Mid Ocean - World Class

Way In


The Holes
1 Atlantic 10 Mercer Hill
2 Long 11 Trott's
3 Eden 12 Hillside
4 Mangrove 13 Biarritz
5 Cape 14 Leven
6 Brow 15 Punch Bowl
7 Short 16 Lookout
8 Valley 17 Redan
9 Sound 18 Home
Mid-Ocean is one of those timeless places that are all too rare – as good or better as you remember – sort of like the way Switzerland is. Neat, tidy clever, well-run and a joy to visit for starters. Charles Blair Macdonald laid out a very memorable set of holes with very little filler using a very contoured and hilly property to its fullest. Recent work at the hands of Tom Doak and associates has involved recovering the green surfaces and much tree removal as well as the usual bunker renovations that clubs must do from time to time.
The setting is incomparable looking out over infinite miles of ocean, rolling Bermudian landscape, stunning coastline and those charming white stepped-roofed homes. Standing on the first tee a voluptuous landscape of land unfolds in front of you encompassing the first hole and 16 – 18. One of the suggested points for an ideal routing is to avoid putting the clubhouse on a hill so that one must hill-climb at nine and the end. At Mid-Ocean there is a magnificent and distant half-way house and only a short walk back up the hill to lunch or cocktails. What a magnificent place to have either overlooking matches finishing on the eighteenth or just to have lunch or dinner. The big climb back is on the sixteenth with the green hard to the first tee. The view in that direction is unobstructed now as well due to restoration.

One must spend a few minutes gazing from the first as it is such a remarkable spot and the task at hand – picking a line on Atlantic – the opener – a very formidable challenge. The landing area slopes to the left towards the Redan 17th and one really should steer far clear of that line yet many caddies at the club question the openness of that first tee shot as the 17th is now so exposed. There are many bunkers in view but only one key bunker per player left at the limit of one’s attempting carry to shorten the hole. The green is a skyline and rather large benefiting a long drive with better depth perception. The green is hard to the cliffs making for a nearly humourless start although the second – a shortish par 5 is not as forgiving as the card might suggest owing to the markedly uphill nature of the second shot and the relative blindness. The Eden third is one of the better examples of what is a generally the most uninspired template on most courses from Macdonald, Raynor and Banks.

Mangrove is one of my favorite short par 4's anywhere. It is uphill to a skyline green with pesky well-placed bunkers just where you want to place your tee shot. Lots of slope to the green and a peek at the iconic Cape. It is never anything but thrilling. One cannot help but think of Babe Ruth standing on that tee emptying his bag of balls trying to drive the green once one has heard that story. Cape for some is almost anticlimactic except there are so many extras - special spots in the fairway, a raucous green complex and the seductive tee shot. No - you cannot carry it as far as you think, always play a little right of what you are confident you can carry!

I personally am a fan of this peculiar little Short template - not possessing the wildly contoured green that some do it is surrounded by little ponds making water rather than sand hazards key for this almost square green.

#8 Valley is a marvelous example with a near button-hook at the end with a good long drive to the left side what is needed. The green is rather elevated from the fairway leading to a high tee option for #9 - and a left bend from there.

Sound plays even more uphill than it appears, I needed a full three iron after a fine drive last play and that is typical. This far end of course leading to the half-way house is wide open to enjoy the view now. The half way house is almost the furthest point away from the clubhouse and is one of the finest in golf for location, elegace and a sense of presence.

The second nine has some of the most exciting land anywhere. Ten feels as though it will slide away if not somehow tacked down, a wonderful four with a crowned green. Eleven the five, feels very snug but one wishes that technology didn't have such impact. The routing of the second nine just matches the land so impossibly it seems timeless. The tee shot on #11 - Trott's (Named for a very prominent Bermudian family as is the pond) played straight away is too short for current driver technology, so a layup or a shot over the corner is in order. I love the fall off over the green. Hillside has long been a favorite of mine and just barely begins to describe it - very aptly named original hole. Being a coral reef island series, there are some varied landforms on the main island and at various points in the routing of Mid-Ocean. Hillside has a large half-dome that obscures a fair amount of the landing area of this dog-leg left. The green is also on a little plateau and never fails to thrill. The fact that it is followed by one of the finest Biarritz in Golf is a lovely bonus. However, now just the putting surface past the swale post renovation is maintained as such. It used to be that the entire front portion and swale were also putting surface, but not now.

The aptly named Lookout plays wonderfully uphill and ends the trip back to the clubhouse. The Redan and Home play on the lovely sloping plateau below the clubhouse in full view of the club.

Mid-Ocean is one of Golf's Happiest Places on the planet as it is relaxed and stimulating simultaneously. It is a beautiful spot to sit and have a drink, it is simply on Bermuda's finest land.





