as possible, and he did in a couple of ways that we can talk about. But at the same time, he was very aware that Southern Hills wants
to host major championships in the fewure. The PGA Championship is going to go to Southern Hills sometime in the next decade, probably twenty thirty, maybe twenty twenty.
Five, hopefully sooner than later.
Yeah, twenty thirty seems like a long way away, but there are some other championships that are going to be held there in the meantime. I believe that. Is it the Senior Open that's coming up fairly soon? Yep, it's it's yeah. But in any case, he in doing his work there. He was obviously aware that he couldn't completely put the course back to its nineteen thirty sixth form, because if he did that then it wouldn't really be
a twenty first century championship golf course. So there would have to be certain changes he'd have to make, and it was beyond just establishing some of those back teams. Now that shouldn't be underrated. Obviously, when you when you put a t back from the original ones, you have to kind of put it on the right angles, and
there's a whole art to that. But there were other things that he did there to accommodate future championships, one of which was to you know, probably the most noticeable change on any given hole was at the seventh hole, which had already been changed right. Maxwell's original hole at the seventh hole was a dog leg, a fairly short dog leg par four that veered up a hill to the left with a green that's right on a boundary.
Later on, by the nineteen sixties, the club had moved that green back down the hill, making the hole more or less straight away. It no longer veered left. It kind of ended at this green that was in the middle of what used to be the kind of crook of the dog leg going up and turned it into sort of a somewhat featureless hole. I guess the drive was still pretty cool because you're kind of trying to carve something into that big left to right slope.
And it was kind of like semi blind, which, yeah, Maxwell like blind t shots is one thing definitely picked up on.
That's one. I think it's probably one way in which he opened up sight lines going into greens, right, because he didn't move much land, and so if you're going to have any places where there are blind shots, it's going to be on a drive because generally his sight lines are pretty open going into greens, right.
Yeah, really open. I can't think of any blind.
I don't think from what I can gather, it doesn't seem like he really believed in in blind or even very much semi semi blind approaches. I guess that there are some greens that you're on.
The wrong well, if you're on the wrong side, and like you wonder where, like I always wonder where like the first fair way of prairie dunes should be, you know, because if you went up the left there, you could be blind over that dune.
That's one of those mowing lines from the the Senior tournament, but has been It's really obvious when you when you got there and look at it. It's just this straight mowing line going right up the middle of what should be the fairway. Yeah, but yeah, no, you're right. It's so he used concealed or open sight lines to reward precise tee shots and stuff like that. But in general, you know, his routings are really clever. Right, he took the land, he didn't move much of it, but he
made the routing work. In any case, that hole at Southern Hills had been changed. It was now three hundred and eighty yard part four. There wasn't a whole lot of difficulty there, right, most pros, most modern pros, were able to hit a hybrid and then still have a short iron into the green. And so Gil instead of restoring Maxwell's hole, decided to push the green back and
put it up against the creek on the right. And what he created there is a really interesting strategic par four and it can stretch to about four hundred and forty yards. It'll be a challenging hole. That approach is not comfortable, and there are some angles in play there, and it's a very very good and interesting hole in a tough hole. But it's not a Maxwell restoration. That is a gill Hands hole at this point. And I
don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that. But if you're a pure restorationist, if you're a hardliner about about Golden Age architecture and about the necessity for bringing it back, then that hole might be a site of objection.
Yeah, I think that hole is really compelling just because of the way the land moves and you know, you you're in a drive and the further left you go, which is you know a little bit more aggressive. There's trees, you get a flatter lie, you get rewarded with a
flatter lie and a more approach. The way the angle of the green is, if you're over on the right, you've got this left to right lie ball below your feet, which you know promotes that right miss, and the creek is pushed right up against the right edge of the green from there, so like you your miss is right into that creek, and that's that's a hole where you really you have to just commit and hit a really good shot into that green, which I think is really
good for championship golf. And it's going to be a hard hole for members regardless, but like a member who's you know, you can just hit it up there short and chip on and putt like it's it's a really it's one of the ogle v always Jeff Ogilvie always talks about like, you know, hard to make birdie, you know, easy par bogie holes like at Augusta, and that that's
like a quintessential hole. I feel like at Augusta, worry you, if you want to make a birdie, you really have to have to hit a great shot, and it wouldn't be that hard to hit into the middle of the green and to put to and make par for a pro you know. Granted you made bertie.
