Belle Meade’s membership founded the club in 1901 as Nashville Golf & Country Club, but voted on June 10, 1911 to relocate from the original course to a new site on the Belle Meade Plantation west of downtown; play at the present property began in 1916 and the club adopted the “Belle Meade Country Club” name on June 7, 1921.
Ross’s connection is documented in the Donald Ross Society directory, which records Belle Meade as a Ross project from 1917–1921, with a subsequent Ross visit in 1932. The directory’s entry is brief—common for that source—but establishes his authorship on the new Belle Meade property and a later return.
Attribution of the earliest work has long been muddied by the 1916 opening date. Contemporary and modern accounts agree that English professional-architect H. H. Barker set the first 18-hole course on the Belle Meade grounds in 1916, and that Ross subsequently completed and refined the design as the club matured. This sequence—Barker first, Ross completing—is the version carried today by the Tennessee Golf Association and in a recent USGA announcement.
By the summer of 1921 the club was hosting the Southern Amateur over “the Belle Meade Country Club, Nashville,” an event often cited by Ross historians as evidence that the course—by then associated with Ross—had reached a presentable championship form.
Documentary traces also place Robert Trent Jones Sr. at Belle Meade between 1948 and 1958 (Cornell University’s RTJ papers list a Belle Meade project file covering those years), which aligns with multiple summaries that credit him with major early-1950s alterations. Top100GolfCourses, for example, ties his work to the creation of the dramatic peninsula green at the par-3 16th via damming of a branch of Richland Creek.
A modernization by Gary Roger Baird followed in 1981. The most sweeping overhaul came in 2003–04, when Rees Jones and associate Bryce Swanson rebuilt the entire course “using the Donald Ross bunker style,” constructing all-new greens, tees and bunkers, selectively regrading fairways, and rerouting three holes.
As for Ross’s intent at Belle Meade, direct correspondence has not surfaced in standard references, but the site itself—pastureland laced by Richland Creek and punctuated by limestone outcrops—suggests how he chose to lay the course across the lower ground and up onto the ridge nearer the clubhouse. The club’s own guest materials describe the limestone rock face beside the 4th tee (the old plantation quarry) and emphasize Richland Creek’s power and presence on the property—clues to the routing decisions Ross made on the outward nine.
Top100’s hole-by-hole overview underscores that Richland Creek “comes into play at seven holes,” a pattern that matches the water-threaded sequence still seen today.
Unique Design Characteristics (as expressed at Belle Meade)
Ross’s routing on the Belle Meade tract leveraged Richland Creek repeatedly on the outward nine, using its bends to frame landing areas and angle approaches. Even after subsequent architects reshaped the hazards, the creek remains the strategic backbone of the front side: modern descriptions count it in play on seven holes.
The 4th tee still addresses the limestone quarry face—a literal outcrop that explains why the hole occupies its particular shelf and why the fairway jogs to accommodate that feature.
Where the original Ross greens once introduced much of the day-to-day nuance, those surfaces were replaced in 2003–04 when Rees Jones’s team rebuilt every green and bunker. Their own project description states that the rebuild adopted “Donald Ross bunker style” but was comprehensive in scope, including selective fairway regrading and three rerouted holes; consequently, today’s contours and sand placement reflect a modern interpretation rather than untouched Ross work.
The most conspicuous non-Ross insertion is the par-3 16th: RTJ Sr.’s early-1950s work produced a peninsula green projecting into the impounded Belle Meade Branch of Richland Creek. It is both the shot most associated with the club and the clearest marker of the post-Ross era on the back nine.
Given the 2003–04 reconstruction, the clearest surviving expressions of Ross today lie at the scale of routing and hole corridors rather than in original green pads or bunkers. The outward-nine creekside par-4s, set on the low ground with forced or semi-forced creek engagements, are the most faithful to Ross’s pattern on the site; by contrast, the 16th is consciously outside that pattern. (Corridor survival is inferred from the fact that only three holes were rerouted in 2003–04 and from the persistent engagement with Richland Creek across the front nine.)
Historical Significance
Belle Meade represented Ross working within an urban “in-town” footprint and coaxing championship utility from a compact, creek-cut pasture—work that was nationally visible by 1921 when the club staged the Southern Amateur (won by Perry Adair). The Southern Golf Association brought the championship back in 1929, indicating continued regional regard for the layout.
In the USGA realm, Belle Meade hosted the inaugural U.S. Senior Amateur in 1955, a landmark event in the Association’s expansion of age-category championships.
The club later factored into women’s professional history as the site of the 1961 Women’s Western Open—then an LPGA major—won by Mary Lena Faulk.
