KCCC Renovation Sensation: with both the tennis courts and the golf course at Kansas City Country Club being renovated, members, workers and neighbors of the club are being affected by the recent construction

The Kansas City Country Club golf course will begin renovations in the next few weeks, following the tennis court renovations that occurred in June.

These changes, while positive for the club in the long term, temporarily affect club employees, members and, occasionally, neighbors.

Senior Lulu Stadler has been an employee at the club’s tennis pro shop for two and a half years. This summer, she was only able to work a total of six or seven shifts — compared to four days a week last summer — before the closing of the tennis courts for demolition and temporarily moving clinics to the Shawnee Mission East courts.

“It’s just a different location and the same activity,” Stadler said.

The remodeling of the tennis courts and the golf course were both needed, according to Stadler, but construction delays led to both of the projects starting only months apart, despite the tennis court remodel being planned for last October.

“We never knew when it would be,” Stadler said.

In the last few weeks, the grass on the golf course was killed using chemicals to make construction easier. Senior Helen Jones, a member of the club, plays golf there regularly and has noticed the changes.

“I can still play, but the grass is dying,” Jones said “The rough is harder to hit out of.”

The back nine holes of the course are already shut down for reconstruction, and the rest of the course will be shut down within the next few weeks, cutting the typical golfing season — April to November – short.

Aside from functionality of the course and the tennis courts, the view from the pool and clubhouse is now withering grass.

A server at the club’s pool, senior Anna Ravis, has worked at the pool since last summer. Even though the pool is not included in the remodeling, she has noticed a downturn of attendance even at the pool aside from swim meet days, potentially due to the lack of other activities at the club.

“This summer there were a lot less people at the pool during the day in the summer,” Ravis said. “We had a max of around 40 orders a day in July.”

Despite the temporary downturn in attendance, the golf course and tennis facilities were ready for a change, with the tennis courts scheduled to be finished in February and the new golf course projected for Spring 2026.

While on paper, this seems like a relatively short amount of time, Jones worries that the lack of year-round tennis at the club or a running golf course will cause some members to leave the club.

“People are definitely gonna leave because there are no facilities to utilize,” Jones said.

While members of the club have their own opinions, even those on the outside of the situation have noticed its effects.

Ravis, whose backyard is right next to the club tennis courts, noted that construction noise was an issue for her neighbors with younger kids on certain days in the summer.

With construction picking back up soon for the golf course, this could be an ongoing issue.

While members will miss the tennis courts and the golf course for the next year, many are excited to see the finished project. These short-term issues like delay, noise, and minimized function are commonplace with large construction projects and often pay off in the end.

“The remodel is really needed and [Kansas City Country Club] has wanted to do it for a while,” Stadler said.