Inverness Club - Ohio - USA

An excellent course! I was completely blown away with the hills on this property. I've been going to NW Ohio my entire life, and I had no idea hills like this were to be found anywhere!

The course has a history that is just about unmatched. There are a few courses that have hosted more majors, but after the renos that have just been completed at Inverness, I look for Inverness to be hosting more majors.

Holes 1, 4, 7, 8, 10, 13, and 18 are particularly strong. There are other good holes, too.

Ohio has so many good courses. Inverness certainly holds its own!

Your correspondent mistakenly believed for years that the Inverness logo featured an elephant and an elk, confusing the flourish of the knight’s helmet to be antler’s on the stag’s head. It seemed odd, at first, to learn the beast’s true identity was a camel. After all, one’s nobility is typically held in higher regard than the other’s. Having played the course, I now fully endorse the decision.

Glaciation’s role in forming Ohio golfland is well-established, generally for the better. The bubbling slopes of fairway seen looking back at holes such as No. 13 or No. 7 are blessings left in the form of glacial moraine (the namesake for another fine Ohio golf club). Glaciers, being non-sentient beings, did not necessarily do everything correct when shaping land for golf, however (better luck next time, guys). At countless clubs across Ohio, the result is a singular valley surrounding a creek that was at one point much larger, and much more frozen. Unfortunately, such a feature stumps lesser-level architects into making repetitive holes back and forth across the property.

Donald Ross is no lesser-level architect. The shape of the Inverness property was going to inevitably force many north/south holes, and indeed eight holes cross the Deline Ditch (actual name) and its burn. Ross’s ability to avoid boredom with a variety of challenges and approach types — holes where running down the hill’s fairway is ideal and holes where it is not; holes requiring carries to greens perched on the rim, and holes requiring (forced) carries over the burn to greens down in the valley; approaches with blind bunkers lurking upon approach, and greens making the challenge of their well known. And again, this is just eight holes, playing over an identical landform. I imagined the camel as I struck from one hump, hoping my ball reached the green atop the next.

(The elephant is perhaps represented in the championship-level strength this club intends, personified best by the daunting “Sunken Pits with Raised Faces," as Ross described the bunker style in his ‘Golf Has Never Failed Me.’ They are not casual hazards for those of poor approach).

The camel’s humps become a less fortunate symbol with regards to Inverness’s history as a course, however. I’ve seen maps of the Fazio holes, compared to Andrew Green’s reimagined/restored Ross holes and shaken my head. Worse yet, I’ve seen comments like poor John Sabino’s, who summed up the course as “small greens” circa 2016. I hope he has the opportunity to return soon, as Green’s restoration will surely be invigorating. Placement of one’s approach is still essential, but now it is not enough to simply find the green, but to find the correct place on the green...one of the core tenets of strategic golf.

Inverness began high on the back of Ross’s splendid work, descended into the valley of architecture’s dark ages, and has risen again atop the camel’s next hump.

(As a side note, after my misunderstanding on Inverness’s logo, now I’m concerned The Golf Club’s logo may also be some hoofed animal aside from a stag! If anyone cares to give me a closer look…)

Fascinating routing with lots of parallel holes featuring a steep ravine with a creek. Ingeniously routed to provide variety in how each hole utilizes the ravine at different points in the hole to limit repetitiveness. Case in point are the 1st and 10th hole which play side by side. With the 1st green on top of the ravine and the 10th down it, the holes play completely differently. The greens were very small, but I thought they were challenging without being over the top. My favorite stretch of holes was 4-8, mostly on the back half of the property. I especially liked the 8th hole, where a well placed drive that catches the edge of the ravine funnels down into the valley for a good chance to go at the green in two.

I recently played Inverness after the renovation. The improvements definitely increased my already favorable opinion. Not only does the course have a variety of holes and shots required, it has some of the best greens in the U.S.

Worthy of a top 150 course in the U.S. The greens are the highlight of the course. The small greens are extremely challenging to hold when firm and fast. Great variety of holes.

If I had to sum up Inverness in two words: small greens. Inverness has the smallest greens of any golf course I have ever played. Almost every green is a postage stamp green. Not only is each green very small, but the predominant design feature of the course is well guarded greens with narrow openings that require accurate approaches. Each green has either mounds on both sides or bunkers with high lips. It is a fairly easy driving course, with wide fairways. The trick at Inverness is getting on the greens in regulation. It requires very precise iron play.