You know, I had an unusual hole there, that was an uncharacteristically well played hole on my part. But yeah, I mean it's playable. I hit a good drive and that was really what set me up right. I had a much easier approach than than you did. But in any case, that's that's one sort of big change. But I think we both agree that we like that hole.
I mean, it's a cool golf hole. I'm not sure what the old one would look like now, but certainly what gil Hans contends is that having that green that near the boundary now wouldn't really be workable, especially because you know, the urban Tulsa has grown up around the course since it was built out in the country, you know, back in nineteen thirty five, and now it is surrounded by by dense development, and so you can't really have
greens as hard against the boundaries. And he did move a couple of other greens away from boundaries, or at least one other the par three fourteenth hole, And so those are some of the accommodations you have to make for what happens.
I think one of the things it does is it gives it better cadence on the front night, like because right the way that the front night flows, and it adds a little variety. Actually, if you know, if they restored it back, it was you know, the fourth hole, the fifth hole is, so there's a par three long par three six before then the fifth hole is a par five, and the fourth hole is a short par four, and the the third hole is a medium length part four nothing, you know, it's it's a it's a.
Short for the pros. Yeah, I'd still be hitting short irons into that green for sure.
So having a medium to longer par four in that in that spot fits well because the ninth hole is a short part four all like a shortish par four, and the tenth hole isn't really isn't a very long hole either, so like having that in there, it gives it a little bit more variety. So I think it. I think it's a I really like that change, to be honest.
I agree, And I think it's going to be a fun hole to watch. It's a nervy shot, you know, and and you'll you'll be able to see on TV where they are in the fair way and kind of lie they're facing. Yeah, I think it'll be cool if they were if they were playing the old hole, it would be a pitch up the hill and no doubt it would be cool, but a completely completely different kind
of golf hole. So another big change that was made, and another thing that I kind of focused on in the article was the first hole, which is a long ish more medium length par four going down from the clubhouse spectacular tee site right in front of the clubhouse,
basically directly outside the clubhouse door. And it goes down the hole and moves to the left along with the kind of right to left sloping land to a really cool green that has edges that kick away and the green generally sort of moves away from, uh, the line of play, and.
It opens from the left side.
It opens from the left side.
Yeah, you know, being on that left side is a big, big advantage.
And that was the strategic principle that gil Hans had in mind when he moved the bunkers on that hole. So that hole used to have bunkers on the outside of the dog leg on the right. Robert Trent Jones put those bunkers. In the run up to the nineteen fifty eight US Open. He added bunkers in various parts of the course, not many bunkers, but he did add some fairway bunkers and a few green side bunkers. Those
were among the bunkers he added. He put them on the outside of the dog leg on the right, And as you alluded to, you don't want to be on the right on that hole because that becomes a really hard approach where the green is running away from you. You're hitting over a bunker and you're also hitting toward a back bunker. You're directly in line with those two bunkers, and it's hard to hold the green from there. Really.
You also have the ball above your feet up there, and it's just it's just not the kind of shot that you want. You don't want to be hitting a hard draw for right hand and or down that green right at those bunkers. So you want to be on the on the left side, and that left side of the fairway just had trees on it. It was that
that was its defense. It has been widened, trees have been removed along that hole, and in doing the renovations, Gil Hants could have just taken the bunkers out if he wanted to do a pure restoration, but he decided to put the bunkers on the left side. Now the bunkers are exactly where you want where you want to be on that hole, and so they serve a kind of classic strategic purpose. But it is not a pure restoration. Nonetheless,
I can't argue with that change. You know. It's it's a really really good golf hole and those those bunkers are you know, if you're going to put fairway bunkers on that hole, that's exactly the right place.
