Belleair Country Club - East

Golf at Belleair began in 1897, when Henry B. Plant opened his Belleview Hotel with a six-hole course. Under his son, Morton F. Plant, the course reached nine holes by 1899 and 18 by 1909. The club's history records that Morton Plant then commissioned Donald Ross, with an open checkbook, to design two 18-hole courses, known as Belleview Course No. 1 and Belleview Course No. 2, and that the club had 36 holes by 1915. Ross reworked the existing course, today's West, and laid out No. 2, today's East, as a new course on ground inland of it. The club quotes M. L. Ballard, writing in Golf Magazine in 1914: "Mr. Ross laid out two fine 18-hole courses, modern in design and up to date in every way." The courses were renamed West and East in 1920.

Ross worked on site. Historic Hotels of America's history of the Belleview Inn says that, unlike many of his courses, Ross visited Belleair regularly, and the Golf Club Atlas researcher Sven Nilsen reports that the Donald Ross Society records him at Belleair in 1915 for the East, at the same time as his work on the West. Ross returned in 1924 to revise both courses. His drawings, gathered from the club's files, the Belleview Biltmore hotel archives and the Tufts Archives, guided the 2022 work on the West.

As Ross built it, the East was short. Connor T. Lewis, a club member and founder of the Society of Golf Historians, wrote in 2025 that a pre-1970 scorecard shows a par of 68 with six par 3s over 5,763 yards, and that it may have been the shortest full-size 18 Ross designed. It closed with two par 3s in a row: the 17th of 180 yards and the 18th of 230 yards.

Holes to Know

On the card it carried when it closed in 2026, the East is par 36-35 and 6,265 yards from the Black tees, 3,177 out and 3,088 in. It has four par 3s (the 3rd, 5th, 13th and 15th), three par 5s (the 2nd, 4th and 12th) and eleven par 4s, and the first five holes alternate par 4, 5, 3, 5, 3. The holes below are described as they were before the renovation.

The 394-yard 1st from the Black tees leaves from beside the clubhouse, clips the edge of a pond on the left and turns left about 200 yards out, past two bunkers on the right. The approach runs between a long pond down the right, which reaches the green, and a smaller one short and left.

The 493-yard 4th from the Black tees is the shortest par 5 and stroke index 1. The tee shot crosses the right lobe of a pond, and the hole then runs nearly straight beside a road on the right to a round green with no bunker beside it.

The 389-yard 14th from the Black tees is the hole the club's members single out. It runs straight down a corridor of trees and falls, by a member's estimate, about 30 feet to a green against the Clearwater Bay seawall, with the bay 25 to 30 yards behind it.

The 280-yard 16th from the Black tees is the shortest par 4 and stroke index 18. A pond sits left of the tee shot, two bunkers cross the line about 190 to 210 yards out, and five bunkers surround the green.

The 382-yard 18th from the Black tees turns right about 47 degrees past a pond to a green beside the clubhouse. The Golf Club Atlas contributor Kyle Harris describes it as Ross's two closing par 3s combined into one par 4. The renovation replaces it.

Ross's Design Here

Ross's plan gave Belleair two different courses: the West took the original holes on the bluff above Clearwater Bay, and the East was routed on the inland ground behind it, on about 105 acres according to the club member Jonathan Cummings. The East still reaches the water. Cummings, who served on the East renovation committee, wrote in 2023 that the course has three original Ross holes on the water, among them the 14th, and that the renovation would leave them alone. On the aerial the 14th green backs onto the seawall and the 15th tee sits beside it.

The finish was the East's most unusual feature. Lewis notes that two par 3s in a row to close a full-size course were almost unheard of. He also sees Ross's green for the 17th repeated in the 7th green Ross built at Allegheny Country Club in 1933. The original 18th green now lies under the club's parking lot and cart barn.

No source ties a specific green or bunker on the pre-renovation East to Ross. What a visitor found before it closed was a course of tree-lined corridors, with ponds or creeks crossing or running beside most holes. The sand-faced cop mounds restored on the West came from Ross's drawings for that course, and Cummings and Lewis both said in 2023 that they did not expect them on the East.

Historical Significance

The East was the second course of a single Ross commission at what the club calls Florida's first golf course, and Ross designed it and came back to revise it within a decade.

Life magazine featured the 14th: members recall a photograph taken from its tee down the fairway to the water, and Lewis wrote that the magazine counted it among the best 18 holes in the country. Bill Conway, the club's director of golf from 1971 to 2005, calls it the course's signature hole.

The Donald Ross Society took its members to the East on its Florida trips in 2014, 2019 and 2022. In rankings it has stayed in the West's shadow; Top100GolfCourses lists it as the club's second course, awaiting a redo like the West's. The course record is 58, shot by Ryan Orr on January 4, 2022, with an eagle on the 2nd and birdies on ten of his last twelve holes. It beat his own 59 from 2020.

Changes Since Ross

The club's history records that in 1943 the hotel and courses were leased to the U.S. Army Air Corps and used as drill grounds, and that they were returned to playing condition after the war. U.S. Steel bought the courses in 1971, and in 1986 the members bought the club.