I liked the layout and routing at Inverness. I especially liked the 7th hole, which is the #1 handicap. You play your tee shot from an elevated tee. The ideal tee shot favors the right side of the fairway, but in shades of Carnoustie, you have to flirt with a burn that snakes subtly throughout the entire course. The second shot is straight uphill and really favors an approach from the right as opposed to left side of the fairway since a big sycamore tree sits at the top of a plateau protecting the green. As is customary in Ross's designs, Inverness has its fair share of holes with shaved areas around the small greens. It’s an old-style Donald Ross gem of a course.

John Sabino is the author of How to Play the World’s Most Exclusive Golf Clubs

Inverness Club was a wonderful way to start off my most recent US golf trip. It's a must see course in Ohio and certainly one of the top 4 courses in the state. I didn't ever see the course pre-renovation but was taken through it in great detail. One of its strengths has to be its great set of par 4's; short, medium and long with tremendous variation even though many of them run adjacent to one another. Two of my favorites were 10 and 18. 10 offers up a wide open drive visually but then leaves a short iron from an elevated swale in the fairway to a tiny green that's pretty well guarded by rough and green side bunkers front left and right, a burn runs just short. 18 on the other hand is a short par 4 that allows you to choose anything from a mid iron to a driver depending on the level of risk you wish to take on. The small green is severely sloped from right to left making even the shortest approach from the wrong angle (the right side anywhere) next to impossible to hold the green. In order to approach from the best angles on the left side you have to challenge the heavy bunking running down that side.

The par 3 12th was a great medium length one shot hole where the small undulated green is heavily protected and green surface partially blind from the tee box. A lovely hole requiring a carefully placed tee shot into the wind on our day. One of the amazing things about Inverness that attests to the strength of its routing is how easily walkable it is and how well it flows from green to the next tee. Yet the holes still don't feel crammed together.

Inverness is a great members club and a thrill to play. I imagine it's a course that just keeps getting more and more fun to play once you get to know it better. If you ever get the chance to play it jump on it.

Inverness has hosted four U.S. Opens, two PGA Championships, and a U.S. Amateur. A few of these tournaments have brought some notoriety to the course. In 1931, Billy Burke and George Von Elm were tied at the end of regulation play. After a 36-hole playoff, they were tied again. Billy Burke won the subsequent 36-hole playoff by one stroke. It still stands as the longest playoff in the history of golf.

The 1979 U.S. Open is remembered fondly because of a tree. The 528-yard eighth hole was designed as a classic three-shot par 5, with a severe dogleg left and five deep bunkers in proximity of the green. Where others saw trouble, Lon Hinkle saw an opportunity when he discovered, during practice, that nothing prevented a player from hitting a tee shot through a narrow opening of trees onto the adjacent 17th fairway, then lofting a long second shot over the trees onto the eighth green, a shortcut that cut 80 yards off the intended track. The USGA was not thrilled about his strategy, which compromised the integrity of the three-shot hole and the safety of the gallery on the 17th hole. After Hinkle revealed his shortcut on day one, a very tall tree was planted in the middle of the night to the left of the tee box to plug the gap. Today you can still see what is now fondly referred to as the Hinkle tree blocking the former route through the 17th fairway. The question still remains: Is it legal to alter a golf course during the course of a championship?

Inverness is well designed and challenging, but I favor courses that have beauty and terrific views. Yet for its challenge alone, this course deserves its spot on the Top 100, even if it lacks the magnificence of Pebble Beach, Cypress Point, or even Black Diamond Ranch. Larry Berle.

Subtle brilliance is how I would desribe the wonderful golf course. This history surrounding the club is second to none, as is the course itself. Hole 18 ranks as the best hole I have ever played. With "Death Valley" off to the right, a number of bunkers in front of the green, and a wicked, wicked slope of the green. Hole 7 is a bunkerless Ross gem. And holes 4 and 10 are under-rated. This is a must play! Check mprgolf.com for my full review.

Small hard and very fast greens surrounded by thick rough, US Open style golf at it's hardest. The club oozes history much of it Greg Norman would like to forget. Great hosts the members are quite rightly very proud of their history and wonderful course. Already looking forward to my next visit.