BMW Championship: Ranking the best courses in tournament history

Each course on this list seems to have its own uniqueness. For one, Bellerive Country Club is the only BMW Championship venue in Missouri, located in Town and Country just outside of St. Louis.

More importantly, Bellerive is the only one in line to host a major championship. The PGA Championship will be in the Show Me State in 2018.

Given that, and the fact that the BMW came to Bellerive just once in 2008, Bellerive will likely not be a repeat customer.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t give it some love.

Even the Rees Jones redesign done in 2005 and 2006 was received more warmly. Perhaps he was a bit more careful with his father’s work. The redesign changed some of the targets on the greens and the fairways and bunkering were modified to better meet today’s specs.

The Robert Trent Jones Sr. track was an elite course in the Midwest as soon as the first tee ball was struck in 1960. Along with the ’08 BMW, Bellerive’s resume includes the 1965 U.S. Open, 1992 PGA Championship, 2004 U.S. Senior Open, 2013 Senior PGA and now the 2018 PGA. The ’65 Open was the site of Gary Player achieving the career Grand Slam.

Like other Jones designs, Bellerive features undulating greens and plenty of bunkers. This track holds up to the modern era’s length guidelines, capping out at 7,547 yards for a par of 71 for the pros.

Bellerive didn’t make the cut in Golf Digest’s top 100, but has reached the 60s in past years and is often regarded as Missouri’s top option.

How the 2018 PGA goes will dictate what’s in store for Bellerive down the road, but it’s shown it has some staying power.