“A little bit of Scotland in the Land of Oz,” eight-time major champion Tom Watson famously said about Prairie Dunes. “Sunflowers instead of heather, oceans of grain instead of the sea. But, like Scotland, be prepared because the wind always blows.”

Among the notable players who will attempt to conquer the unique and storied links-like course are Dallas native Scottie Scheffler, winner of the Low Amateur medal at June’s U.S. Open, and Sacramento’s Cameron Champ, the only other amateur to make the cut at Erin Hills. A senior at Texas, Scheffler finished T27 at the U.S. Open. He tied for eighth place last summer at the 113th Trans-Miss Amateur Championship and was T2 in April at the Big 12 Men’s Golf Championship, which was played at Prairie Dunes. A Texas A&M junior, Champ finished T32 at the U.S. Open.

Joining Scheffler and Champ at Prairie Dunes are two recent Trans-Miss Amateur champions. Will Zalatoris from Plano, Texas, will attempt to become the first three-time winner since Allen Miller (1969-71). Zalatoris, a senior at Wake Forest, won the 113th Trans-Miss Amateur at The Olympic Club and the 111th edition in 2014 at Southern Hills. Cal-Berkeley junior Collin Morikawa also is in the field at Prairie Dunes. He won the 112th Trans-Miss Amateur in 2015 at Flint Hills National.

Kansas senior Chase Hanna, who won the Big 12 Individual title at Prairie Dunes this spring, will return to compete in the 114th Trans-Miss Amateur. Texas senior Doug Ghim will be there, too. He finished T2 at the Big 12 Championship and solo third at the 113th Trans-Miss Amateur. Iowa State junior Ruben Sondjaja will look to improve on his runner-up Trans-Miss Amateur finish last summer in San Francisco.

Also in the field this year is 2015 U.S. Junior Amateur champion Philip Barbaree from Shreveport, La. Barbaree finished second to Morikawa in 2015 at the 112th Trans-Miss Amateur.

Landlocked near the exact center of the continental U.S. might be the last place in the world one would expect to find a links-style course. With its sandy soil, constant wind, rolling hills covered in native grasses and intricate green complexes, however, Prairie Dunes plays much like those famous seaside links in East Lothian. Perry Maxwell, one of the fathers of American golf course architecture, designed all 18 holes 1937. On the heels of the Great Depression, the course owners elected only to build half of the holes at the time. For the next 20 years, Prairie Dunes was regarded as the best nine-hole course in America. In 1957, five years after Maxwell’s death, his son J. Press Maxwell completed the Prairie Dunes project with the construction of the final nine holes.