Yeah, yeah, I mean in the short crass, that's you know. I talked to Jeff Ogilvie a little bit, you know, off the kind of before I think it was after we finished recording our last podcast, and I asked him about it, and he was like, you know, just the presentation, like if they just had more short grass there, it would have been so awesome. In seven, he's like, it's a great, great golf course and it's like now they have the short grass, and it's so refreshing to see
because you know these greens. It just accentuates these Maxwell greens. And we talked about Maxwell greens and the rolls with with prairie dunes at Southern Hills, you just see all the greens fall off, you know, in all these directions, and then it's just short grass that further repels them away. And that's going to be a really compelling thing to watch when the Senior PGAs there in twenty twenty one
and when they have the PGA. Is that we've seen this recipe work so well for championship golf is short grass with great land and topography. You know, you think about your Shinnecock Hills where you've got short grass, lots of fair away, but then short grass around greens with repelling edges, which is what you see at Southern Hills. And then you think like Augusta National, you got short grass everywhere in a really great set of greens, many
of which are Maxwell greens. And I think that's where the what it gets to be most excited about Southern Hills is that you're going to see a championship course that has many of the shares, many of the characteristics of our favorite championship golf courses that we get to see, and you know, a certain extent, port Rush was that way a couple of weeks ago for the Open Championship as well, where you had repelling green edges and really nice topography that yielded a lot of uneven.
Lies, repelling green edges and sometimes collecting green edges right if you're coming in from the right angles. Sometimes sometimes that short grass can help funnel your ball to where you want it to go. And that's part of what we saw port Rush as well. That was so fun to watch. But it should be said that Hants restored the focused on restoring the edges of the greens at
Southern Hills. A lot of the interior contours of the greens had previously been put back, so Hans was able to kind of focus on the edges and a lot of work had been done on those edges, and generally what you see are contours that kick away and that and the and the kicking away effect is enhanced by the amount of short grass that is around the greens now,
and there are these expanses of short grass. You look at that first green, everything in every direction is short grass, and so that's going to be extremely uncomfortable because if you miss, your ball is going to kick away and it's going to keep rolling. And we've we've seen that be a very uncomfortable proposition for for good players. So yeah, I mean, it's it's going to be a really, really
fun one to watch. I guess the big question here, and you know, I didn't really dive into this too deeply in the article because maybe I don't really know the answer, But do you think that Southern Hills would be a better golf course if there were not the imperative to prepare it for championship golf, if it just didn't if it didn't want to host major championships, if there weren't that pressure on it, and and that wasn't part of the thought process in restoring slash renovating it,
do you think it would be better?
That's an interesting question. Like I think the seventh hole is really good, and that's like a you know, one of the things, and I think the first hole, like you alluded to, it makes way more sense with those bunkers on the left, Like if it was bunkerless, it would be more playable. I guess the question would be, like, do you think there'd be more even more short grass and more trees removed if there if it if it was not had no qualms about hosting major championship.
Golf, maybe there'd be more trees removed. I mean, the tree removal is not radical there. It's definitely there's definitely been tree removal. There's a lot been enough, like a lot of tree removal because that that place used to be very heavily treed. There are still trees in play on the whole. That's that's part of the penalty for missing the fairway, and there is there's a significant amount of rough. The fairways aren't endlessly wide. I don't know.
I don't know if these things would necessarily make the golf course better, But if there weren't the pressure to host championships, maybe it would be different.
Something that gets me with this discussion, it's it's so such an interesting discussion, and when you think about golf courses, Like one of the things that stood out to me with Southern Hills is usually when I go to play a championship golf course, like I know, I'm in for like a day of just getting beat up, you know, like where and I have like a lot of fun at Southern Hills where like it's just because of the short expanded short grass and and there's enough with out
there that I didn't feel like it was as exacting.
