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KGA celebrates centennial Kansas Amateur at Prairie Dunes
   2010 Kansas Amateur Championship preview

   July heat in south central Kansas isn’t the only thing in triple digits. The Kansas Amateur turns 100 this month as the Sunflower State’s biggest golf championship returns to storied Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson. One hundred fifty-six of the state and region’s best amateur players are set to test their skills on the Perry and Press Maxwell gem in what most certainly will be one of the Association’s most memorable championships in a long, long time.
   “We’re definitely looking forward to the prestige of hosting the Kansas Amateur,” says John Lanham, head golf professional at the club since 2003. “To have an historic event like that, to put it at Prairie Dunes, with our history with major championships, I think it’s a great fit and I think everyone will have a great time. The course will stand up for itself and it should be a lot of fun.”

Prairie Dunes time tested
   Prairie Dunes has consistently ranked among America’s Top 100 golf courses according to Golf Digest. Perry Maxwell designed the first nine in 1937 with son Press adding the second

which opened 1957. The facility moved to golf’s center stage twice during the last decade, hosting the 2002 U.S. Women’s Open and the USGA making a quick return with its U.S. Senior Open in 2006. Prairie Dunes has hosted recent Big 12 and Missouri Valley Conference Championships and been the site of the Trans-Mississippi Golf Association’s annual amateur championship on five occasions, last in 2005.
   “With our partnership with the USGA, we’ve hosted the Mid-Am, the Women’s Amateur, the Men’s Senior Amateur,” Lanham adds. “This is just going to round it out – the best players in Kansas are coming to arguably the best course in Kansas so it should be a great championship.”
   For those that have not seen the course, and with its recent national exposure that list is dwindling, this isn’t your traditional inland, parkland-style golf course. The elder Maxwell's response to viewing the 480-acre canvas for his masterpiece, "There are 118 holes here, and all I have to do is eliminate 100."
   “It has the feel of more of a links-type golf course where the majority of the golf holes you can run the ball up to the green,” Lanham explains. “I would say with a true links course the greens would not be as elevated as ours are. But you definitely have the option to run it up from most of the approach shots.”
   Lanham, who served stints as assistant professional at Preston Trails in Dallas and El Paso Country Club before coming to Prairie Dunes, says many of the course’s greens have closely-mown areas for green surrounds giving players additional short game options.
   “(The player) can chip it, putt it or bump it with a hybrid or fairway wood, so around the greens you need a lot of creativity depending upon where the pin is and what kind of shot you want to hit,” he says. “You can flop it or putt it from 10 or 15 yards off the green.”

A1/A4 mix gets A-plus
   In the fall of 2007, Prairie Dunes, under the guidance of head superintendent Stan George and his staff, changed grasses on the challenging putting surfaces to a blend of A1 and A4 bentgrass and the club is experiencing its third full season of the smooth putting surfaces, according to Lanham.
   “It has made a huge difference in that there is absolutely no Poa Annua on the greens,” he says.
   And players who find the fairway with their tee shots at Prairie Dunes experience what an outstanding playing surface ryegrass can provide.
   “It’s pretty unusual for this part of the country and allows for a very tight cut on the 9th hole

fairway – players can put some spin on the ball because Stan maintains it at such a low height,” Lanham says. “It’s a great playing surface on the fairways.”
   Prairie Dunes utilizes rye on tees as well. Roughs are a bluegrass mix and native grasses come into play if you stray very far from the fairway. Though water really doesn’t come into play on the course and its cottonwood trees provide obstacles on only a couple of back-nine holes (Nos. 12 and 15 to be specific), the course is extremely well bunkered.
   “Prior to the 2006 Senior Open we added some bunkers, fairway bunkers primarily, and re-contoured all the bunkers on the golf course,” Lanham says. “Bill Coore and Dave Axland repositioned some bunkers and placed some new ones, some target bunkers for driving that will make you position your drives off the tee a little more strategically.”
   More recently the course, under the guidance of designers Crenshaw/Coore, Axland and George, has undergone some changes to help “redefine” the teeing grounds on Nos. 1 and 8.
   “We put a large dune behind No. 7 green and repositioned No. 1 and No. 8 championship tees adding, depending upon where you put the tee, 20 to 40 yards per hole on one and eight,” Lanham says. “So with a south wind those holes are very challenging. (No. 1) gets your attention right at the start.”

