KANSAS CITY — When you think about premier golf destinations in the U.S., the usual suspects likely come to mind. Long Island, the Phoenix Valley, the Carolinas, anywhere along the coasts of California and Florida.

If someone mentions a place such as Kansas City, most people probably assume it’s a bunch of flat Midwestern nothingness ― an afterthought in America's golf scene.

But the KC metro is experiencing a golf renaissance. The game is booming just as it is in most U.S. regions, and club owners and municipalities alike are investing big dollars in their properties, crafting elite golf experiences for members and residents while also attracting golfers from around the country.

Golfweek editor Tim Schmitt and I had a chance to tour and play several of these courses, and we were shocked. The quality of each property was astounding and quickly made us forget where we were, in the best way.

Swope Memorial Golf Course

Swope Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, opened in 1915 then was completely redesigned by A.W. Tillinghast in 1935.

In the nine decades since, it had undergone many changes, most of which were not for the better. Its greens were infected, cart paths deteriorating and bunkers in disarray. But a project that started as a simple re-bunkering expanded into a full 18-month restoration with a price tag around $8 million.

Swope reopened for public play in August, and golfers who experienced previous iterations of the municipal track nestled in the hilly terrain of southern KC are in for a nice surprise. Swope Memorial was ranked as the No. 8 public-access course in Missouri before the renovation.

“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.”

Under the direction of Clark, his design partner Brent Hugo, Erin Hills co-designer and longtime Golf Digest writer Ron Whitten, course superintendent Josh Linn and KC Parks and Recreation Department director of golf services Doug Schroeder, 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.

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.

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.

Public golfers now 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.

Oakwood Country Club

About 10 miles south of downtown KC, on the Missouri side, you’ll find the oldest golf club in the city.

Oakwood Country Club was founded in 1881 as the Progress Club, designed as a social hangout for Jewish children and families. Thirty years later, legendary architect Tom Bendelow was hired to construct the first nine holes of the golf course, with the second nine built in 1923.

Throughout its history, the course has undergone several changes, including in 1991 when PGA Tour legend Tom Watson helped redesign four holes on the front nine.

In 2020, real estate developer and longtime member Ken Block purchased Oakwood, which had begun to lose its way as a premier golf club. With the help of Clark and Whitten, Block reimagined not just the private golf course, but the entire property.

Without ever closing, three new holes were built while several others were rerouted and updated. Oakwood is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 5 private course in Missouri.

The result of the renovation is an extremely difficult track that will challenge every part of a player’s game, even the lowest of handicappers. Small landing areas require the ability to work the ball with precision off the tee, while thick rough and abundant trees spell trouble for wayward drives.

The closing stretch, Nos. 15-18, is known as “The Menacing Mile,” aptly named because the four holes measure exactly one mile in length.

The true gem is the par-3 16th, where players are forced to carry their ball over a picturesque pond that runs right up to the collar of the back-to-front-sloping green, with a bunker guarding the right side.

While the championship golf course, 12-hole putting course, high-tech practice facility, tennis courts and ornate clubhouse overlooking a large pool all serve as highlights at the new-look Oakwood, none of that tops its true calling card: the par-3 course, ranked No. 4 among Golfweek’s Best private short courses in the United States behind only Pine Valley, Philly Cricket Club and Augusta National.

It certainly belongs in that elite company.

Also designed by Clark and Whitten, each of the nine holes are loosely modeled after famous par 3s around the world, from Augusta’s Golden Bell to Pete Dye’s handiwork at Spyglass.

Its synthetic turf tees are a brilliant concept that not only give players a perfect lie to spin the ball on all nine shots, it saves the club hours of labor and expenses while avoiding extensive tree maintenance.

Oakwood’s par-3 course is an absolute joy of a 60-minute loop through hilly woodland terrain, and Block said it’s the site of some thrilling match play games for the club’s members.

Hallbrook Country Club

The Hall family, founders and namesake of Hallmark Cards, is synonymous with Kansas City. The family’s rich history of investment, development and philanthropy in the area reverberates throughout the community, and the private Hallbrook Country Club in Leawood, Kansas, is one of the beneficiaries.