16 One of the Triumvirates most uphill holes


17 is a fine Redan - rescued from the trees


Routing - A wonderful walkabout and decent exercise. thrilling views constantly unfold
par 3's - a very good set with a great Biarritz even if only the back is green
par 4's - great variety, short 4th to long 9th, everything in between
par 5's - technology rears its head, but design-wise worthy of study
Cohesion of the course - Never do you feel out of place
Green Complexes - very well-done but new cultivar colour difference can be jarring
Bunkering schema - simple shapes well-placed, ideal for site
Conditioning - excellent playing surface, greens can be taken up to sub-ridiculous speed if that's what you're into.
Useful trees and avoidance of horticultural decoration - some complaints at the club about danger, but they do have a ton of visitors. Stark beauty of land is stupendous at places such as 1, 16-18
Ideality - pretty close to perfect except hills can be tough for newbies
The rest of the club - Didn't even ask for Kummel, but draft Foster's tastes no better anywhere else in this hemisphere. Plenty of libations and an excellent kitchen. I'll sign up anytime. Right at the top of my choices of places to play.
Milieu It is THE place away in a very comfortable way. The perfection of the new turf on the greens is not what I would have done had they asked me as it is noticeable. Mid Ocean is best when just a little scruffy here and there, like a favorite Blue Blazer with a threadbare area or small hole in the sleeve with a great story behind it. That's a comment, not a complaint.

Bermuda - Port Royal

The View inspiring the quote

and the hole on the side of the cliffs




Bermuda’s Golf scene has undergone a few changes over the past couple of years and today I feature Port Royal as it was announced that a new arrangement has been finalised so that the PGA Grand Slam of golf will remain on that blessed little Island for another two years. For those of you that have never been and especially those on the Eastern Seaboard, don’t ask why, just go. Trust me. Bermuda has more land as a percentage of total area dedicated to golf than any other nation on earth. Port Royal is the gem of the Bermudian state-owned golf scene and it has been the most recent host of the PGA Tour’s Grand Slam –arguably golf’s most exclusive invitational. One must be a major winner or a very special invitee if one man happens to hold more than one title in that calendar year or somehow infathomably cannot otherwise attend.

In December, 2007 I was fortunate to be one of the last few people to play the course before its renovation and last month - little changed from the mid 1990's - and returned to check out the work. The turf was always very good, now it is perfect. Many trees and much brush has been removed especially on the second nine which one can overlook from the deck behind the gently renovated clubhouse – creating an uninterrupted vista that is breath-taking. One can see so much of the course from the clubhouse compared to previously and it is very good as the view is spectacular.

Those familiar with the course from previous visits won’t see too much change in the first nine holes other than some pond work and a change in the form of the bunkers. The same routing is maintained as before through hole nine with added back tees added in several spots most notably way back on the par 4 fourth completely changing the character of the hole making it play for the long hitter how it does for an average hitter from the regular tees. The par 3 eighth is a spectacular setting with a green over 40 yards deep often playing into and with a crosswind. It is not hanging on the cliffs as is the famous par 3 sixteenth, but it is quite demanding as well. The two par 5’s at the third and the seventh are both really good demanding yet not penal holes.
Par 5 seventh


The lovely ninth plays 360 up the hill but it is a much longer play than that due to the severe elevation change.
The severely uphill ninth



Little change is there but on the very first hole the pond is larger and more in play on a demanding opener nearly ninety degrees dog-leg right and it seems that the expanded lake is much more in play. The first nine is mostly on the lowest land of the property with no ocean views until the 7th green and from then on one rarely loses sight of the water.

The 10th is a very fun short par 4 requiring a lot of thought as to how one wants to approach the green which is severely uphill and blind other than the sight of the flagstick.
the tenth

I was very glad to see that the 11th hole, a long par 4 that has always been one of my favorites is largely unchanged with its slightly and irregularly stepped landing area. A less than perfect drive prevented a 3-iron from reaching the narrow angled green into the wind.

The largest routing change in the course – which I noticed immediately watching the Grand Slam on TV - is in the new 12th and 13th in which the par for the two respective holes has been changed. Now there is a longer shot downhill on the 13th as a par 3 than the second was on the earlier iteration of the par 4 hole. 12 is now a par 4 that turns right intending to keep the tee for 13 safer than the landing area was on the par 4 13th previously in place and it does likely accomplish that.

The new 13th

Personally I miss the old par 3 twelfth as that was one really good albeit really hard hole, I love really good uphill par 3’s and there just aren’t enough of them in golf so I’ll personally miss this one even though it is good for the course that the changes for safety were made.

