Almost 100 years after Donald Ross carved the Inverness Club out of a slab of farmland, the course in northwestern Ohio remains one of his most impressive works of art.
Deep bowls and elevation changes serve as a stark contrast to the surrounding terrain, yet fit in as if they always have been there. The Toledo club has been the site of nine major championships in the past decade, and will make it 11 after the U.S. Junior Amateur in 2019 and the 2021 Solheim Cup that was announced Nov. 9. As the next chapter in the long and storied history of Inverness is written, it will be a new artist, superintendent Chad Mark, who will wield a brush and palette on this canvas."This is an amazing piece of property," said Mark, recipient of the 2013 TurfNet Superintendent of the Year award.
Inverness has a century-old tradition of providing a stern test of golf for players at the highest level, and that is part of what attracted Mark to the job after a dozen years as superintendent at The Kirtland Country Club east of Cleveland.
"It was hard to leave Kirtland," Mark said. "This is a national club with a national reputation.
"The first time I walked the course about 10 days before my interview, something about it just felt right. I told my wife that if I get the opportunity, it's going to be hard to say no."
A great deal of history has been made at Inverness, and Mark wants to be part of future chapters that have yet to be written. The 18th green is where Bob Tway holed out for birdie on the 72nd hole in a rain-plagued 1986 PGA Championship to beat Greg Norman in a Monday finish. In 1920, so the story goes, 43-year-old Ted Ray of England put down his putter there to relight his pipe before sinking a birdie putt on the final day to beat Jack Burke by one stroke and become the oldest Open champion in history (a mark that stood until Ray Floyd won in 1986 at Shinnecock Hills).
"Some of the things that have happened on this hole over the years, you don't really appreciate it until you all of these stories," Mark said.
Inverness has been the host site of four U.S. Open Championships (1920, '31, '57, '79), a pair of PGA Championships (1986, '93), two U.S. Senior Open Championships (2003, '11) and the 1973 U.S. Amateur.
"Inverness has a long history of championships. It's part of the DNA here. Our members and really the whole city are hungry for something like that."
Inverness and Toledo make a perfect fit for the Solheim Cup. The city has a long-running association with the LPGA. The Marathon Classic, which has been contested under various titles and sponsors for the past 32 years, is played each year at Highland Meadows in nearby Sylvania. The 2017 Solheim Cup will be played at Des Moines Golf and Country Club in West Des Moines, Iowa, and the 2019 edition is scheduled for Gleneagles in Perthshire, Scotland.
LPGA players are looking forward to contesting the event at Inverness.
"I think Inverness is going to be an unbelievable venue for us with all of the history with the guys playing there and just the history of the golf course itself," said LPGA pro Stacy Lewis, a Toledo native and three-time Solheim Cup veteran (2009, 2011, 2015). "It's such a cool course to play with a bunch of holes really close and I think it's going to help make for a very loud Solheim Cup."
Between now and the '19 U.S. Junior Amateur and the Solheim Cup in 2021, Inverness will be even better, says Mark, who along with his crew will be busy getting the course into championship shape. However, that is something he would be doing regardless of whether the USGA and LPGA were coming to town.
"We want championship conditions every day. We want firm and fast and to increase velocity. That means a lot of cultivation over the next couple of years, and our members understand that," he said. "We want Inverness to be nationally recognized not only for its history but for its conditions. That is the only way to be in the mix for big tournaments.
"I want it to be perfect tomorrow. I need to be more patient, and I'm not a very patient person. The bones are here, and when we get it to where we want it, people will say 'wow, now I get it.' "
Future improvements also call for a new maintenance facility on the back of the property and a First Tee center on adjacent farmland owned by Metroparks Toledo.
"Inverness has a history of giving back to the community and the game," said Mark, who has quickly immersed himself in all things Inverness. "To do something that is going to help grow the game with the youth of Toledo is a big deal."
A high-pedigree job like Inverness seems like a perfect match for Mark, who runs in high circles. He interned under John Zimmers at Sand Ridge Golf Club in Chardon, Ohio, and later stayed on as the assistant for Jim Roney when Zimmers moved on to Oakmont. Among Mark's closest friends are Paul B. Latshaw, CGCS at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, site of the PGA Tour's Memorial Tournament, and Jeff Corcoran of Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, New York.
Through the years, Mark has worked several tournaments for his colleagues, and urges members of his crew to do the same. He is looking forward to soon being the host superintendent for a major event."When you volunteer for these things, you come back energized and it's exciting. Part of me wonders if I need that same kind of juice to make me feel like I've achieved what I wanted to in this business," he said. "I wasn't looking to leave Kirtland, but I would have kicked myself if I would have looked into an opportunity where I could come to a place like Inverness. Let's say in 10 years they host a PGA here. Would I be looking back and regretting it?
"To volunteer is nice. For one, you don't have to clean up when it's over. But I wonder what it would be like if I was hosting and planning a tournament like that at a place like this that is on the national stage."
Making the move was a big decision not only for Mark's career, but for his family, as well. Looking back, it was one that also made a lot of sense on several levels, not the least of which was a homecoming of sorts for his wife, April, who is from Edgerton, which is 70 miles west of Toledo. The couple's three children, 12-year-old Drew, Ryan (9) and Brett (6) also have assimilated into their new environs.
"We knew the kids would be around grandparents a little bit more than when we were four hours away from her parents and mine," said Mark, a native of southern Ohio. "Still, it was tough because we have a lot of friends in Chardon who we considered family.
"The kids have been great. They made a lot of friends and started playing lacrosse in the first two weeks after we moved, and they played football in the fall. Kids are so resilient. It makes you laugh looking back at some of the things you didn't do because of your kids. Then you learn they would've been OK, and it was me who couldn't handle it."