Kansas City municipal golf course revived in harmony with A.W. Tillinghast's 1935 design
KANSAS CITY, Mo. Winged Foot. Bethpage Black. Baltusrol. Philly Cricket Club.That's just a short list of the many prestigious golf courses designed, at least in part, by legendary architect A.W. Tillinghast. And while it may not have the notoriety of those properties, there's a gem in America's heartland that has been restored to its Tillinghast glory thanks to a city parks director with a dream, designers with local roots and the expertise to execute Tillinghast's vision, and, perhaps most importantly, a global pandemic.Swope Memorial Golf Course in Kansas City, Missouri, first opened in 1915 but was completely redesigned by Tillinghast in 1935. In the nine decades since, it had undergone lots of changes, most of which were not for the better. Its greens were infected, its cart paths were deteriorating and its bunkers were in disarray. But a project that started as a simple re-bunkering expanded into a full-blown, 18-month restoration, with a price tag around $8 million."Once we had the money, we realized that we couldn't just stop with the bunkers, we had to do the whole course," said Doug Schroeder, the director of golf services for the Kansas City Parks and Recreation department. "We made the decision to move ahead, and what we have here is something really special.More: The top 200 classic golf courses in the U.S., ranked for 2026Swope reopens for public play Friday, July 31, and golfers who've experienced previous iterations of the municipal track nestled in the hilly terrain of south KC are in for a surprise. A good one.I think when the golfers come back, they're going to be shocked," said CE Golf Design's Todd Clark, a Kansas City native who led the restoration. "I think they're going to be really surprised by how we tried to be as authentic as possible to the Tillinghast design, how we added some features in to update it and give them a product that can last another hundred years here. That was our goal and that was the vision.It all began with Schroeder, who has teed it up at Swope for decades.I've been playing here since like 1986," Schroeder said. "This is the second renovation I've seen it go through. Even when I started playing here, when I was the only guy out here on a Sunday afternoon, I knew that there was something special here. So when I was able to actually take this position in 2009, after playing the course for 27 years being able to do this has been something I've dreamed of for a long time."Under the direction of Clark, his design partner Brent Hugo, Erin Hills co-designer and longtime Golf Digest writer Ron Whitten, and course superintendent Josh Linn, Swope was transformed into a modern reflection of its original design via a sympathetic restoration, featuring several signature Tillinghast elements: large greens with bold undulations, dolomites scattered throughout the property and bunkers that appear as works of art rather than cheap defenses. Combine that with the rolling natural beauty of the land and the result is an exciting loop that feels more like a high-end East Coast club than a Midwest muni."Being from Kansas City, being involved in this, restoring an A.W. Tillinghast project with the history that Swope has it's remarkable," Clark said. "It's probably one of the highlights of my career."An ode to TillinghastThe first step in the renovation of Swope was to install an irrigation pond specific to the golf course, which had previously shared its water system with its next-door neighbor, the Kansas City Zoo. The next step was to reroute what had become a congested mess on the front nine. Prior to the project, Nos. 2 and 3 were short par 4s that frequently caused long waits and major backups. The rerouting varies greatly from Tillinghast's original layout but was a necessary move to keep weekend rounds under five or even six hours.The loop begins with a trio of par 4s, the second of which is reachable for long hitters who must beware of newly installed dolomites, which are mounds of natural grass that Tillinghast often used in his designs. Even if a drive avoids these dolomites, players who place a tee shot on the right edge of the fairway may not be able to see the pin they're hitting to, thanks to the dolomites, adding challenge to what would otherwise be a simple wedge or pitch shot into the green.To bolster the scenery, Schroeder had trees trimmed on the northwest edge of the property to provide a view of the downtown KC skyline in the distance from a few spots on the golf course, the tee box at No. 2 being the first of those, along with the fairway on the 17th. After a third consecutive par 4 to start the round, golfers encounter the first short hole, the par-3 fourth. Clark believes the biggest appeal of the new Swope will be its quadruplet of par 3s.They all have a different look," Clark said. "The green shapes are different, the bunkering is different. There's just a lot of different shots you can hit there and get some great results. Theyre going to be a lot of fun. I think people will really enjoy the par 3s out here.Nos. 4 and 7 the two par 3s on the front nine are nearly identical in length, both playing about 175 yards from the back tees. On nearly every hole, Clark, Hugo and Whitten referenced photos from Tillinghast's 1935 layout as a tool to recreate it to the best of their ability. That is perhaps most evident on the fourth, where Tillinghast flanked a green featuring a severe back-to-front slope with four large bunkers, requiring exceptional precision with a mid-iron off the tee.The pair of par 3s on the back nine provide much more variance in distance, and No. 13 stands out. Measuring upwards of 230 yards from the back tees, it's by far the longest par 3 on the course with two bunkers guarding the front of the green. If they have the distance, players who miss long will avoid the sand but will be forced to chip from an elevated ridge back toward a green sloping away from them.From the tee box on the 13th, it appears as if there's another bunker behind the green, but that's actually a hazard that sits to the right of No. 16 the hole that fulfills the old adage that every good golf course needs a short par 3. Playing less than 130 yards, the 16th lets golfers go right at the flag with their best wedge or short-iron shot, with creative players possibly trying to bank it off the large mound to the left of the green that feeds balls toward the center.There are several other holes that provide thrills for good players while remaining playable for high-handicappers. The par-4 14th is a beast of a hole that Clark believes is the most difficult on the property, measuring 425 yards from the back tees with a severe drop-off at front of the green, punishing any approach that comes up short. At the par-4 ninth, players will attempt to avoid trees on the right side of the fairway only to find the landing area slopes significantly right-to-left and that in firm conditions will kick even balls that land in the center down into the left rough. From there, golfers must send their approach up a significant incline into a punchbowl green guarded by a pair of bunkers in front.Each hole has unique flavor, all harkening back to Tillinghast's handiwork from nearly a century ago. Sure, the layout has been lengthened, modernized and rerouted in places, but the goal of this sympathetic restoration was to present a golf course as close to the original as possible while remaining playable in current times. Based on a three-hour tour of Swope Memorial alongside Clark, Whitten and Schroeder, that mission has been accomplished.'All the stars had to be in alignment'It's quite rare these days to see a municipality invest the money needed to totally overhaul a golf course, but COVID spurred an unprecedented boom in the golf industry, and the game continues to grow beyond its initial pandemic bump. According to the National Golf Foundation, participation in golf reached its highest peak since the 1990s, with the number of on-course golfers having grown by more than five million people in the past eight years.The only reason we were able to do this is because of the way golf has become so popular after COVID," Schroeder said. "People are playing golf a lot more, and we had the money."Even so, trying to convince a city to spend millions on a golf course is often a losing battle. It wasn't for Schroeder, though, as everyone involved seemed to agree that Swope needed a major facelift. With the hay now in the barn, public golfers reap the benefits of a pristine course that will charge a reasonable $84 for a weekend round with other tee times available for as low as $38 for walking weekday seniors.All the stars had to be in alignment," Schroeder said. "We have a great director at the parks department, we had a great parks board supporting this, the city council was very supportive, the mayor was supportive, and our city manager, who is a golfer himself everybody got behind this project. [Securing the funding] was actually pretty easy, because everybody knew the golf course and they knew what we had here. They really did want to save this golf course and bring the Tillinghast design back to the front. And that's what we've done.Nick Stavas is a digital producer and commerce writer for Golfweek. Follow him on X/Twitter (@nickstavas).This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Kansas City municipal golf course revived in harmony with A.W. Tillinghast's 1935 design
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