The tree clearing becomes quite apparent form this spot in and from 15 especially. Now a wide open wind-swept hole it was always the start of a demanding finish, perhaps now even more so.
Fifteen - now wide-open

The picturesque 16th is as challenging as ever and note the plaque leading the piece with then current USGA Open Champion Lucas Glover’s quote from the tee spot that day.
Here's the standard tee

and the target



It is there for all to see - I’ve shown the views one sees from above and the various tees and the photos show my one gripe with the new bunkers – one cannot see them. Perhaps this was done to reduce sand loss, but my regular readers would wonder what happened to me if I said I was enamoured with the new look.



Seventeen



Seventeen benefits as much as does 15 from the extensive tree removal with play being speedier as time looking for balls scared right by the pond on the left are now actually findable rather than fruitless search objects.


Eighteen as one can see from its images shows the patio with drinks awaiting you up the hill to end a glorious day on a simply spectacular completely public access course.

The Stern Eighteenth uphill all the way

One simply must play at Port Royal just as golfers just must visit Bermuda over and over. Do your homework and you might find a visitor’s tournament with half-priced tee times at this lovely course which at its current $180 offers you much more than many a similar-priced American resort course. Bermuda once had the bad rap of being ultra-expensive but with oversea ship and air transport costs showing the effects of greater technological efficiency the differences are much less than previously. One thing to remember about Bermuda is that the people are as nice as any that you will meet anywhere - a bit of Britain, America and Island all rolled into one and very relaxing.

ACCC

The Birth of the Birdie. In 1903 Ab(ner) Smith played a fine shot into the then 12th hole at Atlantic City Country Club. That shot was laid dead as to yield a score of one under the stern par of four. That green today exits as a practice just north of the 18th green. The plaque commemorating the event has been moved to its proper place from where it had been kept adjacent to the current 9th hole. The course has changed quite a bit since then. At the conclusion of the hole a fellow-competitor called it "a bird of a shot" and eventually as it developed and traveled it became birdie - one under par. There are many variations on this story some including William and George Trump as well as A.W. Tillinghast recanted in the club's 100 year History Birth of The Birdie. This version is considered by the club as most true.

As a take off point - a Birdie is one under par, an Eagle two under par and an Albatross three under par (NOT a “Double Eagle” as Americans are wont to say – that would be FOUR under par on a hole), Double Eagle is a very grating term to my ears – just as a hole-in-one. It’s an ACE. Another sticky point – the mis-belief that an ace must be in an 18 – hole round to be legitimate. That’s just wrong – it’s a perpetuation of the Golf Digest requirement for an ace to be a part of an 18-hole round to be recognized by their clearinghouse, lest our Honest Abe American brethren stand out on a par 3 with a bucket of balls and shoot at a par 3 flag all day to say that they holed-in-one. Funny one, that - I was recently in Arizona for a meeting and thanks to a friend was able to play the lovely little Adobe Course at the even lovelier Frank Lloyd Wright Masterpiece Biltmore Hotel. There was a special hole-in-one event going on taking up half the practice tee (hell, I don’t practice …) for the Fiesta Bowl Charities wherein one buys a number of balls and shoots at a 125 - 140 yard target to try and hole in one –apparently as many as three occur in a day. These are technically holed practice shots, but they do qualify the golfer (as well as the closest on any given day that no one holes) for a final event at the time of the actual Fiesta Bowl (Make that Doritos Fiesta Bowl?) in which each final qualifier tries one time to hole in one for who knows, a million bucks or a KIA Sedona or something else exciting.

Atlantic City Country Club – famous for the invention of the term birdie was renovated in 1876 by Tom Doak to the point that one might even consider it a new course at this point –is a fun little course that is clearly falling very hard on economic downturn. During Monopoly money boom times recently it was a very exclusive course that was almost like a secret society in how it was run and evident in how few had gotten to play it. Now under dire economic stress it is open to the public and last Sunday was available for the enjoyment of a slug-like 5 hour round for a very nice $45. But, sometimes it felt like going to jail without passing go. Slow play is killing golf, I just want to see courses policing pace of play more. 5 hours in mid-40 degree weather escapes me.

The preferred look of the lovely raggedy bunker style fits very well here and is still in place, it looks great in pictures, but the course is sadly getting beaten up Closely mown areas adjacent to greens is perhaps my favorite hazards as it is very egalitarian – foozlers pick their putters and stroke away whilst the skilled golfer considers every one of five or so choices before he makes a mess of it (sometimes). This was one of the great joys of ACCC as it is a windy site and it was a recovery shot often required. Soft, spongy pock-marked closely mown areas have little teeth and are very unattractive. Public golfers are notorious for not fixing ball marks on greens so they sure as hell aren’t going to do it on the approaches and runs-off. Once you fix offending marks on the line of your upcoming putt, the greens are putting very well – once you finally get to them. After waiting on every shot for the first three holes the waits got longer and longer despite the chilly temperatures the players out on Sunday could just not get the lead out. Not fixing these marks certainly didn’t add any time to the round.

