Mid Ocean Club in Bermuda has appointed renowned golf architect Gil Hanse to restore its historic Charles Blair Macdonald designed golf course.
For Hanse, whose acclaimed Macdonald restorations include Sleepy Hollow Country Club, The Creek Club and Yale Golf Course, the project is a unique opportunity to restore another of Macdonald’s designs.
“C.B. Macdonald is on my personal Mount Rushmore of golf architects, so it’s an honor to have the opportunity to work on another of his courses,” said Hanse. “He only built 10 or 12 golf courses, depending on how many you credit to him. The fact that we now have a significant opportunity at Mid Ocean Club, means the world to us.”
Hanse added: “Every single golf course Macdonald worked on was impactful, not only from the standpoint of that particular club, but in the world of golf course architecture.”
Macdonald, who was born in Canada to a Scottish father and Canadian mother, learned to play golf while attending St Andrews University from 1872, was the architect of the United States’ first 18-hole course. He became fascinated with the notion of designing a golf course from ‘ideal holes,’ inspired by holes on some of the great British links, including Redan (North Berwick), Alps (Prestwick) and Eden (Old Course, St Andrews). These ‘template holes,’ as they became known, were used by Macdonald and his partner Seth Raynor to create the National Golf Links of America and other renowned courses.
According to Hanse, the iconic 5th hole at Mid Ocean Club (1922), with a diagonal drive over Mangrove Lake from an elevated tee, is one of the most audacious of Macdonald’s Cape holes – and ‘one of the greatest holes in golf’. The hole features in a 1926 film about Bermuda, only recently uncovered by club researcher Rick Skelly and found deep in the archives of the Smithsonian Institution. Remarkably, it also contains what is currently believed to be the only moving pictures of C.B. Macdonald himself.
“I was blown away when I found the footage,” said Rick, a member of Mid Ocean Club. “I was reviewing a longer film with classic 1920s Bermuda images when it suddenly switched to Mid Ocean Club and the first tee. And I see this older gentleman, thicker set, take this backswing and immediately I’m just stunned and think, ‘That’s C.B Macdonald right there!’
“I was merely hoping to find imagery of the course to help the design team, but to seemingly find C.B. Macdonald at our club was really cool. It was only later we realized there was no known footage of C.B. Macdonald and what we had was probably something very special.”
While painstaking work continues to verify the identity, with other experts soon being consulted, there is preliminary consensus it is seemingly C.B. Macdonald.
Hanse’s hand-drawn designs for the project – which includes restoring modifications made by Robert Trent Jones Senior in 1953 – have now been used to create a computer-generated animation by Harris Kalinka.
“Ultimately our goal is to be faithful to Macdonald and restore his work,” said Hanse, who first visited Mid Ocean Club 40 years ago while on honeymoon with his wife Tracey. With the archival information and, ultimately, having a presence on site and being on the machinery myself, we will have an opportunity to get in the ground and faithfully restore what Macdonald and Raynor built on the property.”
Austen Gravestock, Chief Executive and General Manager of Mid Ocean Club, said: “Gil is unsurpassed for his attention to detail in the restoration of some of the world’s greatest golf courses, and we are excited for what he will bring to Mid Ocean Club.
“In a place of rare and exquisite natural beauty, we’re also delighted to have worked closely with the Government of Bermuda to create a first-of-its-kind environmental management plan to deliver a net conservation gain across the property as a result of this project, including expanding and enhancing habitat for native plants and wildlife.”
Work on the restoration of Mid Ocean Club will follow a clubhouse renovation and upgrade, with the course closing for earthworks from fall 2027.