their rights to play on the Warwick course after it is revamped by its prospective new owners.

Elbow Beach Golf Club Ltd. have already filed an application with the Planning Department to demolish the Belmont Hotel and the existing clubhouse to make way for a new clubhouse, 50 villas and a re-designed course.

And talks are underway to see where those proposals leave the 300 members of the Belmont club.

Philip Bolton, president of the Belmont Golf Club, met yesterday to discuss the club's future with Bill Shoaf, general manager of the Elbow Beach Hotel.

No guarantees were made that members would continue to enjoy any rights after the multi-million dollar refurbishment being overseen by Greg Norman and his re-design team.

Bolton said: "At this point everything is up in the air, but we are going to fight to retain the rights we have on the course and we are investigating our legal entitlements on that score.'' It had been made clear to him at the meeting that the cost of membership was likely to rocket after the planned revamp.

"It would be unreasonable for anyone to think that if they are going to plough millions of dollars into the course that we can expect to pay the same after it has been renovated,'' said Bolton.

The Belmont club has now formed a membership transition committee of five, specifically to deal with the issue which is worrying many members.

Re-designing the course with the aim of extending its yardage beyond the 6,000 mark and making it a far more demanding lay-out is likely to take more than a year and after that Belmont members may have to find somewhere else to play.

"There is no doubt that hotel customers will be their primary customers, but they are willing to sit down and talk about the rights of members,'' added Bolton.

The takeover has also thrown into doubt the future of the Belmont Invitation, one of the Island's most popular golf tournaments, hosted annually by the course over the past 26 years.

In two weeks' time, Shoaf is due to meet with the Belmont club's management committee for further talks.

Shoaf has failed to respond to this newspaper's request for comment on the planned changes over the past two days.