Belmont Country Club

Willard E. Robinson bought almost 90 acres and an old Colonial house in Belmont in 1908 and laid out a nine-hole course the following year. He then bought land across Winter Street, giving him about 211 acres in all, enough for 18 holes, and Donald Ross designed the enlarged course, named the Belmont Springs Country Club. In 1916 Robinson added 20 more acres and sold bonds to the members, who became the Belmont Springs Trust; the club leased the course and clubhouse from the trust. The club's timeline dates the completion of Ross's 18 holes to 1918. The Colonial clubhouse burned on December 31, 1917.

After a boom in 1919 and 1920, when the club had 550 members and a waiting list, it was auctioned in 1936. The new owners developed 24 acres on Marsh Street and reopened it as a private club, and Orrin Smith, who worked with Ross on many projects, remodeled the course; the club does not know in which year. In 1943 the club was sold to a group headed by Abraham M. Sonnabend of Brookline, reportedly for $75,000, and renamed Belmont Country Club. In 1967 the construction of Route 2 took the northern part of the property, and five holes (part of the 8th and 9th and all of the 10th, 11th and 12th on the card of the time) were moved to lowland along Concord Avenue. Alfred H. Tull remodeled the course again in 1969. Craig Schreiner renovated it in 2005-06, and Brian Silva restored the greens and bunkers in 2022-23.

Holes to Know

From the Black tees Belmont is a par 71 of 6,845 yards: 36 out and 35 in, with eleven par 4s, three par 5s (the 4th, 9th and 17th) and four par 3s (the 3rd, 5th, 12th and 15th).

The 447-yard 1st from the Black tees is the longest par 4 and stroke index 3. The drive is blind, over a rise, to a fairway that bends gently right, with one bunker on the left at about 370 yards. The green is the largest on the course, close to round, with a bunker on each side of its front.

The 211-yard 5th from the Black tees is the first of the Valley holes. From the back tee the line crosses about 95 yards of pond, and the water wraps the right side of the green, which Mass Golf described as sloping toward it. In 2024 U.S. Mid-Amateur qualifying it played as the hardest hole, with no birdies and 30 pars.

The 399-yard 8th from the Black tees falls from a wooded, elevated tee past a pond on the left and turns right at about 255 yards around two bunkers. Its green, about 43 yards deep and 27 wide, is the deepest on the course, with bunkers short left and on both sides.

The 362-yard 10th from the Black tees is a straight short par 4 with one large bunker off the right of the drive. Its green, about 21 yards wide, is the narrowest on the course; a 2012 Golf Club Atlas tour describes the fairway and green falling hard from right to left, and a 2025 Top 100 Golf Courses reviewer called it the best green complex at Belmont.

The 228-yard 15th from the Black tees is the longest par 3, played through a wooded corner over a deep bunker that crosses the front right of the green. The green is an oval that the 2012 tour describes as a tabletop falling away on three sides.

Ross's Design Here

The clearest evidence of what survives from Ross is a comparison posted to Golf Club Atlas in 2012 by John Ezekowitz, who grew up playing the course, using the 1918 map printed in Massachusetts Golfer in 2009. He placed the 1st through 4th where they were in 1918, matched Ross's 5th to today's 10th, his 9th to today's 12th, his 13th and 14th to today's 17th and 18th, his 15th to today's 14th and his 16th to today's 15th, since lengthened. Ross's 6th and 7th, in his reading, resemble today's 7th and 8th, shifted back. That is nine holes in the same place and three more close to it. Another poster, Tom MacWood, replied that the bunkering is completely different from 1918.

Mass Golf's 2024 profile of the club credits Ross with features still found on the course: blind tee shots, punch-bowl greens and short holes up the hill. The 2012 tour counts five blind tee shots, among them the 1st, over a rise of about 18 feet, and the 11th, where the fairway falls hard from right to left toward a green that slopes off to the left.

The greens are where the restorations aimed most directly at Ross. Schreiner's firm wrote that the oldest greens would be replicated and enlarged to their original size and the greens built in the 1970s modified to match. Schreiner told Top 100 Golf Courses that old Ross plans and aerial photographs were used to verify green shapes and original holes. The 1st green was built to resemble the original. In 2012 Ezekowitz counted 13 greens close to Ross's originals and pointed to the reclaimed left side of the 2nd green and back-left hole location on the 7th.

Historical Significance

Belmont Springs held the 1916 U.S. Women's Amateur, won by Alexa Stirling over Mildred Caverly, 2 and 1, the first of her three titles. On July 30, 1920, Harry Vardon and Ted Ray beat Francis Ouimet and James P. Guildford (the club's spelling) 4 and 2 in a 36-hole exhibition before a crowd the club puts at about 7,000, which it says was then thought to be the largest to watch a golf match in the United States.

In September 1937 the club staged the Belmont International Open, a match-play event in which Byron Nelson, that year's Masters champion, beat Henry Picard 5 and 4 in the final for the $3,000 first prize. The club's timeline records that the 1949 U.S. Ryder Cup team, captained by Ben Hogan, played a practice challenge match at Belmont. The golf scenes of the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair were filmed here; the club counts the film's writer, Alan Trustman, among its members, and the 2012 tour says Steve McQueen is shown playing the 18th.

The club lists five Massachusetts Opens from 1914 to 2009, four Massachusetts Amateurs from 1929 to 1998, six Massachusetts women's championships from Harriot Curtis's in 1920 to 1996, the New England PGA Championship in 1994 and 2004, and the New England Open in 2013 and 2014. In September 2026 Frank Vana won the Massachusetts Senior Amateur here for the third time, at 3 over par, a stroke ahead of Chris Congdon. In June 2015 Bernhard Langer won the Constellation Senior Players Championship, a senior major, at 19 under par with Kirk Triplett second.

