The first time I went down I was playing Ozarks the first day, Payne's on day two. The guy at the cart barn offhandedly said "When you are done tomorrow you will wish you had played Ozarks twice". After I finished at Payne's he asked if I agreed to which I did. We spoke a bit more and he said a large majority of the people coming through playing both will say they really preferred Ozarks but Payne's gets all the publicity and brings people through the gates. In fairness that is the only CC course I have played so I cannot compare it with others, but compared to everything else it is really good. Also the fact is extremely walkable really gives the feel of walking the peaks of the Ozarks (for what that's worth).

Really enjoyed Ozarks National. We all walked away saying it was such a pleasant round. It's not my fav CC design, but when choosing between Ozarks and Payne's Valley, it's definitely more of a true test IMO!

I've always been curious about this course since it seems like the least talked about CC design. Plus it seems like Payne's Valley tends to suck up a lot of attention on property.

Ozarks National would take the cake for me. Enjoyable from start to finish.

I think Andy is more so trying to spark a thought experiment to see which modern courses people like best vs singling out a true "best" course of the last 15 years. I shockingly have seen 27 from this list and tend to agree that Childress feels like the correct answer for "best". It's pretty apparent on its face how great it is but also feels like a course that only gets better the more intimate you get with it. I think Tara Iti, both at Te Arai and Cape Wickham are probably in that same conversation for "best"? Hard to say from a far. The other few that I think about most often are The Loop, Old Barnwell and Lido. CapRock Ranch gets an honorable mention.

Great topic! I would put Prairie Dunes as my favorite Maxwell. Picking a least favorite is difficult but I agree with Mike from Iowa that Veenker is a shell of itself but has great potential. I really like #6 at PD.

For sure. I've recently given up on the who did it more debate for courses. Feel like so many courses are mixes of several hands so I've just decided to use who course says. Unless they are purposefully off hah.

That's an awkward one for sure, especially if you haven't seen the hole before. Especially tough if you're playing in the afternoon when the suns coming down and you're staring straight into the sun while trying to track your ball to a blind landing zone.

OCC is one of those that you could probably argue how much credit goes to Maxwell. It was routed by Wayne Stiles and then he came in after. They bill it as a Maxwell course but I have seen sources that say he only touched about 5-7 holes there with a major part of his work being the modification of holes 5-7. Keith Foster did do an amazing job there of continuing with the Maxwell principles in his renovation. Probably goes to the debate of who you credit a course to if multiple architects have had hands on it.

Hey Craig! I live up in the Parkville area and play up in St. Joseph mostly. Would definitely be interested in getting together.