Shadows of Inverness, the First Golf Club in Fort Thomas

By Robin Gee

Golf goes pretty far back in the history of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. In fact, one of the earliest golf clubs in the region was in Fort Thomas. Before there was the Highland Country Club, there was Inverness, a nine-hole course that opened in 1900. The club was on 25 acres situated about 10 miles north of Highland. It was an area wedged within North Fort Thomas Avenue, Dixie Place, West Southgate Avenue, Memorial Parkway and Waterworks Road.

Not much is left indicating there was a club there. There are rumors. Jessie and Chris Eden, publishers of Living Magazines, were told their house backs up to the club’s fairway. A resident on Facebook said there are still steps leading up from Memorial Parkway to Dixie Place that may have been leading to the clubhouse. Another said an aerial view shows what could have been a green on West Southgate.

Author Gerry Lanham, mentions Inverness in his book, Golf Reaches the Seven Hills. The book is a history of the region’s golf courses. It has a section on “ghost golf courses” in our area, those, like Inverness, that no longer exist, but if you look hard you can see a few hints that a course was there.

Lanham said Inverness was a country club built in an era of country clubs. People, mostly those with means, sought relief from the soot and the dust and smells of the city. They wanted to escape Cincinnati and Covington and Newport, and get some fresh air on the weekends. The clubs often, but not always, had golf courses. They also had outdoor picnic areas, ball fields, archery ranges and club houses for events and dances. Some had fishing holes and swimming areas.

In fact, Lanham said, the first country club in the entire region (Cincinnati included) was Ryland Lakes Country Club in Ryland Heights, established in 1892. The club was formed as a getaway with fishing, but it did not have a golf course until 1920. Long before cars, it was hard to get to these country destinations. Ryland was only accessible via the L&N Railroad. 

Attracting people to Inverness

Getting to Inverness also posed a challenge, but one man with a vision solved the problem.

Major Samuel Bigstaff is credited with playing an important hand in the development of Campbell County, according to a biography by Jim Reis. Bigstaff came to the area as a Confederate prisoner of war but ended up staying after his release and marrying the daughter of a Unionist. He is credited as the man who convinced Lt. General Philip Sheridan to move the Newport Barracks to what is now Fort Thomas. He’s also credited with building the Central and Shortway bridges, the Bonnie Leslie section of Bellevue, the Cote Brilliant area in Newport and other developments. 

Bigstaff is perhaps best remembered for his work with the street railway company that developed the Northern Kentucky streetcar line. It was he who pushed for a route that went from Newport to Fort Thomas. To attract people to the area, he helped establish the Inverness Country Club, a major stop along the Cincinnati, Inverness and Fort Thomas Electric Railroad route that ran along Memorial Parkway.

Lanham said Inverness became a main stop on that line. This created an interesting challenge (or fun feature, depending how you looked at it). Golfers at one of the holes had to hit the ball over the streetcar tracks.

Inverness golf course and another early club in Fort Mitchell joined with some clubs on the Cincinnati side of the river to form the area’s first golf league. 

A 1901 newspaper article touted the success of the Inverness course. It had tennis courts and a clubhouse in addition to the golf course. By 1901, it had more than 300 members and was a popular site for dances and events in the clubhouse space. They had a staff of four, two men who maintained the grounds, a cook and a steward. Attorney Harry Brent Mackoy was listed as the first director.

The fire

Things had been going very well at the club for its first years. There was talk of purchasing more land nearby because the course was small, but nothing had been set for that at the time. Yet, on New Year’s Eve in 1910 everything changed. 

According to a report in the Kentucky Post, about 85 young people, members of the Diplomat Club of Covington, had been dressed in their finest party attire and were heading to Inverness to attend a big New Year’s bash at the clubhouse.

The clubhouse staff was on site getting the food ready, lighting lamps and making last minute preparations, when an acetylene gas lamp exploded and started a fire. Two men were badly burned in the fire, proprietor of the clubhouse, Allie Gray, and David Satchwell, the club caretaker. 

Both were expected to recover. The wood frame clubhouse, however, was completely destroyed. The club continued on for a few years with talk of rebuilding but it didn’t happen. Most of the members moved over to the Fort Mitchell Golf Club, and Fort Thomas was without a club for four or five years.

Enter Highland

Golf returned to Fort Thomas in 1915, when investors purchased land on the Gieskemeyer farm and orchard for a new country club. It was also near a streetcar line. The club included a baseball field, tennis courts and bowling lanes in addition to a nine-hole golf course. 

According to the club’s website, the original clubhouse was designed by architect Christian Clay Weber, and famed golf course designer Bill Diddel developed the first nine holes. The original clubhouse suffered a fire in 1968, but the new clubhouse was built on the original foundation. The club added another nine holes and an Olympic-sized pool in 1982. 

Over the years, several well-known golfers played at Highland, most notably Cincinnati native John (Johnny) Fischer.

“Probably the greatest golfer ever to come from Cincinnati was a fellow named John Fischer,” said Lanham. “He won the US Amateur in 1936. At that time, the US Amateur was bigger than the US Open…Amateur sports were still a very big deal back then. He was a caddy originally over in Western Hills [Cincinnati] and ended up joining Highland Country Club when he was 18 years old.”

After Highland, Fischer went on to the Cincinnati Golf Club. He had been playing since he was 11 and won several junior golf championships and won the Queen City open three years in a row (1930-32), according to the Golf Compendium. In college at the University of Michigan he won an NCAA individual golf championship and three individual Big Ten Conference championships in 1932, 1933 and 1935. He later won the US Amateur. 

Highland Country Club, at 931 Alexandria Pike, is also the home of the Northern Kentucky Golf Hall of Fame where you can learn more about Fischer, the club and many of the great Northern Kentucky golfers.

Inverness was not open long enough to rack up many titles, but it may have sparked an interest and love of the game that carried into the lives of golfers in Fort Thomas and all over our area. 

Lanham’s book is available on Amazon, and there’s a link to it on the Greater Cincinnati Golf Association (GCGA) website. To learn much more about golf in our region, check out the GCGA site at gcga.org. (Images were found on the Northern Kentucky Views website at nkyviews.com.)