Photos: Pelican Golf Club, host of upcoming LPGA event, reopens for play after extreme hurricane flooding

The scene at Pelican Golf Club on Oct. 10 after Hurricane Milton dumped an unprecedented amount of water on the Belleair, Florida, course. (Photo courtesy of Justin Sheehan/Pelican Golf Club)

Pelican Golf Club reopened for play Wednesday, one week after Hurricane Milton left much of the Belleair, Florida, course flooded. Remarkably, the show will go on at The Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican next month in the Tampa Bay area, and with WNBA star Caitlin Clark playing in the pro-am, it’s likely to be a blockbuster.

Last Thursday evening, when Director of Golf/COO Justin Sheehan stood in the middle of the 13th fairway, he wasn’t sure what to expect. The 13th was flooded from 100 yards out, including the green. The 16th green was underwater, as was half of the 10th, a two-tiered green. Everywhere he turned, something was flooded.

How long, he wondered, could the greens hold up under this much water? Would the bunkers cave in?

Incredibly, the water receded back to almost normal overnight, Sheehan said. It was actually more upsetting, however, to see what was left underneath.

“There were piles of pine straw 4 feet high,” he noted. “The bunker on No. 3 was completely filled with pine straw, couldn’t see an ounce of sand in there.”

The club lost 20 to 25 substantial trees as 100 mph winds ripped through the state. The area is estimated to have received 15 to 20 inches of rain.

Friday morning was an all-hands-on-deck effort led by Chris Corr, the club’s director of grounds. Members of the Doyle family, who own the club, came out to help as well as a number of club members, including juniors, who put on gloves and wielded rakes, shovels and leaf blowers.

This will be the fifth edition of The Annika, held Nov. 14-17. As the penultimate event on the LPGA schedule, The Annika is the cutoff for finalizing status for the 2025 season as well as the field for the lucrative CME Group Tour Championship.

Sei Young Kim won the first edition in 2020, and Nelly Korda won the next two. Last year, Lilia Vu capped off her breakout season at the Pelican with a fourth victory and rose to No. 1 in the world.

“It’s part of the fabric of this club,” said Sheehan of an event that has quickly rose to prominence on tour.

No doubt it will feel even more special this year as so many work hard to rebuild.

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Take a look at the drone images taken on Thursday evening, after the season’s second Category 5 hurricane wreaked havoc on Florida’s coast: