Lido Golf Club
 The original Lido Golf Club's 3rd hole ("Eden") | |
| Club information | |
|---|---|
   | |
| Coordinates | 40°35′19″N 73°38′8″W / 40.58861°N 73.63556°W |
| Location | Long Beach, New York, U.S. |
| Total holes | 18 |
| Designed by | Charles B. Macdonald |
| Par | 72 |
| Length | 6,416 yards (5,867 m) |
The Lido Golf Club was a golf course in Long Beach, Nassau County, Long Island, New York.
History
[edit]The Lido was designed by Charles Blair Macdonald, with contributions from other designers, and constructed in 1915.[1] Mr. Macdonald sponsored a contest in Country Life magazine called The Lido Prize. The entries judged by Bernard Darwin, Horace Hutchinson and Herbert Fowler. The winner was Alister MacKenzie.[2]
Overseen by engineer Seth Raynor, construction required that "thousands of pounds of sand" be pumped out of the bay to reclaim what had been a marsh. The advantage was that "the exact contours required by the course architects" could be achieved. Turf bricks were cut from nearby property to lay the greens.[3]
The course opened by the summer of 1917.[4]
More than 2,000,0000 [sic] cubic yards were pumped in from Long Beach channel by five hydraulic dredges. Hills forty feet high and undulations corresponding were thus constructed. Forty thousand cubic yards of meadow muck were lifted and placed as a soil for all the fairways, greens and tees. Among the incidentals more than 2,500 tons of lime, 6,000 tons of fertilizers, and 35,000 tons of top soil. The entire rough was planted by hand with beach grass, each in squares eighteen inches apart. Nearly a million plants were required. They hold the sand in place and at the same time afford an excellent hazard. An irrigation system provides for every foot of the expanse.[5]
Unfortunately, its opening coincided with the United States' entry into World War I. During the summer of 1918, management was forced to lower the annual dues from $200 to $60 and make the course easier to attract more amateur players.[3][6]
In 1942,[7] during World War II, the United States Navy acquired the property and destroyed the course to construct a naval base.[8] After the war, in 1953, a new course was built in nearby Lido Beach with a design by Robert Trent Jones.[7] While different from the original, the Trent Jones course features a replica of Macdonald's 4th hole.[9]
Course
[edit]| Hole | Name | Yards | Par | Hole | Name | Yards | Par | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | First | 361 | 4 | 10 | Alps | 389 | 4 | |
| 2 | Plateau | 398 | 4 | 11 | Lagoon | 393 | 4 | |
| 3 | Eden | 160 | 3 | 12 | Punch Bowl | 412 | 4 | |
| 4 | Channel | 505 | 5 | 13 | Knoll | 283 | 4 | |
| 5 | Cape | 354 | 4 | 14 | Short | 129 | 3 | |
| 6 | Dog's Leg | 477 | 5 | 15 | Strategy | 387 | 4 | |
| 7 | Hog's Back | 455 | 5 | 16 | Redan | 189 | 3 | |
| 8 | Ocean | 220 | 3 | 17 | Long | 548 | 5 | |
| 9 | Leven | 334 | 4 | 18 | Home | 405 | 4 | |
| Out | 3,264 | 37 | In | 3,152 | 35 | |||
| Source:[5] | Total | 6,416 | 72 | |||||
The Lido provided a championship, a regular, and a short course.
Reception
[edit]In 1921, Walter Hagen listed the Lido as one of golf's "Big Three" courses, along with the National Links, and Pine Valley.[10] An assessment after completion described the course as "the greatest test in the world, with the possible exception of Pine Valley."
On two holes at high tide the surf scatters spray over the greens, while the ocean seems scarcely more than a drive, a brassey and approach from any of the tees. The course proper covers 115 acres, over seven of which flows the lagoon, an artificial lake dredged twelve feet deep with made-land in the centre constituting the island hole.... The home hole was built after the design of the best of more than one hundred plans submitted in a prize contest conducted in England for the best two-shot stretch.[5]
Legacy
[edit]In 2021, Michael and Chris Keiser, operators of Sand Valley Golf Resort in Nekoosa, Wisconsin undertook to construct a replica of the Lido in the Wisconsin sand barrens.[8] Golf historian Peter Flory spent years studying the original course's design and created a virtual, 3-D computer simulation. Impressed by Flory's photorealistic model, Keiser hired architect Tom Doak to bring the replica to life.[11][12][13] It opened in May 2023, and was announced as the primary course for the 2026 U.S. Mid-Amateur and the 2029 U.S. Junior Amateur.[14][15]
Another Lido-inspired course opened in 2022 at Ban Rakat Club near Bangkok, Thailand. Designed by architect Gil Hanse alongside business partner Jim Wagner, Ballyshear Golf Links features 18 holes reinterpreted to fit the site's landscape. [16][17]
References
[edit]- ^ "Golf Architect Lays Out New Course". The Miami Herald. February 1915. Retrieved December 4, 2021.
- ^ "The Long Lost Lido Found — Twice". Top 100 Golf Courses.
- ^ a b "Demand for Facilities so Great that many Nine-hole Stretches will be opened". New York Tribune. December 19, 1915. Retrieved December 4, 2021.
- ^ "List of Country Clubs with Links". New York Tribune. July 25, 1917. Retrieved December 4, 2021.
- ^ a b c "Long Beach Scene of Big Golf Events". Times Union. April 13, 1922. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
- ^ "Easifying of Lido Links". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. April 26, 1918. Retrieved December 4, 2021.
- ^ a b "Lido Hotel to Rebuild 18-Hole Golf Course Lost to Vets' Housing". Newsday. September 3, 1953. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
- ^ a b Lusk, Jason (January 18, 2021). "Photos: Famed Lido Golf Club to be reincarnated at Sand Valley in Wisconsin". Golfweek. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
- ^ Carlucci, Phil (June 1, 2015). Long Island Golf. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. p. 122. ISBN 9781467123863.
- ^ Hagen, Walter (January 4, 1921). "On the High Cost of Golf: Expenses of Play have Increased beyond all Reason". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 2, 2021.
- ^ Zak, Sean (September 16, 2021). "Wisconsin's next great golf course, The Lido, is a walk back in time". GOLF Magazine.
- ^ Duncan, Derek (September 18, 2021). "How robotic machines are helping to build one of golf's highly anticipated new courses". Golf Digest. Warner Bros. Discovery. Archived from the original on April 22, 2023. Retrieved April 22, 2023.
- ^ Stricklin, Art (August 30, 2022). "The Lido Shuffles Back Into National Prominence". Sports Illustrated. The Arena Group. Archived from the original on September 1, 2022. Retrieved April 22, 2023.
- ^ D'Amato, Gary (December 12, 2023). "Sand Valley, including the new Lido course, announced as host site for USGA national golf championships in 2026, '29, '30 and '34". Wisconsin Golf. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
- ^ Duncan, Derek (March 20, 2024). "The Lido might be golf's most important new* course. Our hole-by-hole video explains why". Golf Digest. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
- ^ "Hanse, ASGCA, "recreates" The Lido at Thailand's Ban Rakat Club". American Society of Golf Course Architects. December 2, 2022.
- ^ Chambers, Alice (December 8, 2022). "Lido-inspired layout by Gil Hanse opens at Ban Rakat Club". Golf Course Architecture. Tudor Rose. Archived from the original on January 28, 2023. Retrieved April 22, 2023.