The Course

From 1963 to 1972 the PGA Tour played "The Cleveland Open" at a various courses in the greater Cleveland, Ohio area. Highland Park was proud to host it twice in 1964 and 1965.

The 1965 event was the first pro tournament to offer a $100,000 purse, setting a higher standard for PGA championships. Highland was the “winter home” of the PGA and the association’s first owned and operated public golf facility.

Tony Lema won in 1964, capping a brilliant four-week winning stretch and dethroning the 1963 champion of the event, Arnold Palmer, in a playoff. Both golfers had reached a whopping 14 under. The next year David Sikes won at 12 under by one stroke with Tony Lema (nearly defending his title!) placing second.

Highland Park Golf Course has an undeniable historical and cultural significance. Charlie Sifford, the first African American to play and win on the PGA Tour, claimed Highland Park as his home course for a time during his professional career.

Sifford, known as the “Jackie Robinson of Golf,” started in golf as a caddie. By taking advantage of the free Monday golf perks Charlie was playing par golf by the age of thirteen. He was the first black golfer to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Just three months before Sifford’s death, President Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House for his bravery and perseverance in fighting for racial justice. Tiger Woods acknowledged that Sifford paved the way for his career and so many other minority golfers.

As the only public course near Cleveland’s east side, Highland has historically been a welcoming course for minority players in an overwhelmingly white sport. The Sixth City Golf Club (established in 1946) and Forest City Golf Club were two pioneering African American golf leagues that played primarily at Highland Park.

The Sixth City Club’s annual Cleveland Holiday Open tournament, which began in the 1940s, drew big names such as Charles Sifford, Lee Elder, Charles Owens, Jim and Chuck Thorpe, Orville Moody, Gibby Gilbert, Nate Starks, Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Dick (Night Train) Lane, and Cazzie Russell over the years.

The course also hosted the inaugural PGA Minority Collegiate Golf Championship in 1987, at which African American golf stars (including Lee Elder, Charlie Sifford, Calvin Peete, Jim Dent, and Renee Powell) held free golf clinics for the community.

After the Minority Golf Championship moved locations, Highland launched a Cleveland Minority Scholarship tournament. These tournaments allowed for collegiate and amateur golfers to play as well as a celebrity minority golf team. The opportunity to play golf at minority colleges was often rare and so players would come from all across the country to compete. The program also included funding and scholarships for minority colleges to create golf teams in an effort to diversify the sport. These tournaments often received national attention on USA Today and Sports Illustrated.

The course has maintained its popularity into the 1990s and 2000s. When Highland Hills attempted to cut out nine holes of the course to expand a nearby cemetery, the City of Cleveland protected the historic course. Mayor Michael R. White hosted annual golf tournaments during the 1990s for the region to raise funds for the homeless and just in 2016, a project to restore a degraded and channelized section of Mill Creek was focused on the course.

Most aren’t aware that Cleveland native, Bob Hope also first played golf on the Highland greens.

In the 1970s, the Golf Digest magazine ranked Highland’s North Course the number one affordable, public course in the nation.