Kansas City municipal golf course revived in harmony with A.W. Tillinghast's 1935 design — Yahoo Sports

RESOLVING THE LEDGER

Kansas City municipal golf course revived in harmony with A.W. Tillinghast's 1935 design — Yahoo Sports | AIPROPX

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.”

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Swope 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 Tillinghast

The 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. They’re 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 distan...