In 1916, Mr. Robinson, who continued to conduct the duly organized club, added 20 more acres to the property and sold bonds to club members. They became the Belmont Springs Trust from which the club leased the golf course and clubhouse. With part of the money raised, a model locker building was erected to replace the old locker building and stables destroyed by fire in 1915. On December 31, 1917, the Colonial clubhouse burned to the ground and the stucco locker building was converted into the present clubhouse, which has been enlarged and remodeled.
During the post-war prosperity of 1919 and 1920, The Belmont Springs Country Club had its hey-day with a full membership of 550 and an imposing waiting list. On July 30, 1920, a gallery of some 7,000 people, estimated at that time to be the largest ever to witness a golf match in the United States, swarmed over the course to watch Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, English Professionals, defeat America’s leading amateur team of Francis Ouimet and James P. Guilford 4 and 2 in a 36-hole exhibition match.
The Belmont Springs Country Club remained affluent until the advent of the Depression when the club defaulted on interest payments to bondholders who, in turn, were unable to comply with the terms of a mortgage held by a Boston bank. Foreclosure proceedings started, resulting in the eventual loss of the property.
An article in the April 3, 1936 Belmont Citizen set the stage for the next step in ownership of this property. “The auctioneer’s hammer on Monday sounded the death knell of one of Greater Boston’s oldest golf clubs as a representative of outside, and as yet secretive interests, outbid Belmont Springs Country Club officials who, as tenants, made a last-ditch effort to buy outright the 18-hole course and spacious clubhouse at a public foreclosure sale of the property.”
The new owners developed 24 acres on Marsh Street in the Country Club Lane area into house lots and reopened the club as a private golf course. The course was remodeled by Orrin Smith (1883-1958), who was associated with Donald Ross on many projects during his career, and entered private practice in 1925. It is not known what year he remodeled Belmont Country Club.
In 1943, the Club came on the market again. A group of local businessmen tried to raise the money for its purchase, but fell about $5,000 short. The property was sold to an out-of-town group of men headed by Abraham M. Sonnabend of Brookline reportedly for $75,000 -- quite a bargain by today’s prices for 231 acres of land and a clubhouse. The property was quite run down in 1943, but slowly the new owners completely restored the clubhouse and turned it into the showplace it is today and changed the name to Belmont Country Club.
In 1967, due to construction of Route 2, five holes (part of holes #8 and #9, holes #10, 11, and 12) were relocated/partially relocated from the northerly portion of the site to an area of lowlands along Concord Avenue. These five new/partially new holes and several new ponds were constructed on filled land based on permits issued by the Department of Natural Resources under MGL Ch 131 Section 40. The existing golf course irrigation system was installed in 1967.
In 1969, Alfred H. Tull (1897-1982) remodeled the course once again. He was born in England and moved to Canada in 1907 and then to the US in 1914. Tull was renowned for his ability to layout individual holes and establish a circuit by walking the land and staking holes without the benefit of a topographical plan. Tull studied under and worked with A. W. Tillinghast and Devereau Emmet (two of the most highly respected and well known names in American golf course architecture) early in his career. Families of the original founding owners are still members today.
