Golf Digest Names Dunes 13 On “Best Risk-Reward Holes”

February 2, 2023 —

Golf Digest’s Architecture Editor Derek Duncan put together a list of “The 15 best risk-reward holes at courses everybody can play.”

The list showcases one of the great, daring feats in golf: the risk-reward shot. And they aggregated the list from courses anyone can play, so all golfers can take on these holes.

From The Prairie Club, the list featured Dunes 13, our west-facing par-4 that is one of the club’ best.

Duncan’s commentary:

Tom Lehman and Chris Bounds took full advantage of all the space they had in the sand hills when designing this big, matrix-like par 4. Golfers need to take measure before they tee it up because hole location on this wide, right-to-left oriented green dictates the strategy from the beginning. The 125-yard-wide fairway is divided in half by a pair of bunkers, and two more bunkers on the left and right await drives hit too aggressively. An onerous pot bunker front-center of the green complicates matters, so if the hole is cut on the forward half an approach from the right of the centerline bunkers offers the best access. When the hole is on the back lefthand portion of the green, the play is down the left where shots can be bounced onto the putting surface left of the greenside bunker.