Q&A: Cory Griess, Superintendent at Prairie Dunes Country Club

Cory Griess

Superintendent - Prairie Dunes Country Club

‍Location: Hutchinson, Kansas
Years Spent as Superintendent: 10
Greens and Approaches: A1/A4 Bentgrass
Fairways and Adjacent Rough: Originally Common Bermudagrass, switched to Ryegrass and Kentucky Bluegrass blend in 1980s
Soil Profile: Sandy with Sandy Clay pockets
Acreage: 370 acres
Crew Size: 14 full-time staff

Prairie Dunes Country Club is one of America's great classical golf courses, but most don’t realize how difficult it is to maintain turfgrass at a high level in this region of the county. Central Kansas sits squarely in the transition zone — a geographical region where neither cool- nor warm-season grasses are fully adapted — making it a very difficult area to grow turfgrass and present firm, fast conditions in the summer months. That doesn’t stop Cory and his team from flawlessly displaying Prairie Dunes given the circumstances. Hutchinson can go multiple months in the summer without ever getting below 70 degrees, which puts constant stress on the cool-season grasses and forces Cory’s team to be diligent and overprepared. Cory has taken initiative to keep the golf course evolving with modern times while staying true to the principles and vision that Perry and Press Maxwell originally had for the course. 

Here’s an interview with Cory, which was lightly edited for clarity. 

Describe to me the geography and climate profile of Prairie Dunes?

Prairie Dunes is located in Hutchinson, Kansas. We're in South-Central Kansas, transition zone. Primarily you want to call it sand dunes or prairie dunes, just like the name, it describes itself. Flora and fauna, you get anything from little bluestem, big bluestem, yuccas to prairie cacti, all kinds of Midwest grasses in general. The yucca is such a staple here, obviously just because of the name and and it's the logo, being in the prairies of Kansas. The cottonwood's the state tree, so cottonwoods are very prevalent in our area, mostly around bodies of water, but a lot of these cottonwoods have just been naturally grown. None of them have been planted by man. A lot of them do showcase holes, and then like on No. 12, that one is in play.

What does it feel like to be out on this property and golf course?

You know, when I step on Prairie Dunes, whether I'm playing a round or working, I get a sense of the days of old, right? This classic feel — who else's shoes have stepped on this property? Going back to the Nicklaus-Palmer exhibition match to the Senior Open, the Women's Open, our Women's Ams that we've hosted, Sam Sneed having a round out here. 

You kind of get that feel, especially in the mornings, and if you get a fog rolling in, it's just like the days of old coming back.

Describe to me your soil profile and how it impacts your turf?

Soil profiles at Prairie Dunes are very unique because we tend to have this idea of, hey, it's sandy profiles, which mainly are around the greens and surrounds, tees being all elevated. But Perry and Press, they almost, in my eyes, routed all the fairways through the bottoms through dunes and along dunes. A lot of these areas are clay and sandy clay. Nos. 1, 3, and 6 fairways are predominantly gray clay. So as a maintenance team, we're always challenged to see, hey, we have clay profiles that we're dealing with here, and sandy profiles in other parts of the fairway, so there's an ever-evolving maintenance practice that we kind of deal with.

Wind and heat affect us four to five months out of the year, being this far south with cool-season plants. We do a lot of maintenance around the heat, and then a lot of our maintenance practice day-to-day, the wind does dictate what we do.

How has the turfgrass profile of Prairie Dunes evolved over the course's lifespan?

Originally, Prairie Dunes was seeded to Common Bermuda in 1937. On our accounts, we have seen that it was around the ‘80s, in Doug Peterson's era as superintendent, that they overseeded rye, and it kind of morphed into a cool-season golf course from there. Since then, we've been interseeding Kentucky bluegrass just for its durability and summer stress.

And then Prairie Dunes’ greens are A1, A4 Bentgrass. They've showcased great heat tolerance, aggressive growing, ball mark recovery, heavy play recovery, and green speed balanced with firmness.

What are your goals longterm at Prairie Dunes and how do you want to present the golf course to members and guests?

Our team at Prairie Dunes always strives to showcase the Maxwell’s Prairie Dunes in the modern age. Whether that's maintaining green speeds to showcase its slopes and contours to how our fairway contours roll into native areas, and trying to keep that essence of what once was and embody it into what it will be, as long as Mother Nature allows it with the winds and rains and time allows, as well.

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What are some challenges you and your team face, either day to day or seasonally?

Our daily maintenance is totally driven by playability, and that also plays in tandem with the weather of the season, right? Playing golf in Kansas, you get all four seasons almost at any given month, and especially within our eight-month golfing season.

So we’re always thinking two steps ahead with what we're doing and a month ahead to two months ahead on our bigger maintenance practices, just so we can embody everything we need to do to handle Mother Nature, yet provide the playing surface that we need to.

You talked about the evolution from Bermuda to cool-season grasses. How does the golf course continue to evolve?

The evolution of Prairie Dunes really stems back to what it once was, how it once was Common Bermuda, and now we've evolved in the cool-season in the past 80 years. Now we're looking to evolve a lot of our bunkering, how we evolve it from more of a mason sand that we have had, more back into the dune sand that once was in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. As well as just embodying how this place once played and staying true to that characteristic, staying true to the firm playing conditions, yet the native grasses are within check for pace of play and playability.

What about your golf course makes you smile or makes you happy at the end of the work day? And what’s your favorite spot on the course?

You know, at the end of the day, my main focus and kind of what makes me happy is just seeing what my team and our team at Prairie Dunes provided to its membership and those that enjoyed it for the day. It always revolves around a team and a culture that provides these kinds of levels of playing conditions. When they all rally together, whether it's weather that threw a curveball or heat or winter stress, the team always, always pulls through for us.

Probably my favorite spot on the whole golf course is nine tee box. You can see most of the front nine. And if you catch the shadows just right in the morning, the sun hits every dune that ripples through that fairway and then lights up that nine green just right at the same time. And then all the contours feed in and it's one of the best spots, I think, in the mornings.

Thank you to our friends at the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America for their support of this series.