Jan Bel Jan

Jan Bel Jan grew up around golf. Her father, George Bel Jan, was a golf professional who designed and managed a golf course, and three of her uncles were PGA professionals. Bel Jan started working at her father’s golf course at 14.

So, it was only natural the game became her profession, specifically golf course architecture.

Today, she heads her own design firm, Jan Bel Jan Golf Course Design, which is headquartered in Jupiter, Florida. She is a past ASGCA president (2019-20). Bel Jan’s design philosophy is based on the concept that golf should be an enjoyable game for all, regardless of age, gender or ability level.

She was brought along in the business by Tom Fazio, with whom she worked with for more than two decades. Speaking on the Wonderful Women of Golf podcast with host Rick Woelfel, she related how Fazio’s theories on course design impacted her.

“Probably the most notable is, ‘There’s always another way,” she says. “There’s always another way to route the golf course. There isn’t just any one way to do a golf course routing. The routing is what really sets the stage for the rest of the design. The routing has a lot to do with the client as well as with the property.

“If you have relatively mellow land, if not bland, you need to create some excitement, so that people want to come there. If you have challenging terrain, mountainous, rocky, with wetlands, a multitude of restrictions, that really begs you to be creative about routing the golf course to disturb the least amount of area, because the less area you disturb, the less you’re going to be paying in maintenance, long-term.

“(But) that doesn’t mean not to clear sufficient vegetation and trees. Because if you don’t, you’ll have a difficult time growing grass.”

Bel Jan addressed the task of designing a golf course that tests the expert player but is enjoyable for the recreational golfer. She notes the importance of focusing on making the expert player the priority in terms of design.

“If you’re designing for the elite first, you’re positioning the tee because they’re generally going to be the ones hitting the ball the farthest,” she says. “Then it’s finding the locations and grading appropriately for the other tees for the folks who hit the ball not as far.”

With that idea in mind, Bel Jan developed and eventually trademarked Scoring Tees, which are tees positioned to elevate the experience of new golfers, or those who don’t hit the ball a long distance.

“I’d been thinking about this for some time,” she says. “Because, so often, what was the traditional yardage from the most forward set of tees? On the scorecards from the area of (three sets of tees) you’ll see the forward set might be around 5,600 yards. The next set might be around 6,000 or 6,200 and the and long set might be 6,700.”

Bel Jan notes that today’s playing conditions, notably enhanced irrigation, allows for less roll than was the case half a century ago. To aid the player who finds hitting a tee shot beyond 150 yards a challenge, she has added tees to some of her designs that theoretically make it easier for shorter hitters to reach greens in regulation. The approach creates a course within a course for shorter hitters.

At Pelican Marsh, a Bel Jan design in Naples, Florida, the Scoring Tees are set at 4,050 yards on a course that maxes out at 7,050 yards. At Pelican’s Nest in Bonita Springs, the Scoring Tees measure 4,062 yards on a layout that stretches to 6,808 yards.

The Scoring Tees were introduced at both courses in 2014-15, three years after Bel Jan first debuted the concept at Green Valley Country Club in Greenville, South Carolina. “Everybody wants to learn to score better,” she says, “from the elite to the most novice.”

The routing is what really sets the stage for the rest of the design. The routing has a lot to do with the client as well as with the property.”