It was still extraordinarily difficult, but like it wasn't that that not fun difficult where you're like, okay, I have to hit this drive absolutely perfect and you felt like you had opportunities to get the course and you know, take this with a great but like it was actually like the champion like in terms if you put championship golf courses in a bucket, it was as fun as I've had anywhere, like up with like Shinnacock's one another example of this where Shinnakocky is so hard but you
feel like you can score out there, like you know, nothing is unfair, nothing like it's not overly hard, but it's just really hard. If that makes sense.
Well, yeah, I think it depends on where the difficulty comes from. Right now, the difficulty at Southern Hills is going to come significantly around the greens right and around the awkwardness of some of the approaches, the way that the slopes and the undulations work to give you some stances that just aren't going to be what you want
them to be. They're not what you're going to see on driving ranges and into greens that are that are kind of oriented against or away from from those from those lies, that's where the challenge really comes from, and that is kind of a fun sort of challenge. Like personally, I don't mind getting beat up around the greens. I don't mind seeing my ball kind of go off line
because I've had an interesting lie. What really beats you down is looking for your ball, right, losing balls, you know, getting getting stuck deep and rough and just not being able to get out, hacking out all day. That that kind of difficulty really wears down on the amateur. And I don't think there is a whole lot of that at Southern Hills. You know, the rough is significant, right, you have to it settles down in that, in that
kind of wooly rough out. Yeah, I mean it's it's you know, like it's not easy rough by any by any stretch of the imagination, but you find your ball and you have, you usually have a chance to play out because there are gaps between the trees, and so you always have a shot, even if even if you really shouldn't maybe take the risk, you always feel like
you have a shot at it. And that little bit of hope that the course gives you is pretty key to enjoyment, right because if there's just if you're just hacking out, and if you're in a forest, there's no hope, there's no fun in that. And uh, and so I think that's what that's what Southern Hills, what Southern Hills offers, and why it is fun even for even for somebody like me.
Do you do you think it would be better if it wasn't in a championship course, if they had no qualms.
On It's a that's an unsettled question to me right now. So I don't think it necessarily would be a lot better. I'm trying to imagine a counterfactual restoration that doesn't even taken into account the championship status of the course. If the course were put exactly back to what it was in Maxwell's time, then there would be probably fewer trees out there, The rough would probably be maintained differently. The
creek would be different right in appearance. But you know, speaking of the creek, right, there are places where that creek looks pretty polished, right, There's a there's a kind
of modern look to it. There are a few waterfalls here and there, you know, things like that that used to be a rugged, mostly dry creek, and I think that that would be cooler, right It would be to have a baranca restoration like they did at Los Angeles Country Club would definitely be I don't know, would fit my eye a little bit better, would fit my preferences a little bit better, but wouldn't necessarily fit everybody's preferences.
And so there are a few things out there that you know, I kind of raised an eyebrow at but eventually came to understand. You know that the creek, for instance, right, it's there's just going to be more water in it now because there's more water in that general area. Yeah, development all kinds of pavement and concrete around the course. That used to just be a land that would absorb moisture.
Now there's a lot of water that moves through that creek system, and of course they use more water to maintain the golf course now than they did in the nineteen thirties, and so, yeah, I mean what I want to play the nineteen thirty six version of the course, absolutely, I mean that would be awesome course. Yeah, I mean what place is that not true of? And so I'm not sure it's necessarily possible to imagine a pure restoration
of that golf course. That said, you know, we've both seen Gil Hans's work Hans golf course designs work at Los Angeles Country Club, and that that restoration is pretty historically faithful. Obviously, there were a few changes made to accommodate the modern game. The golf course is quite a bit longer, et cetera. But uh, that those that bunker
restoration was was more rugged. And of course I'd referred to the Baranka before, and so you know, uh, Southern Hills has more of a polished look, and uh, you know, if it if it weren't hosting championships, maybe there wouldn't be so much pressure to make the course look kind of augustified. That said, it looks awesome like it. You know that this feels nitpicky, But.