Holes to watch
   Prairie Dunes’ eighth hole is annually ranked among the best golf holes in the country. It’s one of the more challenging par-4 golf holes in the world and playing it into the south wind can make it even more formidable. But Lanham says the course’s front nine has a couple other holes to watch for competitors in the 2010 Kansas Amateur.
   “I think a very under-rated hole on the front nine would be No. 4 – it’s a par 3, uphill, 160 to 2009 champion Matt Ewald

170 yards,” Lanham says. “It plays a little longer than what the yardage says. It’s one of the least birdied holes I’d say out here. It’s kind of deceiving in that it’s uphill; it’s got a false front pretty much on the whole left side. The ball will hit on the green and, unless you hit a very good shot, it will roll off. It will be a great match-play hole.”
   Lanham says the 426-yard, par-4 ninth is another hole that falls into that category.
   “The second shot plays a little longer because it’s uphill. It requires a great drive,” he adds. “Nos. 4 and 9 are two really good holes.”
   On the back nine, Lanham says the par-4 13th from the new championship tees requires a very good drive to get the ball around the corner and have a good look at the green.
   “Again a false front on the approach shot where the first 8 or 10 feet of that green are false and you need to hit a really good second shot there to have a putt at birdie,” he adds.
   Matches that reach the 17th hole give players choices with a reachable par 5 measuring around 500 yards.
   “Depending upon what your opponent does, whether you go for the green in two or lay up to a good yardage and try to make birdie that way,” Lanham says.
   The Prairie Dunes head pro says players who “bomb it” may not have a big advantage at the course during two rounds of stroke play qualifying and then match play to determine a Kansas Amateur champion.
   “Someone that is a good wedge player may have a good chance…even though you may have a short iron into a green you need to put your approach into a good spot where you can have an aggressive birdie putt,” he says. “If you hit it above the hole on a lot of these greens you’re playing defense on your birdie putt. I’d say someone who drives it straight…doesn’t have to be too long, and is a good short-iron player.”

A talented field
   Prairie Dunes is hosting the Kansas Amateur for the sixth time this year. But it’s the first time since 1993 when the University of Kansas’s Matt Gogel won the second of two straight titles. The current Golf Channel broadcaster turned professional and would go on to win on the PGA Tour. Great Bend’s Steve Gotsche won an Amateur title at Prairie Dunes in 1984 and Independence’s Odie Wilson won there in 1976.
   Competitors this year, who meet one of the exempt status criteria or have become eligible for the event through one of the six qualifiers this summer, face two stroke-play qualifying rounds on the Prairie Dunes layout to determine a field of 64 players for match play. That will culminate in a 36-hole final on July 25 to determine the 2010 Kansas Amateur champion.
   Last year, Leawood’s Matt Ewald won the Amateur title at Kansas Country Club, downing Stanford University player Dodge Kemmer of Wichita 7 and 5 in the championship match. Ewald was both medalist (at two-under 138) and then match play champion. The standout player at Washburn University, having entered the world of financial advising in Topeka, returns to defend his title this month.
   This year’s field will include a diverse group of players, from talented high school and college players to battle-tested mid ams to accomplished senior competitors. Bob Vidricksen of Salina and Kansas City’s Don Kuehn, each aged 63, are the eldest among the field. The youngest competitors are Chase Hanna of Leawood, Dominic Lara of El Dorado, Juan Ollarzabal of Garden City, and Danny Summers of Mission Hills at 15 years old. The average age for competitors is a shade under 28 this year with 17 players 50 or older and 36 aged 18 or younger.
   Past champions in the 2010 field include Ewald; Bryan Norton, Mission Hills, Tallgrass Country Club, 2002 and Topeka Country Club, 1980; Darren Copp, Wichita, 1987 at Topeka Country Club; John Loomis, Wichita, 1991 at Alvamar Country Club; Marty Sallaz, Leawood, 1995 at Kansas City Country Club; and Sean Thayer, Garden City, 1999 at Milburn Golf & Country Club.
   Manhattan’s Colbert Hills leads the way with nine competitors in this year’s field. Lawrence’s Alvamar Golf Course and Wichita’s Willowbend are next with seven each. Host Prairie Dunes, Overland Park’s Milburn, Wichita’s Reflection Ridge and Salina Country Club have six entrants apiece.