37 The golf course site is atop a hill with various slopes and gulleys that Tillinghast used in clever ways in his rerouting of the old Swope Park layout. Now that many trees have been removed, we get more appreciation of just how interesting his routing really is. Some slopes are used strategically – for example, the par-four first rewards a carry over a severe left-to-right slope in the fairway with a perfect angle into the diagonal first green. Sometimes he has us attack a hill straight on – the par-four sixth (which has been converted from a too-short par five) plays over a valley to a sidehill-uphill fairway with the green half hidden farther up hill. The parfour tenth is just the opposite, playing downhill off the tee to a half-hidden but generous fairway at the base of a gulley with the green embossed in the far slope. Tillinghast put particular emphasis on his par threes and Swope Memorial’s four par threes will be very good. Curiously, their four greens are positioned within a hundred yards or so of one another, but on different sides of a ridgeline that crosses that portion of the course. However, there is one feature that I’m probably most excited about, and that is the Dolomites; those ragged mounds that Tillinghast featured on several of his early designs. We are reintroducing Dolomites at several locations and adding them to others – for instance, along the fairway of the short par-four second to discourage players from using driver off that tee. As most of these will be grassed with a prairie mix and won’t be routinely mowed, I hope that Swope’s Dolomites will become so distinctive that when seeing photos of them, people throughout the golf world will immediately associate them with Swope Memorial. We shall see. Ron Whitten is a golf writer and consultant to the Swope National project. Read more on the GCA website, including insight from architect Todd Clark, project manager for Kansas City Doug Schroeder, and Mid-America Golf’s Casey Hames. SWOPE MEMORIAL A 1934 plan reflecting Tillinghast’s design and (right) a 1940 aerial photograph of the completed course Images: Kansas City Parks & Recreation “ There wasn’t much Tillinghast to preserve, but a good amount to ‘restore’”
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