Architect Rankings
The Best Perry Maxwell Golf Courses in America
Perry Maxwell built golf courses the way the land told him to. An Oklahoma banker who started designing on his own farm, he never lost the habit of finding holes instead of manufacturing them. He said of the Prairie Dunes site that there were 118 good golf holes there and he only had to eliminate 100 of them. That sentence explains his career. Our dataset holds 36 Maxwell courses across 11 states, private clubs, university courses, municipals, and resorts, and the best of them share one quality: the ground came first, and the greens did the arguing. Here are the best eight, ranked.
1Prairie Dunes Country Club
Hutchinson, Kansas. Maxwell's first nine opened September 13, 1937, built in part with Works Progress Administration funding on 480 acres of sandhills that salt magnate Emerson Carey and his sons gave him; his son Press added the second nine in 1957. Par 70, 6,947 yards, a 75.5 rating and a 148 slope. It hosted the 2002 U.S. Women's Open, won by Juli Inkster, the 2006 U.S. Senior Open, three U.S. Women's Amateurs, and the 2014 NCAA Championship, and the USGA has awarded it a U.S. Senior Open in 2029 and a U.S. Women's Open in 2032. Ranked No. 27 in the world by GOLF Magazine. This is the masterpiece. See also our Hutchinson ranking.
2Crystal Downs
Frankfort, Michigan, 1929, designed with Alister MacKenzie, who laid out the routing in fall 1928 while Maxwell supervised completion of the back nine in 1933. Par 70, 6,518 yards, views of Lake Michigan and Crystal Lake, ranked No. 1 in Michigan in the Golf Digest 2025-26 state ranking. Private to members and guests only, with one tournament of note, the 1991 U.S. Senior Amateur. It is the connoisseur's Maxwell, and it loses the top spot only because Prairie Dunes has the deeper championship record on a site Maxwell chose as his own.
3Colonial Country Club
Fort Worth, Texas, opened 1936, designed by Maxwell with Ralph Plummer and John Bredemus. Par 70, 7,209 yards in PGA Tour play. It hosted the 1941 U.S. Open and is home to the Charles Schwab Challenge, held at Colonial since 1946, the longest running tour event at one site. Holes 3 to 5 are the Horrible Horseshoe, among the hardest three hole stretches on tour, and the place is known as Hogan's Alley after Ben Hogan, who won the tournament five times. Tour golf's loyalty is the argument: nearly eighty years at one Maxwell course. More in our Fort Worth ranking.
4University of Michigan Golf Course
Ann Arbor, 1931, designed with MacKenzie in the late 1920s, one of only six MacKenzie designed courses in the United States and just the fourth on a college campus when it opened. Par 71, 6,730 yards. Arthur Hills led a multi-million dollar restoration completed in 1994, and the course hosted the 2012 NCAA Central Regional. Access is limited, mainly for university affiliated golfers, which keeps it less known than it should be. Two of the game's great green builders sharing one campus course is a rare combination. This is one of them.
5Omaha Country Club
Omaha, Nebraska, with Maxwell redesigning the course in 1951, one of his last works, after earlier design by William Langford and Theodore Moreau. Par 71, 6,973 yards, a 74.6 rating. It hosted the U.S. Senior Open in 2013, won by Kenny Perry, and again in 2021, won by Jim Furyk, and ranks No. 5 in Nebraska by GOLF Magazine. Late Maxwell, championship tested twice in a decade. The seniors do not get sent to soft courses, and they were sent here twice.
6Dornick Hills Golf and Country Club
Ardmore, Oklahoma, where it all started. Dornick Hills was Maxwell's first design: he built the first nine in 1913 on a former dairy farm he owned, completed the second nine in 1923, and is buried in the family cemetery on the ridge north of the 7th fairway. Oklahoma's first course with Bermuda grass greens, its first USGA affiliated club, in 1914. The signature Cliff Hole plays over natural rock outcroppings, Tom Doak's firm has renovated it in recent years, and it ranked third in Oklahoma for 2024-25. Par 70, 6,453 yards. As the origin of everything above it on this list, it belongs here.
7Veenker Memorial Golf Course
Ames, Iowa, built in 1938 with WPA funds, home to Iowa State golf. Par 72, 6,543 yards. It hosted the 1949 NCAA Championship, where Arnold Palmer was a medalist, hosts the Iowa Masters every year since 1938, and its uphill par 3 11th over the creek was picked for a dream course selection in a Des Moines magazine. Veenker is the most accessible great Maxwell in America, a public university course, and that access is why it outranks private courses below it. See our Ames ranking.
8The Topeka Country Club
Topeka, Kansas. Thomas Bendelow built the first nine in 1906; Maxwell was hired in 1936 to redesign it and lay out a second nine, completed in early 1940. A $4.5 million renovation finished in 2023, the first major work since 1940, removed more than 400 trees, and Ron Whitten has said he does not know a more challenging set of greens in Kansas. That is the Maxwell signature in one sentence, greens that test players eighty years after he built them. Now the only private club in the state capital.
The concession: Maxwell's name travels less than MacKenzie's or Ross's, partly because his best work sits in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas rather than on the coasts, and some of his smaller courses have been altered past recognition by committees who did not know what they had. The top of the list needs no apology. A banker from Ardmore found 18 holes in the Kansas sandhills by eliminating 100 others, and American golf is still playing the ones he kept.