Belmont GC (NLE) Tillinghast 1917, Ross 1921, others. (Cannot upload photos)

[Jonathan Mallard]

This will take a while.


I played Belmont with some friends Saturday December 21st. The talk was that it would be open for play that Sunday and then turned over to the First Tee for renovations to be headed by Davis Love, III the next week.


Here's a decent history of the course. I think I've covered the saga of it's closing well enough on other threads.


http://www.tillinghast.net/Tillinghast/Hermitage.html


Practice Green:

[John Emerson]

Travesty.  I was out there over the summer and met some awesome patrons with a deep affinity for the place.  Hickory golfers, locals, and surrounding home owners.  All they wanted was a updated golf course with better bunkers.  RIP Belmont GC.  There was enough money allocated for needed updates with the right GCA on board.  Damn shame

[Jonathan Mallard]

If anyone can offer directions on how to get the photos to post, I'll be glad to share them.


I've tried following this post here [size=78%]http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,28454.msg547451.html#msg547451[/size]


And I've had no success with either photobuck or flickr.


Thanks in advance.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I played Belmont on Monday just after the eclipse (I watched it from the parking lot and near the starter shack), and I found it utterly delightful. Though the six-hole par-three course at the end with the out-and-back routing (the holes are good, playing in the same directions may literally be my only complaint) was not quite as good, I found the 12 original/renovated/restored holes to be quite good. Such good greens. Variety. Tillinghast (as I understand it) style cross-bunkers on a par five…

I took pictures (just quick ones from ground level) here: https://thesandtrap.com/gallery/album/40-belmont-va/.

Two (my favorite of the bunch and the sign near the first tee):



The 10th green from the 7th tee:




It was a really, really enjoyable round.

[Stewart Abramson]

If anyone can offer directions on how to get the photos to post, I'll be glad to share them.


I've tried following this post here [size=78%]http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,28454.msg547451.html#msg547451[/size]


And I've had no success with either photobuck or flickr.


Thanks in advance.

Jonathan, If you can either e-mail the photos to me or if you have them saved on Flickr and can send me a link to your Flickr page (assuming you have permitted public access), I'd be happy to post them for you.

[Phil Young]

      I take exception to the sign where it states, "Belmont is one of two-and the first-public Tillinghast courses to have hosted a major championship, joining Bethpage Black."
      Belmont never hosted a major championship. The 1949 PGA championship was contested on the Tillinghast-designed golf course at the Hermitage Country Club which would later become the public course known as the Belmont golf course.
      If one wants to say that I'm nitpicking, then the sign is still incorrect in two ways. Cedar Crest Country Club was the site of the 1927 PGA Championship which was contested on its Tillinghast-golf course. Years later it would become, and still is, the Cedar Crest Golf Course, one of the city of Dallas, Texas municipal courses, making IT the first public Tillinghast golf course to host a major championship and that there have been 3 major championships held on Tillinghast public golf courses.
     If they want to claim ownership of major championship history, then at least be correct. The first and only public golf course designed by Tillinghast as a public golf course to host a major championship was, and still is, Bethpage Black. What many forget is the the original Blue and Red courses at Bethpage hosted the 1936 Public Links Championship.     
     That said, I am greatly pleased with how at least a portion of the original Hermitage/Belmont golf course was restored and saved.

[Scott Weersing]

I am not so sure that Tillinghast designed or built Bethpage Black.


https://www.golfdigest.com/story/who-designed-bethpage-black

"It turns out Joe Burbeck is right. His father did design Bethpage Black. The evidence always has been out there, if anyone had bothered to dig for it. It's in the official history of the Long Island State Parks, published in 1959. "The four golf courses constructed as work-relief projects were designed and constructed under the direction of Joseph H. Burbeck, the Superintendent of the park," the book reads, "with A.W. Tillinghast, internationally known golf architect, as consultant.""
[/size]
[/size]"[/size]for most of the time when relief workers were hand-building the Black Course, Tillinghast was out touring America."

[Phil Young]

Scott, if you would like to know whether or not Tilly, Burbeck or anyone else designed Bethpage Black, you should read the book, Bethpage State Park and the Three Geniuses Who Created It.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

      I take exception to the sign where it states, "Belmont is one of two-and the first-public Tillinghast courses to have hosted a major championship, joining Bethpage Black."
      Belmont never hosted a major championship. The 1949 PGA championship was contested on the Tillinghast-designed golf course at the Hermitage Country Club which would later become the public course known as the Belmont golf course.

I appreciate the nit-picking, but if you rename a course, it retains the history. Belmont (then Hermitage) hosted a major. Hermitage still exists… at a different place and with different golf courses, but they can't claim to have hosted the major at those courses, even though they kept the name.

Was Hermitage public in 1949? If not, then your second point applies to them as well.

      If one wants to say that I'm nitpicking, then the sign is still incorrect in two ways. Cedar Crest Country Club was the site of the 1927 PGA Championship which was contested on its Tillinghast-golf course. Years later it would become, and still is, the Cedar Crest Golf Course, one of the city of Dallas, Texas municipal courses, making IT the first public Tillinghast golf course to host a major championship and that there have been 3 major championships held on Tillinghast public golf courses.

Cedar Crest wasn't public when it hosted the major, was it? If it wasn't public at the time but later became public, that doesn't count in my book.

[Phil Young]

Erik, I completely agree with you. The courses do retain their history. Your last sentence is what I said. Neither Hermitage/Belmont nor Cedar Crest CC/Cedar Crest golf course hosted major championships when they were public courses, but did so when they were private. If someone wants to include them as public courses that have hosted majors that also is fine, in fact it is something that I support as I have a current involvement with Cedar Crest and was involved with aiding the public players at Belmont keep the course from being closed a few years ago.


What I disagreed with was the statement that Belmont was the first public course to host a major as it wasn't. Bethpage Black was. I included Cedar Crest in my response because, is private courses that turned public is being considered then the first would have to be Cedar Crest because they hosted the PGA in 1927, 20 years before Hermitage/Belmont did.