The routing is generally lovely but on the 14th a long walk out to the tee on the marsh to wait for the green to clear (that almost no one can drive in cold weather) backs things up. Then from 15 to 17th tee, one feels a bit exposed. The design team cannot really be held accountable for this as the original mission of the re-design was for mostly walking and little play. Still, the routing is a nice one with a lovely bayside stretch from thirteen to seventeen.

The par 3’s are generally a little shorter than one usually sees today - a good thing considering the winds on the property. All five of them are lovely and challenging requiring very precise shot-making to small greens with many places to tuck a pin. Middle green and putting is not a bad option most of the time. The fully exposed wind-swept 15th is one of the more demanding par 3’s anywhere with a marsh in play and nearly always a cross wind or hurting wind never mind the season. It is a lovely hole by anyone’s standards with the skyline of Atlantic City across the marsh as the backdrop. The par 5’s are stout with only the water-guarded left turning dog legged 10th likely reachable in two shots. The par 4’s are quite varies from the very gentle and deceptive 2nd to the demanding 6th and seventeenth – they being barely reachable with very well-protected greens.

Overall the design is an excellent one and the clubhouse is quite a bit of history, but the conditioning and care of the golf course and monitoring of pace of play sorely needs attention. The carts have a Plexiglas-covered pin sheet with summer left-over offers – proffering a mere $100 replay round and a suggested 4:15 to 4:30 pace of play admonishment - both out of reach given the experience Sunday.

ACCC is well-worth playing, but the pace of play needs attention.



Much of the history of the course is from Birth of the Birdie. The club has existed for more than 100 years, the original layout pre-dating 1900 laid out by John Reid the professional. He laid out nine holes at a time and the 5,900 yard par 72 course attracted the 1901 USGA Amateur contested by Charles Blair MacDonald and Walter Travis among others. Mr. Reid who later won the USGA Open for two consecutive years prior to Francis Ouimet's "Shot heard 'round the world" in 1913. Most of the Philadelphia School of Architects who collaborated on Pine Valley visited and played ACCC. However, it was Willie Park, Jr. who added the third nine which persisted through 1950 according to the club. Herbert J. Tweedie from Chicago also tinkered with the design pre-depression with no time frame given. In an interesting frame of reference the tome claims he drank Scotch Whisky heavily while creating deeper and deeper bunkers (none of which remain) on the course. Their recollection is actually quite humorous, unless you are a descendant of Mr. Tweedie! During the period from the Depression through 1950 not much change ensued. Prior to Tom Doak's acclaimed re-design in 2000, only some elevation of the most marshward holes occurred.

The design as it exists today follows the first nine footprint of Flynn fairly well with the exception of shortening the second and lengthening the fifth. Flynn's 10th and 11th were combined to make the par 5 tenth. The footprint of the routing again remains fairly intact through the added 14th, 15th and expanded sixteenth. 14-16 are reviewed in photos below.



Here's a short pictorial tour of the course as it existed while still private and after Doak revised Flynn's 18 hole version.

The approach to the lovely third - on the same footprint as Flynn's hole


The short 4th with Atlantic City across the brackwater marsh


The Par 3 Eighth - Aptly labeled Sycamore


The 9th when known as Adirondack for the viewing chairs and the penultimate (erroneous) resting place of the Birdie Plaque


An Original Doak Hole - #14 drivable under certain conditions


Another Doak Original - The demanding fifteenth par 3 snuck in between 14 & 16


Par 4 Sixteenth from the Tee


Sixteen approach - Tall seaoats encroach on the marsh to the right of the green today


The Hidden 17th - another marvelous hole

Bandon Clarification

Until I have cleared up the Asian Porn sites posting comments on my blog, I will keep "Comments Disabled". Please e-mail me if you wish. I really do want to enable comments, but I don't want any porn stuff.

I want to clarify a misunderstanding that I think occurred.

I am in no way was knocking Bandon, it is by far the most interesting architecture trip in the USA for most good courses at a resort except maybe for Pinehurst with #1, 2, arguably 3 for Ross, #5 for Ellis Maples and #6 (yes, I love #6) for Fazio. You can keep #4 Fazio (A travesty of Ross and even RTJ's works to me), my wife gets absolutely vitriolic about Rees #7 and I get a little riled myself about how hideous parts of Fazio's #8 are.

Don't even think of missing any trip to Bandon,just be prepared to take your time getting there. Even Portland and SF with the small planes are no picnic.

Me? With a Brother-in-law in Portland, Pinot Noir in the Willamette Valley, just expect me to drive ...

Rowallan Castle

Writing coming. I'm sorry that the photos that I promised have not materialized. I'll see what I can do.