Miami Beach Golf Club

Miami Beach Golf Club is a public golf course at 2301 Alton Road in the Bayshore neighbourhood of Miami Beach, Florida. Originally known as Bayshore Golf Course, it opened on 10 January 1923 as part of developer Carl Fisher’s ambitious plans to transform Miami Beach into a fashionable winter resort for wealthy Americans. Construction began in 1921, with Scottish golf course architect Willie Park responsible for the original design and Lee Nelson supervising the work. Before its official opening, professional golfers Gene Sarazen and Willie Park played an inaugural round on 15 November 1922. The 18-hole course soon became an important part of Miami Beach’s growing tourist industry, attracting visitors from northern cities such as New York, Chicago and Detroit. During the Second World War, the United States Army leased the property for military training, using its fairways for marching exercises and its palm-lined grounds for combat drills involving rifles and smoke grenades. The course narrowly escaped redevelopment in the mid-1940s, when a group of Chicago investors proposed replacing it with approximately 650 houses. Local residents opposed the plans, and the City of Miami Beach eventually purchased the property to preserve it as a public golf course. Following repairs, Bayshore reopened in December 1945. Its original Mediterranean-style clubhouse was replaced in 1954, while further changes were introduced over the following decades. In 2002, the city commissioned golf course architects Arthur Hills and Steve Forrest to undertake a complete redesign, costing approximately $10 million. Nearly all the existing grass was removed, the lakes were drained and reshaped, and the bunkers and fairways were rebuilt. The old clubhouse was also demolished and replaced with a modern building containing a restaurant, pro shop and other facilities. The renovated course reopened in 2003 under the name Miami Beach Golf Club. Today, it remains an 18-hole, par-72 course surrounded by residential neighbourhoods, with palm trees, artificial lakes and landscaped fairways extending across the property. Its long history has also made it an occasional filming location, although its appearance changed considerably following the early twenty-first-century reconstruction.

Miami Beach Golf Club has appeared in The Bellboy (1960) and Pain & Gain (2013). In The Bellboy, the golf course, then known as Bayshore Golf Club, provides the setting for a comedy sequence featuring Jerry Lewis and professional golfer Cary Middlecoff during a tournament. More than fifty years later, Michael Bay used the redesigned course for a brief scene in Pain & Gain, with Mark Wahlberg’s character making a telephone call while walking through an area of landscaped grass and trees. Both productions were filmed at the actual golf course, although the extensive reconstruction between the two films means that their surroundings look substantially different.

In The Bellboy (1960), the comedy written, directed and starring Jerry Lewis, Miami Beach Golf Club appears during a golf tournament attended by Stanley, the accident-prone bellboy working at the Fontainebleau Hotel. The film consists of a series of largely independent comedy sketches, with Lewis playing a hotel employee who rarely speaks and frequently causes trouble despite his attempts to be helpful. Approximately one hour into the film, Stanley visits Bayshore Golf Club to watch the final stages of a professional golf tournament offering a $25,000 prize. The competition has reached its eighteenth hole, where professional golfer Cary Middlecoff, appearing as himself, is playing against Jack Keller, a former professional golfer who was also Lewis’s press agent. As the scene begins, Middlecoff makes an impressive approach shot that leaves his ball approximately three feet from the hole. Keller subsequently sinks his putt, bringing the two players level and leaving Middlecoff with a crucial final shot. A commentator describes the growing tension as spectators gather around the green and wait for Middlecoff to putt. Stanley stands among the spectators with a camera, hoping to photograph the decisive moment. Just as Middlecoff prepares to strike the ball, Stanley accidentally sets off his camera’s flashbulb. The sudden flash distracts the golfer, causing him to miss the putt. The scene was filmed at the actual Bayshore Golf Club, with its putting green and surrounding spectators providing the setting for the gag. According to Lewis’s later commentary on the film, the incident was inspired by something that had happened to Keller during his professional golfing career. The sequence also preserves footage of the original course more than forty years before its extensive reconstruction.

In Pain & Gain (2013), the crime comedy directed by Michael Bay, Miami Beach Golf Club appears briefly during a scene involving Daniel Lugo, played by Mark Wahlberg. Based on the activities of the real-life Sun Gym gang in Miami during the 1990s, the film follows Lugo and fellow bodybuilders Adrian Doorbal, played by Anthony Mackie, and Paul Doyle, played by Dwayne Johnson, as they attempt to acquire wealth through kidnapping and extortion. After abducting businessman Victor Kershaw, played by Tony Shalhoub, the men take control of his property and finances, but their increasingly reckless behaviour eventually leaves them facing serious financial and legal problems. In the scene filmed at Miami Beach Golf Club, Lugo has become frustrated with the difficulties surrounding their criminal activities. Having angrily smashed a barbecue grill with a shovel, he walks outside and telephones Paul to approve another kidnapping, this time targeting wealthy businessman Frank Griga, played by Michael Rispoli. Although the scene is presented as taking place near the house Lugo has taken over from Kershaw, the brief outdoor footage was actually filmed on the grounds of Miami Beach Golf Club. The camera shows Lugo walking through a grassy area with a small hill, broad-canopied trees and palm trees in the background. The uneven terrain is a particularly useful identifying feature, as it differs from the generally flat residential landscape of Miami Beach. The scene lasts only a few seconds, and the golf course is never identified as such in the film. Its location was established through a detailed investigation of the film’s Miami-Dade County filming sites, which included a visit to the golf club. Staff members subsequently confirmed that the production had filmed there and helped identify the area of the course used for the shot. One longtime employee also possessed a photograph taken with Mark Wahlberg during the production.

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