Belmont Country Club is a classic Donald Ross design in the Boston suburb of Belmont, Massachusetts, featuring the architect's signature undulating greens and strategic bunkering. The par-71 course has been carefully restored by Craig Schreiner to recapture Ross's original design intent.
History
Belmont Country Club in Belmont, Massachusetts, carries a distinction rare among American private clubs: it hosted a national championship — the 1916 U.S. Women's Amateur — within just a few years of Donald Ross completing the course, confirming that by 1916 the layout already presented a suitable test for the nation's finest women golfers. The club began in 1908 when Willard E. Robinson purchased a nearly 90-acre site and old Colonial house and laid out a nine-hole course, then expanded it to 18 holes with Ross's involvement in subsequent years. Belmont's development mirrors the pattern of many early New England golf clubs: an initial property and modest nine-hole course established by a founding proprietor, followed by expansion as membership and ambition grew. Robinson purchased the site and began development in 1908-1909, then acquired additional land across Winter Street to expand to a total of 211 acres sufficient for a full 18-hole layout.
Donald Ross was engaged to design the expanded course, and the renamed Belmont Springs Country Club entered the national conversation almost immediately. The 1916 U.S. Women's Amateur at Belmont Springs was won by Alexa Stirling, who defeated Mildred Caverly 2 and 1. Dorothy Campbell Hurd was the medalist with a score of 86 from a field of 63 entries. The championship confirmed the course's standing as a serious competitive venue in the years immediately following Ross's design work. Four years later, on July 30, 1920, Belmont hosted among the remarkable exhibitions in American golf history.
An estimated 7,000 spectators — reported at the time to be the largest gallery ever to witness a golf match in the United States — watched Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, the English professionals, defeat the American amateur team of Francis Ouimet and James P. Guildford 4 and 2 in a 36-hole exhibition match. The event demonstrated both the club's capacity to accommodate major spectator gatherings and its standing as a venue of national significance. Ross's design at Belmont is noted for its "Valley Holes" (holes 5 through 9), which occupy lower terrain and bring a distinctive change of character to the middle of the round. The opening hole is widely cited by Boston-area golfers as one of the region's more demanding first holes. In 2005-06, the club undertook a comprehensive renovation led by architect Craig Schreiner.
The project rebuilt all greens to USGA specifications and enlarged them to recover perimeter hole locations, renovated and repositioned bunkers with reference to historic photographs, added new tees, and undertook recontouring and drainage work in the Valley Holes corridor. The ponds were enlarged to improve drainage, flood control, and irrigation water storage, and a new tree program replaced non-indigenous species with more compatible long-lasting varieties. The renovation was explicitly aimed at restoring Belmont to its historical Ross tradition. In 2022, architect Brian Silva oversaw green resurfacing and bunker renewal, with grass conversion to 007 creeping bentgrass. In June 2015, Belmont Country Club hosted the Constellation Senior Players Championship, a PGA Tour Champions major. Bernhard Langer won the event wire-to-wire, finishing at minus 19 to successfully defend his Senior Players title — becoming the first golfer since Arnold Palmer in 1984-85 to win consecutive Senior Players Championships.