Hallbrook is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 3 private course in Kansas.

In 1927, Joyce Hall bought a 41-acre plot of land south of Kansas City that became the Hall Family Farm. Some 50 years later, the family was ready to do something different with the property, so Don Hall hired famed architect Tom Fazio to design a golf course with one major goal in mind: Host a U.S. Open.

When it opened in 1988, it was the USGA’s second-hardest rated course in the entire country. Once the club was built, the Halls handed it over to the members and stepped away.

But the U.S. Open dream never came to fruition, and the course was left with a bit of a dilemma: It’s hard for the general membership to enjoy such a course.

“They had to come back relatively early on after the golf course was built and do some work,” director of golf Kyle Capps said. “Fazio Design has been back a few times, and always to kind of make the golf course more playable for the membership, take some of the teeth out of it. But it’s still a demanding golf course. You have to control the golf ball off the tee, there’s a ton of opportunities to lose a ball, whether it’s in native areas, forced carries, and the creek is very prominent throughout the property. The creek comes into play on probably 70 percent of the holes.

“The greens have a lot of movement and undulation, so it’s still a really challenging golf course, but they definitely went back in and tamed some things.”

With the golf course undergoing frequent updates, the rest of the club needed a facelift, too. In 2023, Hallbrook renovated its practice facility to include nine synthetic greens and Trackman technology at every hitting bay.

A year later the clubhouse, pool and tennis courts were expanded and renovated, making Hallbrook the perfect social destination not just for avid golfers, but the whole family.

The club is magnificent and the Fazio design shines among the rolling terrain, but what makes Hallbrook especially prestigious are the names who reside (or formerly resided) in the homes that line many of the holes on the outer edge of the property.

Major League Baseball player Joe Carter and NFL legend Joe Montana each lived in Hallbrook once upon a time, and the current list of stars includes MLB Cy Young winner Zack Greinke and perhaps the world’s most famous newlyweds, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.

Wolf Creek Golf Club

Stepping outside the confines of the city to Olathe, Kansas, the private Wolf Creek Golf Club lies among wide-open fields that provide a horizon extending beyond the eye’s reach.

The course sneaks up on those traveling the county roads south of the KC metro, a “blink and you’ll miss it” locale.

That’s by design.

One of about a dozen men’s only clubs left in the U.S., Wolf Creek is a wonderland for those who did get to play it. There’s no pool, no tennis courts, no spa, just championship golf and a brand new, state-of-the-art practice facility that would make a range rat think he’d died and ascended to heaven.

The club’s owner, Marty Bicknell, believes that “just golf” simplicity is what makes it so appealing to its members. Wolf Creek is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 4 private course in Kansas.

The course’s natural beauty is something to behold, especially for an Iowan like myself who grew up in a family of farmers and outdoorsmen and on countless occasions has gazed upon a plot of rolling farmland or neighboring woodland and pondered the possibilities of designing my own loop nestled among the intoxicatingly peaceful waves of grain crops, far away from the noise of a city or the bustle of a suburban neighborhood.

Wolf Creek’s origin story is pretty much exactly that.

Six friends on a hunting trip sat atop a wooded hill outside Olathe and had visions of a golf course. Forty-seven years later, it’s one of the heartland’s premier layouts.

Many would consider the course’s signature hole to be the downhill par-3 11th, where players must hit a mid- to long iron into a massive green with a severe back-to-front slope guarded by bunkers on either side.

That said, Bicknell has an affinity for the par-5 14th, where most golfers are required to carry their ball over water not once, not twice, but three times in order to reach a green that slopes, you guessed it, back toward the water.

Wolf Creek’s wide variety of obstacles is the largest contributor to its character. Bunkers, natural grass, strategically placed trees, a slew of aquatic hazards and, perhaps most notably, its lightning-fast greens make for very few easy shots around the course.

Add in that there’s nothing surrounding it to slow down the often strong Kansas wind and the result is a truly challenging, exciting loop.

As was our entire tour around the Kansas City area.