Tour Guide 2026: Nick White prepares Bellerive for the BMW Championship

If things had played out differently, Nick White might be spending his days in a white lab coat, cleaning teeth and filling cavities.

As it turned out, though, dentistry’s loss has become golf course maintenance’s gain.

“I actually went to school to be a dentist, predental biology,” says White, now the director of agronomy at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, which will play host to this year’s BMW Championship, the second leg of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs, Aug. 20-23. 

“But after my second year at (the University of) Arkansas, I realized that that wasn’t going to be for me, wasn’t going to be the life that I wanted.”

So, with a little help from a brother-in-law already in the industry, White pivoted to turfgrass management and soon found a home in the business. He dove into an internship at Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club, under the guidance of John Zimmers; spent time at The Alotian Club near Little Rock, Ark.; then moved to Kansas City to work at The National Golf Club under longtime friend and mentor, Spencer Roberts. 

It was Roberts who encouraged White to explore an assistant superintendent opening at Bellerive, shortly before the club was to play host to the 2018 PGA Championship.

“I eventually decided, ‘You know what? I’ll take a chance and throw my name in the hat,’” White says. “It was an opportunity to get a major championship under my belt, work in another market, and learn from a really good superintendent (Carlos Arraya). I thought, ‘I can do anything for a year.’”

That year has now turned into nearly a decade. When Arraya was promoted to the club’s general manager position in 2021, White moved into the top role on the club’s maintenance team. He’s since overseen a greens renovation project, a tree removal effort and is now preparing his team for the club’s biggest event since that PGA.

“I just fell in love with the place. I love the membership here, the community and especially the team we have in place,” White says. “It’s a wonderful place to work, and Carlos has been a terrific mentor to me, which is why I haven’t had any interest in leaving. We’ve accomplished a lot since 2017, and we’re excited about what this year has to offer.”

Running it back … sort of

From a strategic standpoint, the layout at Bellerive that players will tackle at this year’s BMW Championship is largely the same as the one that the world’s best played during the 2018 PGA. But behind the scenes, White and his team undertook several big projects between then and now designed not only to prepare the course for professional tournaments but also to give the club’s members the best golf experience possible on a day-to-day basis.

Chief among those projects was a full-scale greens renovation in 2019 that saw the putting surfaces rebuilt from the ground up and regrassed with T1 bentgrass.

“These are all brand-new greens, a full rebuild,” White explains. “They are new all the way from the bottom up, with new drainage, new mix, everything. The greens were scanned and put back exactly the way they were … so while the guts are all new, they still have the same feel.”

And while selecting a bentgrass putting surface might seem like a roll of the dice for a facility in the heart of the transition zone, White says T1’s overall stress resistance, rapid recovery and aggressive growth characteristics won him over, along with a host of other turf managers in the region.

“It’s gotten really popular over the years in St. Louis, and it’s performed really well for us,” White says. “Considering the weather that we can get in the summers here, we studied a lot of options but decided T1 made the most sense from both a performance and a turf health standpoint.”

Other work that has taken place at Bellerive in the run-up to this year’s BMW includes an extensive tree removal project that has opened views and vistas throughout the property, while also benefiting agronomic conditions with improved air movement and sunlight. And most recently, the course was lengthened slightly with alterations to some back tees and landing areas in an effort to accommodate the playing abilities of today’s top pros.

Weather wise

White’s earlier mention of the notoriously fickle weather that is common in St. Louis is worth revisiting. 

While most remember the 2018 PGA at Bellerive for Brooks Koepka’s two-shot victory over Tiger Woods or for it being the last PGA to be scheduled for the month of August before the event’s move to May (the 2020 PGA was also contested in August, but was moved there because of the COVID-19 pandemic), many superintendents will remember the event for the stormy weather that threw curve balls at the club’s maintenance team throughout the week. Most notably, second-round play was eventually suspended because of strong thunderstorms.

That kind of weather certainly isn’t uncommon in St. Louis during the summer. So, with the BMW bringing professional golf back to Bellerive in late August, White and his team will be keeping an eye on the sky in advance of the event and are planning operations accordingly.

“St. Louis in August is no easy task. It doesn’t take a genius to see that. It’s humid here, we sit right between two major rivers, and there’s a time frame from about mid-July to late August where any kind of storm can happen at any time,” White says.

“So, our take on the weather is to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. All we can do is make sure we’re ready for that kind of weather in the event we get it and do everything we can to produce firm, fast conditions both before and after any kind of weather event.”

As a part of those preparations for whatever Mother Nature has in store for the week of the BMW, White will have a collection of 60 volunteers at his disposal to support the Bellerive’s full-time staff. The team will also have the backing of a host of industry partners who have stepped up to provide assistance for the tournament, including John Deere (Bellerive’s primary equipment partner), Heritage Landscape Supply, Harrell’s and PBI-Gordon.

“It’s going to be a first-class volunteer experience, a really fun championship to be a part of,” White says. “And honestly, some of the work we’ve done on the golf course is going to really enhance that experience. And as an added benefit, removing trees and opening up areas will make it much easier for our crews to get around the golf course and do what they need to do.

“That work also made it easier to walk the property and created new places to watch the golf, so it will be a great experience for both fans and our crews.”