Something I really thought was interesting, like if you talk to people and ask them about Southern Hills. Most of you know, a lot of people like we live in this culture with like Instagram and where par threes are like the glorified and like the cats biow, you know, like everybody because it's like the the only yeah, seventh hole, it's like the only hole you can take a picture of and you can see the whole hole right, you know,
easily and discern it easily. So like par three's, I feel like have become like the darling of like how you judge a course and and and a lot of people would I would say that the par threes are are the weakness at Southern Hills. People will say, oh, they're bland, But part of me thinks the par threes at Southern Hills all connected the other golf course, so they were the holes that kind of navigated are on edges of the property like where Maxwell got into corners.
Either get them out of the corners or you know, we see with the eleventh which is a tremendous short part three. You know that tenth hole navigates this like really severe land and from where the eleventh tea is that that land's almost too severe to even put a hole that wouldn't be a par three. And it's like the par three's out there are the holes which make the fives
and the fours. And I think that's really the strength of Southern Hills is they have great par fives and great par fours, and those are the holes that make those holes so great because they got maxwell to the spots he needed to be to get the par fours playing the way he wanted to.
Yeah, I'd agree with that. The par threes do seem to serve a kind of connecting function, and they occupy some kind of awkward corners of the property. They're all at the edges of the property, and two of them are right at corners of the property. Specifically, the eleventh hole is probably the most natural par three in there as in the land, and seems most naturally suited to a par three. Right. Par three's are good places to put to put holes on really severe land, right, And
that's the case of the eleventh hole. You wouldn't be able to put another kind of hole on that land, I don't think without moving a lot of it. Some of the other par three's are kind of on flatish pieces of land. I guess the eighth hole is on this you know, more or less nondescript tract of land that connects the seventh hole to the ninth hole the fourteenth hole. The par three runs along the boundary of
the property. It goes downhill a little bit. But again, you know, if you were walking this land before the golf course was built, you wouldn't necessarily go to that piece of the property and say, oh, that's obviously a par three, right. Yeah. I think you put the rest of the routing together and then you realize that you have space for a part three in a certain place,
and that is Yeah. I mean, I think in order to make the routing work the way he wanted to, and in order to have some of those great longer holes, in order to get the greens. Returning to that that gully that runs through the center of the property, there's a there's you know, a collection of really interesting contours that runs through the center of the property. And he put a bunch of greens and teas on.
There and fairways and fays. Yeah. That's what I thought, is it's interesting because like that's what you see they have. It's this narrow property and the way he used that the interesting topography in different ways, and like the way he was able to there was it seems like it was a pretty abrupt shelf that would go like there was like this almost like you have the creek where the creek is in a flat, but then there's a shelf. And how many ways he used that shelf in landing
areas is really amazing. You know, like the seventeenth uses it, the eighteenth uses it, the tenth uses it, the twelfth uses it by the green, but then like the the thirteenth and sixteenth use that that she like it's right in the middle of the drive landing area and it makes it makes for just really odd lies like you know, like you're having like on a par five, having to hit into a green from an upslope to you know, you've got two thirty and you're hitting from an upslope
into green with water short of it. That's a really uncomfortable shot to hit, yeah, or a downslope.
Furthermore, sixteen, Yeah, the long par four you have the same situation or the landing area. And it's not just
that it's a straight guali right. Obviously there used to be water that ran through there and that carved the land but what happened does the water move through there over the centuries, is that it created not just a straight water course, but all of these super interesting contours, these billowing landforms around itself, right yeah, And so that's what you get on those two landing areas that you're
talking about. It's not just a straight scoop. It is these you know, wavy undulations suddenly in the middle of what's generally a pretty smooth piece of land. It's a sloping piece of land, but the contours are generally long. When you get to that part of the property that we're talking about where there used to be that water course,
it becomes there's a lot more micro contour. You see those going into the seventeenth hole as well, right where again there are these wavy contours that have been carved by water over time. And it's yeah, he used that over and over and over again. And to return to the point earlier, I think that in order to use it in the way he did on those long holes, he couldn't have par threes in the middle of the property.
He needed to have those longer holes in the middle of the property, and the par three is needed to be pushed to the edges.
Yeah, as we've talked about this, I've started to like think about it's like Prairie Dunes has that wavy, that contour where it's really unpredictable. You could have a you could have the ball could be below your feet or
above your feet, depending on what side. It has that unpredictable nature that you see in the areas where the water used to run through at Southern Hills what were you were just talking alluding to, And then Augusta, Nashville has that just like that general like it, you know, the land moves one way right and it's just this big broad slope that that the holes are carved around it.
And Southern Hills is kind of like a mixture of the two between Augusta and Prairie Dunes, where there are these pockets of really you know, flowy micro contours that you know have you don't know what when you hit the ball in there, you have no clue whether you're gonna have be on an upslope of down slope, which side slope you'll have. And that's like that's like Prairie Dunes.
But then for the most part, the property is more like Augusta nashvill with these big broad slopes that leave you with these severe sloping lies.
You really see the big broad slopes on that sequence of holes that goes out to the par three eleventh right, the tenth eleventh and then the returning twelfth hole where you can just clearly see when you're standing below it that that was a lovely river valley, right, just beautiful sweep of land and you just he just laid out three lovely golf holes on it. But those are broad,
smooth slopes. And yeah, in the in other parts of the property there's it's crazier and it's amazing how many times, how many different ways he used those those fun landforms in the middle of the property. Yeah, you just go back to it a lot.
It's like the exterior of the kind of the property has the big broad slopes and then the interior had the the like the randomness because like you think about the par five to fifth has that slope from left to right, you know, and you're hitting into a green that you know with the creek right, and then seven is the same way, you know, with it hard left to right. In that sonic on an edge of the property, it's it's really interesting to think about in terms of
how how that property laid out. I mean, it's a stunning property. I'm that place. I was not expecting to be as enamored as I was with Southern Hills when when we decided to go there.
Yeah, I would agree with that. It's a yeah, it's a it's a great golf course. It's a stunning golf course. And I think that, you know, I hope that now that it's open up a little bit, that there's more short grass that you can see across the golf course, better see multiple holes at once, that it'll become more apparent.
I think the bunker, the ascetics of the bunkers are going to make a huge difference for the television product too, as much as like, you know, I hate that, but like, you know, like the old bunkers just looked like bunkers you'd see at your fifteen DOLLARSMUNI, you know, like perfectly circular, yeah, saucers, and like now they have.
These raised lips and yeah.
And now they have at least a little bit of character. To me, that's what that that the work done, is it brought it kind of like brought to life so much of the greatness of the property and the character of the golf course.
Right and before with those saucer shapes and the way that they were all kind of tilted up toward the line of play, your eye immediately went to them. Right. That's all you saw is this really white sand in these scoops out of the course, and they drew the eye, and because they were fairly bland in their shape, that was just your impression of the course, right, these these little scoops. Part of the restoration was bringing down the
edges of the bunkers a little bit. There had been a lot of build up over the years, and so the edges of the bunkers, the lips of the bunkers, i should say, are not as high, and so as a result, they're not the highest points on holes. Now
often the greens are the highest points on holes. And I think that makes a big visual difference, because instead of just fixating on these circular or oval bunker shapes with the white sand in them, and having that be your impression of the golf course, your eye can be drawn to a number of different features. The bunkers, the green edges. You know, there are things, there are other
things that attract your attention. The creek. Yeah, the creek, yeah, you know, which has been exposed a lot lot more. And the creek has been extended across a couple of holes, right, I'd like, it wasn't running across the seventeenth hole before, it wasn't running across the tenth hole before. Now you know that that creek has an influence on play on those holes.
Yeah, up the fourth the right side of the fourth fairway too, So it just to give a little bit more thought off the tee on those holes. I think the seventeenth hole is one of my That green's really really nasty, and it's just got that great land or you just banking left or right, you like want to get it up way up left. I mean that's what probably to me, maybe the most compelling hole out there
is the seventeenth. And it's cool to have that short par four coming down the stretch of a major right before just a ballbuster of a par four up the hill.
