Golf is the game of a lifetime, and for Kansas City golfer Chris Harris, that meant ordering the demolition of his childhood home.
With help from the Big Brothers, Big Sisters and First Tee programs, Harris hatched a plan to turn a downtrodden city block into a park and activities center for youth in the area.
Over the past 20 years, Harris has bought up and cleared each lot, eventually opening a two-tee, six-green facility that could replicate a 12-hole course last year. On Monday, he took the final step in creating an 18-hole course by bulldozing his childhood home.
“I just felt like in the neighborhood, I didn’t have the opportunity to get up, come outside and play the game of golf,” Harris told WNEP. “I really do believe that if we have the opportunity in the neighborhood, there will be a lot more people playing the game of golf. I think golf is accessible to us as well. My goal is to make sure I come out here and take care of this golf course, make it beautiful. Make the beautification that helps the neighborhood, gives the kids another opportunity to get scholarships. It can open so many other doors along with other sports.”
The newly-cleared lot will make way for six more tees and another green, which using limited-flight golf balls, will allow kids to replicate nearly every shot they would face on a normal golf course.
“What Chris has done here I have not seen or heard of ever before,” Brigette Chirpich, the former executive director of The First Tee of Greater Kansas City told Fox News 4 last year.
The new green and tees are expected to be opened next month at what is now aptly known as the Harris Park Sports and Activity Center.
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