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clubs during his life, but also
helped build one golf course
in Ohio.
Schnelker was a high school
team mate and friend of
Craig Bowman, who decided
to build a golf course on
a few acres of his farm,
between Marion and Upper
Sandusky. Bowman had laid
out the routing, but needed
to determine the appropriate
fairway landing areas and
approaches to the greens.
He would position Schnelker,
whowas a prodigious driver of
the golf ball on the proposed
tee box and have him hit
several drives on each tee,
marking the landing areas as
they went. Once he had the
fairways configured, Bowman
finished construction of
Hickory Grove and it opened
for play in 1964.
This story has a sad ending,
because the Bowman family
decided to close the course
in 2015 and it now produces
corn and soybeans.
Bob Schnelker is gone and
so is Hickory Grove, but the
memories of a young boy
meeting a football star and
playing golf with his buddies
at Hickory Grove, live on
NWO Golf Links