With wide fairways and big greens, Bellerive looks like a birdie paradise on paper. But the BMW Championship field has already spotted the catch. This course may not be as friendly as it looks. 

Four of the biggest names in golf have played the course over the last few days. Each one found a different part of Bellerive that can cause trouble. The fairways are wide, but missing them can still hurt. The greens are big, but they are not always easy to putt on, and the long par-4s can quickly turn a good round into a tough one. And from Rory McIlroy to Scottie Scheffler, everyone spoke about it.

Rory McIlroy Knows Bellerive Can Turn From Soft to Savage 

McIlroy remembers 2018 well. When the reporter reminded him about Brooks Koepka, he shot a 63 in the second round, while Tiger Woods finished with a 64. McIlroy was asked if he could see similar low scores this week.

“I do see it, at the minute, because it’s soft,” said the Ulsterman before cautioning, “Depending upon what the weather is over the next few days, if it does dry up a little bit, then maybe it will present a bit more of a challenge.”

The greens are soft, the fairways feel even wider, and the ball does not roll much after it lands. This is not just talk. According to Golfraw, Bellerive is playing 7,448 yards at par 70, which is 132 yards longer than it was in 2018. But if you think that will mean bombers like McIlroy will have an advantage, you’re wrong.

The analysis by Golfraw shows that par-3s have been increased by 14.9%, which typically means it’ll be longer-irons than longer-drives. In addition, rain is expected on Wednesday and Thursday, which could make the new bentgrass greens soft again, just like they were eight years ago.

But McIlroy isn’t promising this stays easy. “If it does dry up a little bit, then maybe it will present a bit more of a challenge,” he said. 

In other words, enjoy the birdies while they last. A thought shared by Matt Fitzpatrick too.

Matt Fitzpatrick Spots the Danger Hiding on Bellerive’s Wide Fairways 

Plenty of players have called Bellerive wide open this week. Fitzpatrick isn’t buying that narrative, and he explained exactly why.

“A lot of long par-4s are normally par-5s, I guess, for the members,” Fitzpatrick said in the press conference. “If you do miss the fairways, you are struggling to get there,” Fitzpatrick said, half-joking about needing an extra fairway wood just to hack out of the rough. 

He’s talking about holes like the 4th, a 521-yard par-4 that plays as a par-5 for Bellerive’s own club members, and the 10th, a similar story at 508 yards. The pros don’t get that mercy this week, and here’s the catch: that width everyone’s talking about isn’t the escape hatch it looks like.

That makes sense when you look at how the course was rebuilt in 2006.

• Rees Jones, the son of Bellerive’s original architect, Robert Trent Jones Sr., changed the layout after years of major golf events.
• On the 4th hole, players need to shape their tee shot from right to left to avoid the bunkers. If they miss the fairway, they have almost no chance of reaching the green in regulation.
• The fairways also get very narrow, about 26 yards wide around 300 yards from the tee. That is not much room to work with.

Fitzpatrick is not the only one. Adam Scott, the only golfer in the field who played both the 2008 BMW Championship and the 2018 PGA Championship, also said no one should underestimate this course.

One Hole Was Enough to Scare Adam Scott at Bellerive 

Scott did not need the whole course to make his point. The par-3 6th said it all. Water sits on the right; the green is one of the smallest on the course, and players have to hit a long iron. One small mistake can cost you a title. 

“It’s kind of probably a right-hander’s nightmare,” Scott said to the press, and the history backs him up. According to the PGA Tour’s official website, the sixth hole had a tough 4.03 stroke average during the 1965 U.S. Open. At the time, Bellerive was the youngest course ever to host the U.S. Open.

“There’s a lot of demand, especially for runoff kind of long left. It’s not a great bailout when you can’t go right,” Adam Scott said. 

At 213 yards, with two bunkers protecting the front and almost no room to recover if the ball drifts toward the water, this hole gives you very little room for error. Hardly the only challenge and Scottie Scheffler was the last golfer to speak about how tough it’s going to be.

Scottie Scheffler Knows Bellerive’s Greens Are Playing Tricks 

Scheffler sees Bellerive differently. He is not worried about the fairways. The greens are what concern him most. 

“The greens are really big, but I think some of the areas you play into are going to play pretty small,” he said in the press conference.

What does he mean? The target area may seem wide, but the safe landing area is much smaller. That was exactly what architect Robert Trent Jones Sr. wanted. His goal was to create a course with a “hard par, but an easy bogey.”

Missing the wrong part of the green can quickly turn into a nightmare. As Scheffler warned, the result is “a lot of up-and-over-type challenging putts.” On some holes, there is also no easy way to run the ball onto the green. That makes a missed fairway on a long hole feel like much more than a small mistake.

The ninth hole shows why. At 433 yards, this par-4 has one of the most complicated greens at Bellerive. The uphill approach makes the distance difficult to judge, and one wrong decision can leave a player fighting just to save par. The course can produce moments of magic, but it can also make a careless shot hurt badly.

The course has earned the moniker “The Green Monster of Ladue” since it opened on Memorial Day in 1960, the year Robert Trent Jones Sr. finished building it on farmland the club’s leadership picked out five years earlier. When you consider all the comments from the top players, it seems all too justified.