Laboring to fulfill a dream

Golf Digest, July, 2001 by Dave Kindred

He would do something. "I couldn't stand being controlled by a certain part of society--you know who I mean--when they didn't come up to my standards."

What he'd do is build his own golf course. "It was necessary," he says. "I had to do it for my own pride. Necessary. I had the right to exist."

All these years later, William Powell knows why he wanted to build Clearview. But he doesn't know why he thought he could. He had no money, no land, and no idea how he'd get either. "Then, miracles," he says.

He and his wife, Marcella, had admired land they saw while driving from East Canton to Minerva. They soon saw that land for sale. He made two doctors his partners; his stake came in a loan from his brother.

Clearview is now 18 holes on 130 acres of rolling, verdant hills decorated with dogwoods and sassafras, oaks and maple. A cool breeze crossed the land transformed from wilderness into parkland. At the first tee, a sign calls it "America's Course." On Feb. 16, 2001, Clearview was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Jeff Brown, an Ohio historian who finished the writing of Clearview's register nomination, says, "It's an amazing story, the only course in the history of America designed, built and owned by an African-American."

"The lesson of Mr. Powell's life," says Dr. Obie Bender, assistant to the president of Baldwin-Wallace College and a Clearview player for 35 years, "is 'Never let other people define you.' "

Powell's wife, Marcella, died in 1996. His son, Larry, is course superintendent. Daughter Renee runs the shop, teaches and, like the rest of the family, is involved in the Clearview Legacy Foundation, preserving the course's history.

The Powells need a museum just for awards: An honorary doctorate from Baldwin-Wallace. The National Golf Foundation's Jack Nicklaus Golf Family of the Year Award in 1992. A Tiger Woods Foundation scholarship in the name of William and Marcella Powell. A lifetime PGA of America membership.

All nice, if late. "Those honors are beautiful," Powell says, there by the first tee 55 years after he drove off U.S. Route 30 and down a dirt lane to his life's work, "but they're empty, because Marcella's not here. She'd never say, 'This is not going to work.' "

He takes a visitor around the property, the afternoon light golden, and he talks about this tree stump, that creek, those flowers.

He drives to a new tee on the fifth hole, where the PGA of America is lending a hand in renovation, and he points out three maple trees now in the fairway rather than beside it.

"We'll take those down," he says.

"Might be interesting," the visitor says, "if you left one to get in the way."

Suddenly, William Powell raises his chin. His eyes brighten. "Maybe we could," he says, his old man's voice alive with a boy's excitement.