One women’s professional golf tournament has been held at Inverness.
A second will be conducted at the famous Dorr Street course this week, as the LPGA Tour reconvenes after a five-month layoff because of the coronavirus pandemic.
If the 1954 Inverness Invitational is any indication, the Drive On Championship July 31 to Aug. 2 will boast a bevy of Hall of Famers.
Tom Bolger, in the July 16, 1954 edition of the Toledo Times wrote, “The cast runs from the veteran Babe Zaharias, certainly the finest woman athlete of all time, to 19-year-old Mickey Wright, one of golf’s brightest newcomers. In addition, there is Louise Suggs, called the ‘Ben Hogan’ of women’s golf; the popular Patty Berg, who has been playing tournament golf since the WPGA days of 1935; Betsy Rawls, to our knowledge the only pro golfer with a Phi Betta Kappa ring, the attractive Bauer sisters, Alice and Marlene; Betty Jameson, winner of the U.S. Open in 1947…”
Seven of those names — Alice Bauer being the only outlier — are members of the World Golf Hall of Fame, as is Marilynn Smith, who was a headliner in the 20-person field. Beverly Hanson, a finalist for the class of 2021, should be inducted in the coming years.
When that occurs, nearly 50 percent of the 1954 Inverness Invitational will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Seven, including Alice Bauer, were part of the group of 13 who founded the LPGA and Betty Hicks was a founder of the WPGA, a forerunner of the LPGA.
“I remember I was very impressed by the golf course,” Rawls, 92, told The Blade. “My partner was Betty MacKinnon, and she had one of the best golf swings on tour. She’d never won a tournament and, in fact, that was the only tournament she ever won. So I was just tickled to death for that reason. Every top player played in that tournament. It was highly regarded on the LPGA Tour. It was fun to win.”
Rawls and MacKinnon, a protege of Sam Snead, won the 36-hole four-ball competition with a score of 4-under-par 137. They defeated the teams of Wright and Pat Lesser and Zaharias and Betty Dodd by four strokes. Rawls and MacKinnon split the $1,600 first-place prize.
“I don’t think the women disappointed. All the great ones showed up and played,” Marathon Classic tournament director Judd Silverman said. “I’ve spoken to Betsy Rawls about it and how much that meant to the LPGA at the time, because it was a fledgling organization. She really appreciated Inverness providing that opportunity.”
Sports reporter Jim Richard wrote in the July 19, 1954 Blade that Zaharias and Dodd entertained the crowd — estimated to be 4,500 people — gathered at the 18th green with several musical numbers after finishing their round.
Sharing space in the newspaper the very same weekend was the Ohio Amateur, played at nearby Sylvania Country Club. Arnold Palmer won the tournament for the second consecutive year, but more noteworthy was that it served as the first meeting of Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.
“I stopped and watched this fellow hitting balls. I said, ‘Boy, is this guy strong,’” Nicklaus said at the 2016 Masters. “He had these Popeye forearms, and he was just hitting these 9-irons about eight feet high. I watched him for about 10 minutes and he didn’t know I was there. I walked into the pro shop, and I said, ‘Who in the world is that on the driving range?’ ‘Oh, that’s our defending champion, Arnold Palmer.’”
Rawls won 55 official LPGA events between 1951 and 1972, including eight majors, both sixth-most all time. She won four U.S. Women’s Opens, a record she shares with Wright.
Never lost was her affection for Inverness. Used to putting on Bermuda greens in Texas, Rawls commented that the perfectly-manicured bentgrass greens of Inverness were the finest she ever saw.
During the club’s Solheim Cup bid process, Rawls filmed a video touting Inverness, making the case that it should host the biennial event.
The Inverness Invitational was Toledo’s introduction to the LPGA, a connection that endures today. The Glass City Open was played in 1966 at Highland Meadows in Sylvania before the then-Jamie Farr Classic debuted in 1984. The Marathon Classic will celebrate its 35th playing Aug. 6 to 9, making it the second-longest non-major on tour, behind the Cambia Portland Classic, which dates to 1972.
“It’s quite a strong relationship,” Silverman said. “Our tournament has grown as the tour has grown. We’ve had some of the greatest in the game win the tournament and others finish as runner-up. It’s been a great relationship and continues to be.”
As Rawls and MacKinnon were presented with the winner’s check and trophy, Zaharias, who was the president of LPGA, took the microphone and requested that the tour stop at Inverness in 1955. Tournament manager Jim Secor, laughingly agreed, later commenting, “I can’t say so now, of course. We feel this year’s tournament was a huge success. We’ll have to think about next year later on.”
Sixty-six years later, the LPGA Tour is returning to Inverness.
First Published July 25, 2020, 11:00 a.m.