Contemporary assessments continue to place Belle Meade among Tennessee’s notable private courses; Golf Digest’s 2025 “Best in State” list includes the club, reflecting its standing within a deep Nashville market. Top100GolfCourses similarly ranks it within the state and emphasizes the course’s continuing identity as a Ross-rooted but heavily modified design.
Current Condition / Integrity
Because Gary Roger Baird’s 1981 work and, especially, the 2003–04 Rees Jones rebuild replaced all greens and bunkers and rerouted three holes, intact Ross construction details (original green contours, bunker forms) are largely absent in 2025. What does persist from Ross is primarily the scheme of hole corridors that weave along and across Richland Creek on the outward nine and then climb to higher ground nearer the clubhouse, plus the siting decisions forced by fixed landforms like the quarry at the 4th. (This assessment follows the Rees Jones project scope and the course’s present-day water engagement; it does not claim survival of specific Ross green pads.)
Robert Trent Jones Sr.’s early-1950s program—documented by his project files (1948–58)—left its own durable mark at the par-3 16th, where the peninsula green and additional open water define the hole. That intervention, along with later modernization, means the back-nine character is more mid-century and contemporary than Ross-era.
Today the club maintains bent-grass greens and bermudagrass fairways, a cool-season/warm-season pairing consistent with Nashville’s climate and with the post-2003 agronomic program.
Looking forward, the USGA has awarded Belle Meade both the 2028 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur and the 2036 U.S. Senior Amateur, events that will test the modernized layout while the club’s Ross heritage remains legible in routing rather than in untouched features.
Bottom Line on Integrity
If one defines “original Ross” strictly as surviving 1917–21 (or 1932) construction, the percentage on the ground today is low; the Ross contribution is best understood at the macro scale of the plan—how the outward nine engages Richland Creek and how certain corridors occupy the plantation’s topography. Conversely, greens, bunkers, and several hole sequences are products of RTJ Sr. (notably No. 16) and the full Rees Jones reconstruction.
Sources & Notes:
Belle Meade Country Club, “Guest Information” (club history and site notes; relocation in 1916; name change June 7, 1921; quarry at No. 4; Richland Creek on property).
Donald Ross Society, course directory listing for Belle Meade (1917–21; 1932 entry).
USGA, “Pair of Senior Amateur Championships Headed to Belle Meade” (background note crediting Barker as original designer and Ross as completer; also 2028/2036 site announcements).
Tennessee Golf Association news release on USGA awards (reiterates Barker-then-Ross sequence; cites Rees Jones 2003 renovation with Bryce Swanson).
Southern Golf Association, The First Hundred Years (1921 and 1929 Southern Amateur at Belle Meade).
USGA Championship Database, “U.S. Senior Amateur Champions” (1955 inaugural at Belle Meade).
Wikipedia/WWGA roll, “Women’s Western Open” (1961 major at Belle Meade won by Mary Lena Faulk). (Secondary but widely corroborated.)
Top100GolfCourses, “Belle Meade Country Club” (Ross 1921 attribution; RTJ early-1950s changes; Baird 1981; Richland Creek in play at seven holes; peninsula green at No. 16 from RTJ). (Editorial site but consistent with archival evidence.)
Rees Jones, Inc., project page: “Belle Meade Country Club” (2003 redesign scope: all-new greens/tees/bunkers; selective fairway regrading; three holes rerouted; co-designer Bryce Swanson).
Cornell University Library, Guide to the Robert Trent Jones Papers (project files: “Belle Meade, Nashville TN, 1948–1958”). (Establishes RTJ on-site timeframe.)
Golf Digest, “Best in State: Tennessee (2025)” (current reputational placement within the state).
Disputed/uncertain points:
• Who designed the first 18 at Belle Meade (1916): Some older references credited Ross with the “original,” but contemporary governing-body communications (USGA, TGA) and modern club histories now describe H. H. Barker as the original 1916 architect with Ross completing the course by 1921; this directory entry follows that consensus.
• Scope of Ross’s 1932 return: The Donald Ross Society entry logs a 1932 involvement without detail; neither club publications nor accessible archives specify whether this was a green relocation program, bunker work, or modest adjustments. It is therefore presented here as an undocumented tune-up rather than a full redesign.
• Dates and scope of RTJ Sr. work: The Cornell RTJ papers anchor his Belle Meade activity to 1948–58; various summaries compress this to “early 1950s,” and some listings break the work into 1951 and 1957 campaigns. The peninsula green at No. 16 is consistently linked to RTJ’s era, but precise year-by-year sequencing remains secondary-source based.