Craig Glazer (far left) Ted McKnight & Nicci (far right)
The verdict is in…
After a huge capital investment the Woodside Health & Tennis Club’s fabulous redo is complete and represents a major change in direction for the club. That being a measure of new style country club success that likely will greatly diminish the status of Old Guard, blue blood, golf club snob country clubs.
I’ve never seen a local club like Woodside with full pool crowds on Friday, Saturday and Sundays. The tans, the smiles the well built, upwardly mobil members feasting on a cutting edge new social spot. It’s an all-ages club – meaning there is NO GOLF COURSE – which is very likely is the wave of the future.
Kansas City has long been a Who’s Who, country club city type of town, with private clubs like Mission Hills, Oakwood and Kansas City Country Club to name the big guns. Clubs that require prospective members to make it past a very close – and often catty – scrutiny to join.
We all remember the controversy when golfer Tom Watson quit the KCCC after failing to get Jewish friend Henry Bloch into the club. Oakwood has been the blue blood Jewish club while the Mission Hills clubs were tougher to get in for most Jews, let alone blacks.
Of course the Kansas City Country Club is the toughest to join.
Generally speaking, if you’re a person of color or Jewish, fuggedaboutit.
But with all the public golf courses dotting the landscape today, combined with rising costs and huge overheads to maintain the courses, a decline in popularity, has started to hurt the big boys.
According to the National Golf Foundation, more than 4.1 million golfers quit the game last year, while just 14 new golf courses were built and 157 closed.
So much for being a golf snob.
Tiger Woods helped motivate a generation to get into golf, but with his demise, the passage of time and the cost of playing the game rising, fewer people are interested today.
KCC’s Mermaid (left) and pal soak up the party vibe @ Woodside Saturday
Besides, you don’t have to be a member of a snooty Mission Hills country club to go play a really nice course anymore. Many of the best golf courses are open to the public, so why spend tens of thousands to join a blue blood club when you can get into a Woodside for far less.
And probably have a lot more fun!
For example, this past Saturday Woodside put on its second White Party and it was a smash hit, sold out. BTW, don’t get the wrong idea about a White Party, all it entails was wearing all white. The party was packed with high level young and middle aged adults, including many from KC’s hip crowd.
The older set was represented by members like former Chiefs running back Ted McKnight and myself, but mostly it was the 25-45 set that ruled the event.
And Woodside had it all, from European Circus acts flying over the pools to a girl in a bubble floating in the water. Very interesting and different. The event attracted more than 700 members and the guest list was like a variation on Jazzoo.
The problem with the Mission Hills, Indian Hills and Oakwood – besides of course the ridiculous cost to join and support their golf overheads – is there really isn’t much action for younger adults. The crowds at their pools are sparse with oldsters packing the dining rooms. And while many of their gyms have been upgraded like Woodside’s, generally speaking it’s a case of too little too late.
Don’t get me wrong, there will always be private clubs.
I just think it’s getting less and less important for people to join one.
You’ll get a lot more bang for your buck at a Woodside style operation.
Because at Woodside, a family can join for several hundred dollars instead of thousands and their monthly bill is just over 100 bucks a month, plus whatever you spend on food and drink.
Nicci
As time marches on we lose many of the iconic toys of success from the past. They get replaced by the new ones. Similarly the old style private country clubs are dying and being replaced by new, modern, more fun ones.
BTW, that’s my new girlfriend Nicci in the photos with Ted McKnight and myself.
While Woodside has members like Carl Peterson, Len Dawson, David Block, super agent Tom Condon and the Star’s Mary Sanchez, there’s also a contingent bolstered by newer, younger members like the Chiefs Cheerleaders and a boatload of young professionals.
It’s the wave of the future.
P.S. Hearne has taken me several times to The Kansas City Country Club. Only way they let me in there. Ha!
Maybe this column is aimed at the Harley and Wislun demographic, but I’m too poor to understand what any of this means.
brother….let me take you to the real show…lifetime fitness..
will put you and your pool hopping oldsters to shame.
now that you’re out south…let Harley show you the way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
your friend
harley
Harley clearly you haven’t gone to Woodside lately.
Glaze is right about one thing…you don’t have to join a country club to play a top rated and high quality golf course any more. They’re everywhere in KC, and getting a tee time isn’t much of a problem.
Golf is never going to be a sport for the masses. At least not in an instant-gratification, 24-hour news cycle, what’s the next “must-have” gadget society. But you are wrong about one thing, CG. Golf has never been more affordable than it is right now.
It’s funny how sports like golf and tennis have evolved.
When I was a kid it seemed like the only people – mostly – playing golf and tennis were upper middle class and up – and the concept of either sport attaining mass appeal seemed remote at best.