That'll be fun to watch the seventeenth. Yeah, it's a short part four and if they put teas in a certain place, players will be able to drive it up by the green a little bit. But they'll be probably aiming left of the green. And if you're left of the green up there, that's a really really, really really hard shot. You know, you might not hit the green
from fifteen feet away from it over there. But equally, if you're on the wrong little micro contour in that fairway and you have a nasty lie with the ball below your feet in your right hand or and you're trying to hit a feely little pitch into that green off of the fairway grass, that's an incredibly intimidating shot too. And the green is kind of oriented, you know, diagonally away from you, kind of like a ten o'clock facing green with a bunker in front of it. I mean,
it's and it repels off on all the edges. It's just it. I had a mental breakdown in that fairway, like I couldn't I couldn't hit I couldn't hit the ball cleanly on my pitch. And yeah, it's just intimidating.
Yeah, yeah, that's a cool hole. He I, it's I'm excited. I uh, I just uh, you know, the trip, it was such a I always enjoy going and seeing courses based like going on trips where you see a lot of one architect and and I'm really excited to go do see more Maxwell, like I you know, it's like Oklahoma is like actually like on my travel radar for like I need to go see six courses there, you know, all Maxwell like and and that's that's the unique thing
is like starting to understand this guy more. You see see him at Augusta, you see him at you know, the Crystal Downs has a heavy Maxwell influence. But then you know, Prairie Dunes in Southern Hills are both really good representations of his work. I mean, how would how would you split ten rounds between those two courses. I'm putting you in the uncomfortable.
Tough question because my my impulse would be to say six or seven Prairie Dunes and three or four Southern Hills. And that's no slam on Southern Hills because Prairie Dunes is just I mean, it's it's unbelievably sublime out there, and uh and just a completely unique place. But here's the thing, because at because the mowing lines are currently
what they are at Prairie Dunes. And we touched on this a little bit, but you know there are some places where there seems to be some fairway expansion in order, and the gunches is really really hard to play out of. I do think that playing a lot of rounds at Prairie Dunes does tire you out a little bit, or tire me out a little bit, because you know, you.
Have to drive the ball so well.
Yeah, you have to be really you have to be really precise off the tee, and if you're not, it becomes a very very long round there. And that's a you know, I don't know, it's kind of a weird complaint to Lodge because it's such an unbelievable golf course. But I think if you're playing a lot of rounds someplace, that you don't want to be losing a ton of golf balls, right, and that it would kind of beat
you down after a while. So I'd say in their current form, Southern Hills and Prairie Dunes, I think, I know this sounds like a cop out. I think i'd split the rounds evenly. You know, it's it's an enjoyable round of golf at Southern Hills and that course is closer to maximizing its potential. I think that Prairie Dunes is right now yeah.
Yeah, that's like the thing that Hey, I'm a dreamer, so I always think about this stuff, like, you know, in what courses could be, and I think Prairie Dunes could be so insanely good, Like you know where you talk about it with like the biggest names in golf if they in the top five, right, if I mean like legitimately, like you know, you could run down the rattle, you know, the best courses in the country, and in Prairie Dunes is like belonging of like if it gets
if it maximized what it could be with the fair and the thing about Prairie Dunes is like it's the easiest work. It's the lowest hanging fruit. Like you just have to go out there and like be like, okay, you just have to mow.
This, you know the kind of there right, you know, like if you look at the seventeenth hole right now, Prairie Dunes, unbelievable golf hole. If you just move mow the fairway out to the gunch, then all of a sudden you have basically what you need.
