Bellerive
Played Bellerive in 2005 as part of a college buddies trip to St. Louis for the Final Four that Spring. I know that Sage Valley and Palmetto CC open up to public play every year around the Masters (we were supposed to play in 2020) and Bellerive did the same for the Final Four that year. What a great idea not only to make some revenue for the club but also to give access to a Top 100 golf course to visitors. I wish more of the top clubs would do this – or maybe they do and I just don’t get around enough.
Anyway, so 15 years is a long time and I don’t remember much about Bellerive and don’t have many photos except what was in the scrapbook (which is here). I do know it was a shotgun start so that’s probably a good reason I can’t recall specific holes. If you’re going to St. Louie, Bellerive is the go-to golf course. It’s exclusive, has the majors pedigree, an RTJ design, history, and beautiful clubhouse (pictured above from Google Street View).
It’s my own highest rated RTJ course and I’ve played nearly 20 and have liked most of them. RTJ seems pretty straight-forward in his designs – no BIG Fazio features, Dye’s ties, or other hallmark design signatures. I rarely find with his designs that a particular hole sticks out (a few at Spyglass and the Dunes in Myrtle Beach excepting). However, when you’re done you think back on the whole course and feel that it was really “pleasant” and playable.
The 100th PGA Championship was just played here in 2018 with Brooks Koepka winning but the bigger story was Tiger’s runner-up finish. Bellerive is a pretty steady member of the PGA, Champions Tour or LPGA majors rota. Wish I had more photos.
St. Louis is a place, for some reason, I don’t travel to often so not sure of any good restaurants here. On our Final Four/Bellerive trip I don’t remember even eating – just drinking. You can imagine in Budweiserville how hard it is to get a good Miller Lite. We also never ended up actually going to the Final Four. We were gonna see if we could scalp last minute tickets but the price was too high. I had been to a Final Four and championship game so wasn’t too upset we blew it off. We did go to a Cardinals game once and hung out at Joe Buck’s bar but I see that closed about five year’s ago. So you’re on your own here.
I also only have photos of the drunks not of the course but added them below, in order Kentucky Pat, yours truly, Sausage and one of the Bosser boys.
Golf Scrapbook 