BELLEAIR, Fla. — It’s the curse of a 24-hour news cycle: a natural disaster strikes and every eyeball in America focuses on the storm for a day, maybe two. If it’s unprecedented – like Hurricane Helene devastating Asheville, N.C., which is 2,200 feet above sea level and 839 miles from the Gulf of Mexico – the coverage might extend for 8 to 10 days. But just seven weeks after Helene, you’d be hard-pressed to find a reporter still doing standups in Western North Carolina, even though thousands are still struggling, and the cost of the damage grows further north of $53 billion every day.

Belleair, Fla., which weathered the brunt of both Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the span of three weeks, hasn’t been in the news since the storms made landfall. Until now.

Barely a month after the second storm walloped the Gulf Coast, the owners, members and staff at Pelican Golf Club are finally breathing a sigh of relief as The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican kicked off on Thursday to rave reviews.

“I think it's in fantastic condition,” first-round co-leader Charley Hull said of the golf course. “I feel like it's one of the best golf courses we play all year. The greens are super-fast. They're very, very, very fast out there. And I think it's amazing how well they've gotten the course in tournament condition, considering the hurricane was here a month and a bit ago. Well done.”

Pelican Golf Club owner Dan Doyle wanted everyone to know that this didn’t happen by accident. Both his crew and membership came out in force to get the club in playing shape, even though the morning after Milton blew through, dumping 22 inches of water on the property in only six hours, Pelican had five greens completely submerged and more than 30 trees uprooted.

“If you would have asked us four weeks ago how this tournament was going to go, I would have been crying,” Doyle said in a press conference ahead of the event. “We walked out here, and the whole place was covered in water. It was tough. But like most people, we rise above it. We have an incredible crew here. We had members that showed up, and everybody rolled up their sleeves, and literally, I think, in four days, we had the golf course back open, and golfers were out there. It was a little wet, but it was incredible.

Doyle continued, “Floridians kind of get used to hurricanes. I hate to say it, but you always cheer if it's going to go south of you or far enough north. This one, we were told we were going to get it, and we did. But the golf course survived. I think it looks better today than it did right before the storm.”

Tournament host Annika Sorenstam agreed with that assessment. “The course is in amazing condition, maybe the best it’s been, which is incredible given what they went through here,” she said.

But Doyle and everyone else at Pelican Golf Club didn’t want too much attention paid to the condition of their course. They would much rather you buy one of the “Florida Strong” t-shirts for sale in the pro shop, the profits from which will go to hurricane relief. “We were trying to think of something we could do quickly to help,” said Pelican Director of Golf Justin Sheehan, “and the t-shirts seemed like a good start.”

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In the last month, debris has been removed, and all of the roads are open in the area, but flood and wind damage will take many more months to repair. There, too, Pelican is stepping up and being a good neighbor.

“Right after (Helene), everybody chipped in and tried to clean up other people’s houses,” Sheehan said. “We had our staff and members out seeing what was needed and helping wherever we could. Helene was the big one. Then, when Milton came through right behind it, everybody went out again.”

The entire community came together. The Pelican Golf Club crew went up and down the streets to assist where they could, and members jumped in to help their neighbors, both financially and with clean-up work. Credit cards and Venmo aren’t much good when the power is out, the internet is down and stores and streets are flooded, so many Pelican members went house to house delivering water, food and tools.

“The first storm caused massive flooding,” Sheehan said. “Just a quarter of a mile away (from the club), there are homes at sea level, and they were all flooded. There are three fingers (of land that jut into inlets) in Belleair, and every one of those homes got flooded. Then Hurricane Milton came, and there was all that inland damage.”

Many members also had homes damaged. Danny Doyle, Dan’s son, owns a home behind No. 5 at Pelican Golf Club, and according to the elder Doyle, “It looked like a bayou."

But that didn’t stop them from helping others.

“We thought about doing a member drive to help the staff, and we quietly did one where members came to us and volunteered to help,” Sheehan said. “They were extremely generous. But we didn’t feel it was appropriate to be hitting up people who lost their homes and asking them to donate money to others. Many did anyway."

The club is also thanking local heroes all week with a special First Responders Tent behind the 16th green, a place where the Belleair police and fire departments can enjoy the tournament with food and drink, a tangible way for the club to once again express their gratitude.

“We’re trying every way we can to help,” Sheehan said. “Every way we can.”

Pelican Golf Club a Good Neighbor After Storms

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