Yeah, and it wouldn't make the golf course any easier, oh, absolutely not. Like that's the thing is like it would just make it way more interesting. You've probably seen more people hitting it in the gunch because they knew they could, they could hit it over to a certain side, and it would just creates so many so much more you know, so many more options. I hate saying options, but like the holes would become so much more compelling, and there
are already extraordinarily compelling holes. Like I drive the ball usually really well, so I would probably play like six, six or seven rounds four or three. And I love I love Southern Hills. I just that that Prairie Dunes. Prairie Dunes, it's just a place that's I think with the way the course changes and how it plays, and you didn't get to see it in a different, different
wind like the trip I made the time before. We had a warm, warm, couple of days and then we had the north wind come and it was just a completely different golf course. So the weather aspect of Prairie Dunes is amazing because the golf course gets variety day to day just by the way the way the wind's playing. It's a completely different golf course. Like you know, like the seventh holes, this par five that when it's warm, it plays dead down wind and it's like, you know,
if you hit the you hit it long. It's like a driver like short iron into this par five. But then when the wind flips around all of a sudden, it's like that's a very that's a three shot hole and it's very, very hard. The drive is terrifying, the layups terrifying, and that's that's a hole that could use a lot of width on the layup because like most days,
no good players ever laying up in the layup. There is one of the hardest shots on the golf course, and it's it's reserved for you know, the the ten handicap ten plus handicaps.
Yeah, no, it's a it's a good point that day to day variety at Prairie Dunes would be would be tough to beat. And uh yeah, that that golf course is is is so good. It is on a different level than Southern Hills just because of the land really, and we should also also mention that the club that Prairie Dunes is a lot of fun and pretty distinctive because it's not you know, Southern Hills is a great club as well, but you use the word grand, it has a grand club clubhouse a and it is a
grand membership. Prairie Dunes is very different, right, It's a it's a lot more unassuming and it is just kind of the local Hutchinson club. While we were there, it was very hot and the local kids were all gathered around the pool. Yeah right, they were all there just playing. This was their country club. This is this is just where they go, This is where the activity is. Oh yeah, there happens to be a world class golf course here too.
And I really liked that feel of the club. I like that it was woven into the local community and that the dues for for the members there, the local members there, are affordable enough so that people can belong to it.
I think that's a it's a difference also, just like you know, if Prairie Dunes was in Tulsa, it would be it would be just the way Southern Hills is.
Like Southern Hills is the big club for the for the city, you know, and anytime you go into any city, you know, Southern Hills is similar to your you know, your ritzy club at at any city, and Prairie Dunes is like a small small town club and that's it's Yeah, it's got a charm and it's got it's got character that very few great golf courses have because most great, great, great golf courses, like we talked about at the outset, are located in big cities, and those great golf courses
become you know, have a similar feel to them across them where it's you know, and and that's where Prairie Dunes is so unique. It's a good great point.
Yeah, it's a fun place to be and uh and you know, if you have ten rounds and you get to spend them at Prairie Dunes and and Southern Hills, you can't really go wrong no matter what you do.
What if we threw cottonwood in there? The Naldo course down the street.
I was wondering whether you would bring it up. Yeah, there's a there's a Nick Faldo course near near Prairie Dunes in really really really great land like sort of Prairie Dunes style land. And you know, Nick Faldo was out there on a bulldozer obviously and probably not, but in any case, we we drove in there and took a look around, and yeah, Cottwood Nationally, there were some tournament bunding going on there were there were the unbelievable natural dunes and then also also containment.
Yeah it was, but yeah, this we'll probably do more of these. We'll just talk about golf courses. But let let us know what you think about it. This is uh and uh, you know, Garrett'll be back on pretty regularly and uh. Yeah. So that was that was our trip to maxwell Land. I'm eager to get back maybe maybe to New maxwell Land later uh later this year.
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. There are a lot of places to go.
But one of the great things about Maxwell's tons of places are public. Yeah, tons of public Maxwell's.
If you go deep in a certain region in if you go deep in Oklahoma or North Carolina, yeah, or North Carolina, you'll you'll find yeah places to play for sure.
Yeah. So all right, we'll we'll reconvene and uh, good talking to you.
All right, Thanks Andy,