Inverness No Stranger To History

By David Shefter, USGA

Who says a great championship layout has to be located in a major metropolitan area? Prairie Dunes in the quaint Kansas town of Hutchinson proved that in 2002 with the U.S. Women’s Open. A year earlier, Southern Hills in Oklahoma’s second city (Tulsa) displayed its grit in hosting its third U.S. Open.

And nobody will argue the merits of Pebble Beach (Calif.) Golf Links or the No. 2 Course at Pinehurst (N.C.) Golf Resort.

This week, the northwest Ohio town of Toledo takes the national stage as the Inverness Club, which is celebrating its centennial, plays host to the U.S. Senior Open. This is the club’s sixth USGA event, having conducted four U.S. Opens (1920, 1931, 1957 and 1979) and one U.S. Amateur (1973). Inverness also has had two PGA Championships (1986 and 1993).

And ever since that first National Open in 1920, Inverness has displayed its championship mettle. In fact, no player has broken par in any of the four Opens. The best showing came by Hale Irwin in 1979 when his even-par total of 284 bested Gary Player and Jerry Pate by two strokes.

Inverness has also made history outside the ropes. Byron Nelson was the head pro at the club for five years. Frank Stranahan, another great champion, also honed his skills there.

The 1920 Open was the first time a club invited the competitors inside the clubhouse. In the early days, professional golfers were treated like second-class citizens, a far cry from today’s luxuries and perks extended to the world’s top players.

The Inverness members not only permitted the pros inside the clubhouse, but they also found them rooms and provided cars to and from the course. At the end of the championship, the competitors, led by Walter Hagen, banded their financial resources and bought the club a cathedral chime clock that still stands in the lobby.

The 1920 competition also witnessed the Open debuts of Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen, Tommy Armour and Johnny Farrell. All four would go on to claim at least one U.S. Open title. Farrell, in fact, defeated Jones in a playoff to take the 1928 Open at Olympia Fields, site of this year’s Open.

Changes

Ironically, when the Open returned to Inverness in 1931, Jones was in his first year of retirement from competitive golf, having won the Grand Slam a year earlier. Jones was on hand to see George Von Elm and Billy Burke duel in the longest U.S. Open playoff in history. The U.S. Open playoff rules at the time called for a 36-hole playoff if there was a deadlock after 72 holes. If the players were still tied after the 36 holes, an additional 36 holes would be played the following day.

Burke and Von Elm, who needed to hole a 10-footer at the 72nd hole to force the playoff, could not decide the outcome after the first 36 holes. Burke finally outlasted Von Elm in the second 36 by a single stroke, 148-149. Following this marathon, the USGA amended its playoff procedure, shortening it to 18 holes.

This Open offered up some additional first. Burke became the first golfer to win a major championship using steel-shafted clubs. This also was the first Open to be broadcast nationally, although the medium of the day wasn’t television, but radio. And it was the first Open to be conducted with an "American" golf ball, which had a diameter of 1.68 inches as compared to the British standard of 1.62 inches that was used in previous U.S. events. The 1.68-inch diameter is now the standard for all golf balls.

Despite being held in the height of the Great Depression, admission for the Sunday playoff was $3. The cost was trimmed to $2 for the Monday marathon and it was only $1 to attend in the afternoon. Thousands of golf fans, many of whom never had witnessed the sport, managed to scrape up enough money to attend the second day of the playoff.

Special Moments

When the Open returned to Inverness in 1957, a chubby-cheeked blonde from Columbus, Ohio made his debut. At the age of 17, Jack Nicklaus competed in his first of his record 44 U.S. Opens. At Inverness, he would shoot 80-80 and miss the cut, but five years later, he would capture the first of four National Opens. What’s interesting is Inverness was the site for Jones, Sarazen and Nicklaus to make their Open debut.

Dick Mayer went on to win the championship in a playoff over Cary Middlecoff, but not before he nearly was disqualified because of an apparent mix-up over his Friday starting time. Newspapers reported at the time that Mayer had been in the clubhouse locker room and was summoned to the first tee barely in the nick of time. Art Wall Jr., who was scheduled to start in the group following Mayer’s, later recalled that "a car zoomed up the driveway right behind the tee and Mayer jumped out and ran to the tee."

The 1979 U.S. Open is not known as much for the person who won as for what happened prior to the second round. Lon Hinkle, a long-hitting pro discovered a unique shortcut for playing the par-5 eighth hole. He decided to cut 60 to 80 yards off the hole by driving his ball up through a narrow opening to the adjacent 17th fairway. Several other players followed suit. So the USGA installed a 25-foot spruce tree. Superintendent Wilbert Waters and his staff completed the work by 5:30 a.m. By the weekend, most of the golfers had chosen the conventional way to play No. 8, although Hinkle persisted on using his alternative approach.

More Changes

Prior to that Open, Tom and George Fazio did some extensive renovations that eventually did not get the rave reviews these two noted architects would have hoped for. Purists were not fond of the changes and even Nicklaus, a noted designer himself, said: "I always think it’s sort of silly to change a great golf course. The new holes don’t fit in with the rest of the course."

Following the championship, Arthur Hills, a Toledo native and Inverness member, did some modifications to the new Fazio holes that brought them more in character with Donald Ross’s original design. The least affected by the changes, however, was the eighth, which now has a healthy and robust spruce (Hinkle Tree) to serve as a constant reminder of the 1979 Open.

Walrus And The Amateur

The only U.S. Amateur held at Inverness came in 1973 where Craig Stadler, who will play in this week’s Senior Open, defeated David Strawn for the title. The ’73 Amateur saw a return to the match-play format following eight years of stroke play. But the highlight for Stadler came in the quarters and semis where he knocked off reigning British Amateur champion Dick Siderowf and reigning U.S. Amateur champion Vinnie Giles III (he’s also entered in this week’s Senior Open), respectively. For the first time in a number of years, the 1973 Amateur featured all 20 of the USA and Great Britain and Ireland Walker Cup team members, who had squared off the previous week at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass.

PGA Championships Provide Excitement

The two PGA Championships held at Inverness in 1986 and 1993 both featured some late dramatics and each time Greg Norman was the unlucky victim.

In 1986, Bob Tway holed a bunker shot at the 72nd hole for a birdie and a two-stroke win. The two had come to the final hole sharing the lead. Norman’s approach spun off the green into some fluffy rough where he was unable to get up and down for his par. That year Norman became the only golfer to lead all four majors after 54 holes, but he only won the British Open. While no Open competitor had broken par at Inverness, Tway finished at eight under par on a setup that was not quite as demanding. Ten players bettered par that week.

Seven years later, Paul Azinger bested Norman in a sudden-death playoff after recording birdies on four of his last seven holes. Like in ’86, Norman was coming off a victory at the British Open and he became one of three players to record four sub-70 scores (Azinger and Nick Faldo were the others). The PGA of America set up the course for scoring and thanks to some heavy rains early in the week that softened conditions, a tournament-record 57 players broke par in the first round.

Club pro Darrell Kestner recorded the championship’s first double eagle when he holed a 5-wood shot from 222 yards at the 13th hole. Vijay Singh also recorded a 63, a feat he matched at this year’s U.S. Open.

A year later, Azinger was diagnosed with lymphoma in his right shoulder blade and he went some six-and-a-half years before recording his next PGA Tour win.

David Shefter is a staff writer for the USGA. E-mail him at dshefter@usga.org with questions and comments.