Belleview Biltmore Country Club

Belleview Biltmore Country Club in Belleair was designed by Donald Ross and opened in 1925 as a par-71 layout measuring 6,614 yards adjacent to the historic Belleview Biltmore Hotel. Ross's Pinehurst-influenced design features small, contoured greens and strategic bunkering that has tested Pinellas County golfers for a century.

The golf heritage at Belleair predates the automobile era of Florida tourism, rooted in the ambitions of Henry Bradley Plant, the railroad and steamship magnate who selected the bluffs overlooking Old Tampa Bay as the site for a grand winter resort. Plant constructed a modest six-hole golf course adjacent to his grand hotel in 1897, making it one of the earliest golf facilities anywhere in Florida. The course was enlarged over the following years to nine holes as the resort's winter clientele — wealthy Northerners seeking warm-weather recreation — grew and the demand for more golf expanded. By 1909, a full 18-hole layout was in operation, part of Plant's comprehensive strategy to make the Belleview Biltmore Hotel competitive with the winter resorts Henry Flagler had established on Florida's east coast.

The most architecturally significant chapter in the course's design history arrived in 1915, when the hotel's ownership commissioned Donald Ross to reconstruct and expand the golf program. Ross, by then the most sought-after golf architect working in America — his work at Pinehurst, Seminole, and dozens of other celebrated layouts was already reshaping the American game — redesigned the existing holes and created a two-course layout on the Belleair property. Ross's characteristic strategic bunkering, his preference for natural turf undulation that created interesting recovery situations, and his insistence on putting surfaces that rewarded precise approach play were all evident in the finished design. The presence of a Donald Ross layout elevated the Belleview Biltmore's golf program to a level consistent with the finest resort golf available anywhere in America during the period between the World Wars. The facility operated through most of the twentieth century as the golf component of the historic Belleview Biltmore Hotel — a vast white Victorian structure that became among the recognizable buildings on the Gulf Coast and was eventually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Golf at the resort attracted visitors from across the country during the winter months, and the two courses hosted regional and state amateur competitions that drew the strongest players in Florida. As the twentieth century advanced, changes in hotel ownership and the shifting economics of resort golf complicated the relationship between the hotel and its golf program. The courses operated under various management arrangements in their later years, and the condition of the historic Donald Ross layouts became a concern as investment in the property declined.

A comprehensive revival came in 2018 when architect Beau Welling undertook a full redesign of the property. Welling's redesign honored the site's historical significance while establishing a thoroughly modern facility suited to contemporary golf. The property was subsequently renamed Pelican Golf Club following the 2018 redesign, with the Pelican Women's Championship established as the venue's LPGA Tour event under that brand.