Indian Hills Country Club
Designed by A. W. Tillinghast
History
The year was 1919, and Kansas City’s expanding prosperity had begun spilling across the state line into Mission Hills, where developers were laying out one of the Midwest’s earliest planned residential communities. Indian Hills Country Club rose alongside that ambition, conceived as the recreational anchor for a neighborhood meant to rival the finest suburbs in the country. The club’s founders wanted a golf course that would match the seriousness of their vision, and they turned to a designer who was, at that moment, still building his reputation into the name it would become.
That designer was A. W. Tillinghast, who arrived in Kansas in the early years of his career, before Winged Foot, before Baltusrol, before the string of championship venues that would later define him. What he found in Mission Hills was rolling, wooded terrain typical of eastern Kansas — not dramatic in the way of the seaside links he admired, but full of natural movement he could shape into a serious test. Tillinghast’s early work at Indian Hills reflected the same instincts that would mark his later masterpieces: a trust in the land’s existing contours and a refusal to force the ground into artificial symmetry.
In the century since its founding, Indian Hills has remained a private club serving the Mission Hills community, its membership and its course evolving in step with the neighborhood Tillinghast helped establish as a golfing address. The club has undergone renovations over the decades to preserve playability and infrastructure, though its identity has stayed rooted in that original 1919 commission — one of the earlier chapters in what would become a prolific American design career.
Playing Notes
Expect a traditional parkland test where tree-lined corridors put a premium on keeping the ball in play off the tee — the rolling Kansas terrain adds subtle uphill and downhill lies that can throw off distance control, so club selection matters more than it might look like from the tee box. Greens here tend to run true but with enough movement to punish careless lag putts, and the bunkering is positioned to catch shots that drift rather than to guard every pin directly. Walking is possible but hilly enough that most members take carts, especially in summer heat. Bring extra water, a rangefinder if you have one, and a short game you trust, since scrambling around these greens will do more for your card than bombing drives.