Perry Maxwell
He was a founding member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects and was an inductee into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.
[2][3] In 1913, on land he owned that was the site of a former dairy farm, Maxwell built the first nine holes of Dornick Hills Golf & Country Club in Ardmore.
[4] Maxwell also built Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa (the site of several PGA Tour events and the U.S. Open in 1958, 1977 and 2001).
After consulting with Charles B. Macdonald, the founder and architect of the club on Long Island, Maxwell proceeded to lay out four holes on a dairy farm he owned just north of Ardmore, a property that would eventually evolve into Dornick Hills Golf & Country Club where he was the first designer to implement grass greens in Oklahoma.
[5] In 1923, Maxwell took a trip to Scotland to learn as much as he could about the methods the Scots employed to utilize the landscape and other natural features on their courses.
[7]Maxwell's primary course trademarks were his undulating greens and ability to use the existing natural topography to design challenging holes.
Mac Bentley, Daily Oklahoman sports writer, wrote in 1933, "His genius came from recognizing Mother Nature's design, his courses only slightly carved out of the existing landscape".
The par 3 fourth hole at Twin Hills Golf & Country Club also features Maxwell's cliff attribute.
In 1931 Dr. Alister MacKenzie, who with Bobby Jones was involved in the development of Augusta National in Georgia, invited Maxwell to become a partner.
This was a monumental accomplishment considering the nation was still in the grip of the devastating Great Depression and accompanying Dust Bowl that plagued the American midwest.
During this financially difficult time he was still able to get contracts to work on such innovative designs as Southern Hills, Prairie Dunes in Kansas and the Old Town Club in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
After World War II Maxwell continued working, even after losing a leg from below the knee due to cancer.
