The current irrigation system at Clearview Golf Club. Photos by Ed Hall Jr.
The “irrigation system” at Clearview Golf Club in East Canton, Ohio, isn’t particularly impressive, but longtime manager Larry Powell remembers times when it was worse.
“It was different,” says Powell, a 50-year member of the GCSAA who grew up on the historic golf course his father, Bill, built. “I remember my father had a barrel in the beginning to bring water to the greens.”
By comparison, Larry Powell’s method – a pump attached to the power take-off shaft of an old Ford tractor that pumps water from a pond on the golf course through above-ground hoses to sprinklers on the green – is quite efficient. But tees and fairways only get water from above: rain.
And it was a dry year.
“We’re brown,” says Larry Powell, a key part of Clearview and the Powell family who received the GCSAA’s Old Tom Morris Award in 2019. “It’s toast. Everything is brown except where we put water on the greens. We’re just waiting for God’s water.”
With a little luck and a few hundred thousand dollars, that could change. The Clearview Legacy Foundation, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit founded in 2001 to support educational programs and preserve the first (and to date, only) golf course in the United States designed, built, owned and operated by an African American, is nearly halfway to its goal of raising $1.5 million to install a modern irrigation system.
Larry Powell, current superintendent of Clearview Golf Club and a 50-year member of the GCSAA.
Powell is not only concerned with keeping the square, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 2001, green.
“As a nonprofit public charity, we try to do the best we can within our mission statement,” says Larry Powell, Clearview’s superintendent since 1971. “Part of that mission is education, teaching different types of golfers – veterans, kids improving their game, the elderly, teaching amputees. We cover a wide spectrum with our educational programs.
“And part of our mission is to preserve. We’re one of the few golf courses on the historic register, one of only 13 courses on that list. Without water, it’s difficult to accomplish those missions.”
After serving in World War II, Bill Powell returned to the United States to find that golf, which he had played while serving overseas, was largely barred from his playing because of his black skin. Despite his veteran status, he was denied a GI Bill loan. With financial help from his brother Berry, who took out a second mortgage on his house, and two black doctors, Bill Powell bought a run-down dairy farm in 1946 and, before working the second shift at the Timken Co. bearing plant, he converted the property by hand into a nine-hole golf course, which opened in 1948.
Bill Powell, a 37-year-old GCSAA member who passed away in 2009, laid out the back nine holes in 1978. From the beginning, the course was open to all. As Bill Powell put it, he built the course to “give anyone who wanted to play golf the opportunity to do so and feel welcome… and to put ‘fair’ back on the fairway.”
Mark Jordan, CGCS, natural resources specialist at Westfield Country Club in Westfield Center, Ohio, and a 38-year member of the GCSAA, first met Bill Powell in the early 2000s. In 2007, Jordan, then president of the Ohio Turfgrass Foundation, toured the course with its inventor.
“(Bill Powell) explained many spots on the course to me in detail,” says Jordan, 2021 GCSAA president. “One of our most inspiring stops was on the No. 16 green, one of the highest elevations on the golf course. As he looked south on the property, he said, ‘That’s where I got the name from. Look out there, across the landscape. You’ll have a clear view.’ That’s when it dawned on me, this guy really had a vision.”
Renee Powell speaks to participants in the William Powell Celebrity Golf Tournament on August 24 at Clearview Golf Club.
So on August 24, Jordan again participated in the William Powell Celebrity Golf Tournament at Clearview, a fundraiser for the Clearview Legacy Foundation. Renee Powell – Larry’s sister and the course’s PGA professional, who was the second black woman to play on the LPGA Tour – was one of the former professional athletes who participated.
“It’s a pretty inspiring place,” Jordan says. “It’s such a compelling story – the history and the perseverance. And it’s not just about Bill. It’s about the whole family, Bill and Larry and Renee. This story needs to be told. I love Renee and Larry. They’re unsung heroes working behind the scenes to carry on their mother and father’s legacy. I just try to support them in any way I can.”
Proceeds from the event will go toward all of the Foundation’s programs, but the irrigation system remains a priority as it impacts all programs.
“An irrigation system would be a tremendous help to all of our programs,” says Larry Powell. “All the other golf courses here have irrigated fairways. We don’t. People say, ‘We’re going south,’ when they see all that green grass down there. It definitely affects you.”
Andrew Hartsock is editor-in-chief of GCM.