Then along came Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, Chrissy Evert, McEnroe, et all and it was off to the races. Suddenly those almost always abandoned public tennis courts were jam packed.
That of course faded back to next to nothing.
Then golf – who I thought only my dad and his peer group could find even mildly interesting to watch on TV – started stepping into the limelight in the late 1980s and early 1990s and every new housing development wanted a golf course. Then as Craig says, came Tiger Woods and it was off to the races for anybody and everybody to want to learn how to play golf.
Followed by stories shortly before we began to enter the recession about the overbuilding of golf courses – there were too many.
Now, outside of the usual suspects – country club and upwardly mobil business types – you don’t seem to hear much about playing or watching golf out of the normal guy set.
A Business Week story in June – How Golf Got Stuck in the Rough – found that “Golf is suffering from an exodus of players, and courses are closing. The number of U.S. golfers has dropped 24 percent from its peak in 2002, to about 23 million players last year, according to Pellucid, a consulting company that specializes in the business of golf. It found that in 2013 alone, the game lost 1.1 million players.”
The reasons: It’s expensive. It’s hard to master. And it takes too much time.
The only one I know that really seems to have enough time for it anymore is President Obama.
Go figure
We must have (obviously) a totally different outlook on life as well as different circle of friends and social culture.
1. 10’s of millions of people will set aside 4 to 6 hours of time on a Saturday and Sunday to watch college and NFL football. Everyone, I mean everyone has 4 or 5 hours a week to do something they like. Time isn’t the issue. If I ever got to a point in my life when I thought I didn’t have 4 hours a week to do something I like, I would reevaluate my life.
2. Too expensive? Compared to what? Baseball? Football? Dining out? Going to the movies? There are dozens of courses in the KC area that you can play for $40 or less (cart included).
3. Hard to master? Yes. Hard to get to where you are decent enough to enjoy the game? Not really. You are with friends, in a beautiful setting, maybe a few cold beverages and 4 hours away from reality. How hard is that to enjoy, score not withstanding?
I’m raising 4 kids and my significant other and myself can almost always find 4 hours to play at least twice a month. In fact, she just started this year and is having a ball. Bought her a beginners set of clubs that came with a bag for about $150 bucks. She’s got so into it, that she tagged along with me on a business trip to Pinehurst NC, and we played there as well. I’m fine with some “golfers” leaving the game. Most were a bunch of johnny come lately hipster dickbags who played because it was cool, not because they loved it. Good riddance to those white trash dildos.
Hear hear…
Goofy comment on Obama. I can vividly remember “W”‘s comment after a statement about 9/11….”now, watch this drive”.
Keep the stupid politics to yourself.
+1
Your mere mention of Mary Sanchez as a member of Woodside is reason enough for 99 percent of this town to not ever step foot at that disease-riddled club and pool.
Come on Jayhawk, Mary is a nice person, I have known her for more than 20 years. Maybe you don’t like her politics but she is a sharp lady. As for Harley and his thoughts on Lifetime Fitness: no doubt its a fine sports and fitness attraction but not in the ballpark of what Woodside offers for the upwardly mobile sect. The pool parties on Friday nights, the well behaved and generally younger set are lined up to join. Soon the club will sell out memberships and then you will have to wait for phase two and the shopping center/apartments and health club,pool and fitness additions coming in 2015/16. Hey anyone can go check it out, ask for David Freeland tell him I sent you for a look see…
Owner Blair Tanner, the quarterback of the upgrading, told me that membership is divided in nearly exact amounts. 25 % 20-25 25% 25-35 25% 35-45 and 25% 45-60 good spread.Of course you see the younger ages at the pool and parties for the most part. Woodside has no equal in this city today. So much for the Jones, now closed.
The pools will stay open til the end of September so you still have time to see the attractions for another month or so, do so.
Glazer — You’re older than 60….I didn’t see any from your age group represented in the percentages.
Lance we can always count on you for some b.s. and attacks cause you are a little shmuck. I am sure there was not time in your life you could compete with me at much of anything, especially women and adventure. Uh Lance that means now as well. What is it you do again? Oh yeah not much. Hey I got an idea send us a photo, lets see who looks better now me or you, bet its me. Oh in every way looks build, etc..lets bet. We can let the public judge. Hows that sound pal.
Well, you beat him for time served in prison, that’s for sure. I doubt Lance will not begin to touch your felony rap sheet.
All I can tell you Jayhawk Tony is that up until a handful of years ago (or two), she was considered one of the hottest reporters in the Kansas City Star newsroom.
Which doesn’t make most of the body of her work less boring, but may qualify her for a poolside pic if Craig ever gets her in his sights!
Indeed, there are at least 10 top-notch public course in town. And reserving a tee time is easy. There’s one problem, however – the idiots that come out to learn on such a course. Their bumbling attempts at the game ruin a morning or afternoon outing for everyone unlucky enough to play behind them.