In the mid-1970s, according to Lewis, the East was renovated to add length and raise its par, and the par-3 finish was removed; Harris describes today's par-4 18th as the two holes combined. The club's timeline records a $4 million renovation of the East in 2005, two years after a $2.7 million renovation of the West, and names no architect for either.

Planning for the present project began in 2021 with a 17-member East renovation committee. In 2022 the club chose Fry/Straka and widened the brief from greens, bunkers and fairways to a full redo of the course. Members approved it in 2023, with a master plan that more than doubles the practice area, from 36,500 to over 75,000 square feet, with a 350-yard range. The club's timeline records that the renovation began in 2026. Cummings wrote in January 2026 that work would start in late March and take eight months, as the West's had.

The finish is changing back. Lewis wrote in 2025 that Ross's original 17th, a downhill par 3 from elevated tees over the creek, is being restored as the new 18th, using Ross's green plan for that hole, so the East will again end on a par 3. The course that reopens will not match the 2026 card.

Uncertainties

• Date of Ross's design: the club and the 1914 Golf Magazine quote point to 1914, while the club also dates the 36 holes to 1915 and most accounts give 1915. This listing keeps 1915 as the year the course opened.

• Original length: Lewis gives 5,763 yards in his 2025 newsletter and 5,727 yards in a 2023 forum post. This listing uses the newsletter figure.

• Life magazine: accounts of the 14th's photograph give 1941, 1947 and a 1955 cover. This listing gives no year.

• Later architects: the club names no architect for the 1970s or 2005 work. A Golf Club Atlas member says Gene Bates modernized the East; no other source confirms it, and this listing names no one.

Sources & Notes

1. Belleair Country Club, About Us: history and timeline (read October 2026). https://www.belleaircc.com/about-us — Plant family history, Ross commission and open checkbook, Belleview Course No. 2, Ballard 1914 quote, 1920 renaming, 1924 return, 1943 lease, 1971 and 1986 sales, 2005 renovation, committee, Fry/Straka, 2023 approval and practice ground, Orr's 58, 2026 start.

2. Adam Lawrence, "Belleair: Seaside special," Golf Course Architecture, 5 May 2023. https://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/content/belleair-seaside-special — Ross's 1915 work, East inland of the West, 1924 revision, drawings from club, hotel and Tufts archives, first-course claims.

3. Connor T. Lewis, "We Ended With Threes," The SOCIETY Newsletter #58, Society of Golf Historians, 18 February 2025. https://thesocietyofgolfhistorians.beehiiv.com/p/the-society-newsletter-58 — Original par 68, six par 3s, 5,763 yards, par-3 finish of 180 and 230 yards, mid-1970s renovation, original 18th under the parking lot, original 17th returning as the new 18th, Allegheny comparison.

4. Golf Club Atlas, "Belleair Country Club West-Ran's Instagram Photos," January 2023. https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,71646.msg1722292.html — Cummings on three original water holes including the 14th and on cop mounds; Lewis on 5,727 yards.

5. Golf Club Atlas, "In Honour of Donald Ross' Birthday, What Ross Restoration Do You Want to See?," November 2024. https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,73393.msg1760694.html — Cummings on about 105 acres and a single par-3 finish.

6. Golf Club Atlas, "Belleair West," January 2026. https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,74445.msg1786930.html — Cummings, East committee member: work from late March, eight months, play by December.

7. Golf Club Atlas, "Courses that finish with Two Par Threes," June 2025. https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,73889.msg1773054.html — Kyle Harris on today's 18th combining the two par 3s.

8. Golf Club Atlas, "Biggest elevation changes in Florida," November 2021. https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,70405.msg1692216.html — The 14th's 30-foot drop and the Life photograph.

9. Golf Club Atlas, "Donald Ross' Belleair West in Clearwater, FL - Fry/Straka to renovate," 2022. https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,71029.msg1707170.html — Lewis on Life magazine and the 14th.

10. Golf Club Atlas, "Donald Ross," March 2025. https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,73636.msg1767711.html — Sven Nilsen on the Donald Ross Society's record of Ross on site in 1915.

11. Golf Club Atlas, "Donald Ross in Florida," February 2022. https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,67104.msg1700592.html — Cummings on the Gene Bates modernization (Uncertainties only).

12. Historic Hotels of America, Belleview Inn: Golf. https://historichotels.org/us/hotels-resorts/belleview-inn/golf.php — Ross visited regularly; hotel guests' access.

13. Opal Collection, "Your Golf Bucket List: Top 5 Historic Holes You Must Play at Belleair Country Club." https://opalcollection.com/blog/your-golf-bucket-list-top-5-historic-golf-holes-you-must-play-at-belleair-country-club — Bill Conway on the 14th and Life magazine.

14. Donald Ross Society, Events: history of past events. https://rosssociety.org/Events — East played in 2014, 2019 and 2022.

15. Top100GolfCourses, Belleair Country Club East Course. https://www.top100golfcourses.com/golf-course/belleair-country-club-east-course — No. 2 name, 1920 renaming, 2005 renovation, second-course status.

16. Greens Visited course pack (scorecard and pre-renovation USDA NAIP aerials) — Card, hole yardages and the hole descriptions.