Pat,
I agree that St. Louis deserves and has clearly demonstrated support of championship golf in the past. Bellerive is, no doubt, the best venue for championship golf in our Metro area. I simply felt that it was a curious choice for the centennial playing of the PGA.
You asked me for my top 4 in St. Louis and I gave it to you. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion so please, don't decry my choices just because they differ from yours. I will say that I am in the minority in town when I put Bellerive below Westwood and possibly Old Warson as well. So?
I do know first-hand from talking with some pros (at the recent BMW), among others, that Bellerive was rather repetitive and not very interesting.
As for what other courses would be better suited to such a high-profile anniversary event, I wouldn't want to give you a list as I am not interested in convincing you of anything. Not that I am a big believer in rankings, but your comment re. BCC being in the #79 position in Golf Magazine's list suggests at least 78 other courses may be more deserving.
David,
If you're going to make comments like:
Anybody else surprised that the PGA would pick Bellerive as the site of the 100th Championship? It's in my top 5 in Saint Louis (#4) but....
I'll echo David Kelly and say that I would have expected a much more prominent venue for the 100th PGA Championship. There are many courses with more history and with more interesting architecture on top of it!
You should be able to back them up. Quite frankly your opinion is useless unless you can explain why you think Old Warson and Westwood are better than Bellerive. Also the comment "I do know first-hand from talking with some pros (at the recent BMW), among others, that Bellerive was rather repetitive and not very interesting" is nothing but a blind knock on a golf course with no grounding in reality.
This is a discussion board. Discuss and back up your opinions. Otherwise you're just mindlessly badmouthing a neighboring club.
I lived in St. Louis for the first 37 years of my life until I moved in 2001. Having caddied, played, worked in bag rooms, & grounds crews at many clubs in St. Louis I can tell you that Bellerive always had a reputation as being a brute of a course, but uninspiring. The belief was that little strategy was required. It was just hit a solid decent length drive in the fairway, then hit the green. There were no situations in which certain angles could give the skilled golfer a better shot at a birdie or par, or where certain approaches needed to be "learned", it was the prototype "everything you need to know is right in front of you", and no advantage to the thinking golfer or to the golfer who had learned the course.
This is not a knock on the course, for it is still a quality test of golf for what it offers. It is a very good course but not a great course. It is good enough to host a major, but it then offers the additional necessary factors that some better courses can not offer (i.e. enough room for large galleries and sponsor tents, enough room for parking, enough room for car traffic, etc.) I do not think any other course in St. Louis offers enough of a test for today's tournament pros without being "tricked-up), other than possibly Fox Run. (And I repeat I have never seen St. Albans.)
For what a great course St. Louis C. C. is, ignoring all of the logistics, if it hosted a US Open, they would shatter the records for record low scores. Although if they still had one of the old TV golf head-to-head match-play events, St. Louis C.C. would be a great site for such an event.
I also do not think that Old Warson currently offers hard enough of a test that the USGA and the PGA currently expect from their championships. But that is likely beyond the point, as the logistics for Old Warson could become very tricky.
Westwood is on the level of St. Louis C.C. per today's pro game. But the combination of the many uneven lies in conmbination with an excellent routing on that topography makes this a very subtle but great golf course for the excellent amateurs. When the Missouri State Am was there in the very late 80s it was a fantastic test and a great tournament.