However that will soon be a thing of the past; Overland Park will soon(ish) open one of those dreadful golf-lite monstrosities, with a multi-deck practice range, golf holes the size of Frisbees, booze everywhere, night lighting and childish games with prizes that even the uninitiated can handle. No real golf to speak of, but this venue seems to be the wave of the future.
Myself, I can hardly wait – the idiots on the courses now will undoubtedly immediately decamp for the easier/more fun atmosphere.
As to private clubs, I played a round yesterday morning at Brookridge and the pool area was overflowing with teens and young adults both when I arrived and departed. While country clubs have indeed needed to restructure for the current economy/cultural climate, they certainly won’t die off.
There’s almost always kiddies of various ages at the country club pools during the season, Nick. At least that’s been my experience growing up and as an adult.
Example: The Carriage Club (with an ice rink and tennis but no golf).
I hadn’t thought about being stuck behind hackers because I play so seldom anymore. But you’re right, that would be frightful to anybody halfway accomplished at the game.
With the popularity swooning, maybe things will work out in the near future. Although there’s always gonna be somebody out there doffing away.
No they won’t die off, didn’t say they would. Woodside has found the anser, upscale pools, multiples for singles, adults then an area for family…makes sense, plenty of bars, food areas and music for the younger set…works, single style night life events at least monthly, big turnouts….this is far more than any other country club in KC. A big day out there is around 200 for the day, usually Saturday not Friday or Sunday unless its a holiday, Woodside can bring 500 on any give Friday, Saturday or Sunday unless it is raining or cloudy or cold…big dif.
I wish them luck, but it’s not my cup of tea – waaaaay too many people.
And given the fact that, in this part of the country, pools are but a seasonal attraction, I hope their business plan is as robust for the other six months.
Golf is mystical and beautiful in my opinion.
Plus I love watching it on TV. Straight commision brings out the best and the beast in competitors and when the two dovetail in an unexpected perfomance under great duress, it’s as good as sports gets.
+1 Chuck. Golf and life are similar conditions with lessons to be learned in both at the same time.
Different strokes for different folks…the old saying. I think Woodside overall has added a nice entertainment venue for all of us in mid KC area. I can’t wait to see the expansion it will change the direction of Westwood and Fairway to a certain extent. The area needs more up to date shopping and dinning close by. The nice apartments are also much needed. Should be very nice.
To Dude and Intern, look we’ve gone a few years with the ‘Glazer’ attacks. They never change. I can’t relive the 80’s or 90’s, you can listen and learn that’s all. I’m not perfect like some people. Sorry.
Glaze — I wasn’t trying to attack you. I’ve read your book…In it you stated your were 18 years old in 1971. That would make your birth year 1953. I believe we share a birth month (March). This would make your age now 61.
Is this incorrect?
Lance I don’t know you, but since you have been a comment person all your comments on me or about me have been negative, right. What is your point kiddo? I made mine about you. Yeah I am in the ‘old guard’ of Woodside no doubt.
Lance my age clearly is not an issue is it. I don’t think too many guys 50 look like me let alone older. I work hard to stay in shape and look my best, clearly. My reward is dating some nice looking ladies in their late 20’s or 30’s…if that’s a reward. Who knows. You see my girlfriend of 8 months. She is very nice looking. That’s all. The story wasnt about that or me. It was about Woodside taking over from the old guard clubs. They have.
Lance you are not alone in the ‘attack mode’ on me. No question. Way it is way it goes.
glaze…golf lost its luster when tiger went down. He was the ratings guy…the one driving the passion for the sport…the one the networks needed to keep the interest in the game…but he’s down temporarily and hopefully
comes back.
all sports needs a major star. til majic and bird came to the nba along with Jordan it was having tough times…but now its thriving with its new young stars.
woodside is nice. If you like a pool and the 21-30 years old female that hang there.
outside some hot women in suits its just another
swimming pool.
You don’t travel much so you haven’t seen the
sights that I have. woodside is a nice place for kc..
but in terms of the other attractions around the nation..its just typical kc.
contact me to go see the ladies of lifetime..i have\been to woodside 4 or 5 times this summer….but I’m not
into the same life you are.
woodside is nice…you’re agreat p.r. guy for them…
the tanners have always been good to me…and I wish
them luck with their new ventures.
harley
Disc golf is way better, less frustrating, cheaper and more fun.
But if you are still into ball golf you can go on groupon or one of many tee time apps and play an A-level public course for $40, cart included. If you want to play a B-level course it is $20 with the cart.
+100 on disc golf being better. Less snobbery and if you help someone find a lost disc they might spot you a one hit.
love it.