(1992) Bellerive CC Adjusts Golf Course For Next Year’s PGA Championship

As Bellerive Country Club welcomes the golf world back to St. Louis, we turn the clock back to this piece from the pages of Gateway Golfer. Written by Dan Barger ahead of the 1992 PGA Championship, it captures the club mid-transformation — new tees, a rebuilt 10th hole, a flattened 12th green, and roughly $2 million in course improvements — as head PGA Professional Jerry Tucker walked readers through what the pros would face on a Robert Trent Jones design famous for its scale. It’s a snapshot of the work that goes into hosting a major, told before anyone knew how it would turn out.

Countdown To 1992

Bellerive CC Adjusts Golf Course For Next Year’s PGA Championship
By Dan Barger

Everything about Bellerive CC is big.

The host course for the 1992 PGA Championship has big greens, big tees and big spaces in between. Bellerive can be stretched as far as 7,390 yards, although it played to 7,181 yards during the 1965 U.S. Open, the longest open course at the time.

“What Bellerive is, is long, difficult par 4s,” says Jerry Tucker, the head PGA professional at the course. “There are long, big, huge greens and big tees. It’s like the old-types of American courses like Winged Foot, only longer.”
Bellerive was designed and built by noted architect Robert Trent Jones on a 250-acre tract of land in west St. Louis County. The course opened in 1960.

Bellerive’s par 4 holes are, indeed, monumental. Of the 11 par 4s in the 1992 PGA, eight will measure longer than 425 yards. The longest — the newly constructed 10th hole — will be set at about 470 yards.

“It will be the toughest hole on the course,” Tucker says.

The narrow, tricky 11th hole is the course’s shortest par 4 at 373 yards.

The PGA Tour pros will be severely tested on the final string of holes — dubbed “The Ridge” by Bellerive member Rick Meyer — consisting of the 411-yard, par 4 14th; the 456-yard, par 4 15th; 222-yard, par 3 16th; 614-yard, par 5 17th; and the 454-yard, par 4 18th.

Tucker says the picturesque 17th hole, where the green is guarded by a small pond, actually may be shortened for the PGA Championship.
“It’s just for the excitement factor of seeing the pros go for the green,” he says. “The PGA will make the final decision.”

A pair of par 3s also may be a factor in the tournament. The 6th hole, at 198 yards, was the toughest test in the 1965 U.S. Open. One player even carded a 9 at the 6th, which features a long, kidney-shaped green with a lake that guards the right side and the extreme rear part of the green. At one time, the 6th hole was responsible for the highest stroke average of any par 3 in any U.S. Open, Tucker says.

A new tee for the par 3, 3rd hole could transform the relatively short hole (147 yards) into Bellerive’s trademark.

“It’s a potential signature hole with logistics problems,” Tucker said. “There are criss-cross problems.”

The new 3rd tee, which adds about 40 yards in length, is situated in such a way that players must tee off over the 12th tee. If the new tee is used, a traffic cop will be needed.

Major course changes for the PGA Championship include construction of a new 4th tee, reconstruction of the 12th green and the aforementioned changes on the 10th hole. The course’s grass nursery along the 10th fairway is being graded in order to allow placement of 33 corporate tents that will be used during the tournament. The new nursery will be located adjacent to the 14th fairway.
The 4th hole has been changed to a relatively easy par 5 (556 yards) as opposed to the brutal, 460-yard par 4 that players faced in the ’65 Open. The 12th green, once two-tiered, now is more level, although there is a mound in the center.

Other major projects at Bellerive undertaken in preparation for the championship include installation of a double-row irrigation system (which assures the rough will be adequately watered), reconstruction of all greenside and fairway bunkers, heavy overseeding of the rough, an extended plan to minimize creek erosion and construction of a chipping green, practice bunkers, a central roadway through the course and various buildings.

Preparing for the PGA Championship is an ambitious project, but one that one day will pay off, Tucker says. The club will spend about $2 million on the improvements.