Changes Since Ross

The largest change was the 1967 Route 2 taking. Five holes were rebuilt on the lowland in the south of the property, which members call the Valley; Ezekowitz, writing in 2012, judged that the 5th through 9th are not Ross's and that the 16th does not follow his methods either. No source records what Smith or Tull changed.

Schreiner's renovation took about four years from conception to member approval, permitting and bidding, and the course then closed for a year. The relocated Valley holes stayed wet for days after rain. Schreiner installed a sump system with three miles of lateral drain lines, with the pond at the 5th as the outfall for most of the course. He rebuilt every green to USGA standards, rebuilt and repositioned the bunkers with erosion barriers, added tees and enlarged ponds.

In 2022 the course closed for six months while Brian Silva replaced the green surfaces and the bunkering; the club dates the completed restoration to 2023 and describes its aim as the style of the Ross era. The Greenwich Velvet bentgrass of the Schreiner greens was replaced with 007 creeping bentgrass. A 2025 Top 100 Golf Courses reviewer reported Silva advising on tree removal that has opened views across the 6th through 9th, though a tree he wants removed on the 7th still stands.

Uncertainties

• The club dates the completion of Ross's 18 holes to 1918, but the U.S. Women's Amateur was played at Belmont Springs in 1916. The directory of Ross courses kept by the Donald Ross Society and the Tufts Archives lists Ross's course as new about 1910 with a Ross remodel in 1920, and Golf Club Atlas posters have given 1909 and 1919 for Ross's design. No source read says which course the 1916 championship used. This listing follows the club's 1918.

• Schreiner's pre-construction page specified A4 creeping bentgrass for the new greens; the 2012 tour and Mass Golf's 2024 report both describe the greens as Greenwich Velvet until 2022. This listing follows the later sources.

Sources & Notes

1. Belmont Country Club, About Us: The History of Belmont Country Club (timeline), https://www.belmontcc.org/about-us. 1918 completion of Ross's 18; 1937 Belmont International Open; 1949 Ryder Cup team match; 1968 film; 2023 Silva restoration.

2. Belmont Country Club, Club History: Key Dates and Major Golf Championships Hosted, https://www.belmontcc.org/about-us/club-history. Robinson's purchases and nine; Belmont Springs Trust; 1917 fire; 1920 exhibition; 1936 auction and Orrin Smith; 1943 sale and renaming; 1967 Route 2; 1969 Tull; 2005 Schreiner; clubhouse 2012-13; championships list; women's state championships and New England PGA Championships.

3. Schreiner Golf, Current News: Belmont Country Club (archived January 2008), https://web.archive.org/web/20080128134246/http://www.csgolf.com/currentnews_belmont.html. Planning period, drainage system, greens to original size, 1st green.

4. Schreiner Golf, New Projects: Belmont Country Club (archived 2015), https://web.archive.org/web/20150205060522/http://www.csgolf.com/newprojects_belmont.html. Member vote, green drawings at 1 inch to 30 feet, A4 bentgrass specification.

5. Top 100 Golf Courses, Belmont Country Club, https://www.top100golfcourses.com/golf-course/belmont-country-club. Craig Schreiner's statement on the renovation, including the use of Ross plans and aerial photographs.

6. Top 100 Golf Courses, review by Andy Cocker, September 15, 2025, https://www.top100golfcourses.com/golf-course/belmont-country-club/reviews/44029. Winter Street layout; Silva's advisory work and tree removal; the 10th.

7. Mass Golf, 2024 U.S. Mid-Amateur Qualifying - Belmont Country Club, August 12, 2024, https://www.massgolf.org/news/us-midam-qualifying-belmont-2024/. The 5th in qualifying; Ross features; 2005 closure; 2022 Silva work and 007 bentgrass.

8. Golf Club Atlas, John Ezekowitz, Belmont Country Club (Restored Donald Ross) - Photo Tour, and replies, July 2012, https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,52992.0.html. Hole descriptions; 1918 map comparison; 13 close-to-original greens; Greenwich Velvet; traffic lights; Thomas Crown Affair.

9. Wikipedia, U.S. Women's Amateur, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Women%27s_Amateur. 1916 result at Belmont Springs.

10. Wikipedia, Belmont International Open, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmont_International_Open. 1937 final, citing the Montreal Gazette of September 29, 1937.

11. Wikipedia, Senior Players Championship, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senior_Players_Championship. 2015 result.

12. Wikipedia, The Thomas Crown Affair (1968 film), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thomas_Crown_Affair_(1968_film). Golf scenes filmed at Belmont; Trustman as writer.

13. Donald Ross Society and The Tufts Archives, Directory of Golf Courses Designed by Donald J. Ross, updated 2025 (January 2026 PDF). https://rosssociety.org/resources/Documents/Ross%20Course%20List/Final%20Ross%20Directory%20of%20Courses%20Jan%202026%20website.pdf Belmont listed as a Ross course of c. 1910 with a 1920 remodel.

14. Mass Golf, 2026 Senior Amateur Championship, https://www.massgolf.org/championships/2026-senior-amateur-championship/, and "34 Advance In Final Week Of Mass Senior Amateur Qualifying Events", https://www.massgolf.org/?p=30365. 2026 venue and dates; six Mass Women's Amateurs.

15. AmateurGolf.com, "Massachusetts Senior Amateur: Frank Vana birdies 18 to win third title", September 23, 2026, https://www.amateurgolf.com/golf-tournament-news/massachusetts-senior-amateur-frank-vana-birdies-18-to-win-third-title. 2026 result.