ROME, WISCONSIN | On only two other occasions have I been so nervous – and excited – on a golf course.
One of those occurred when I played my maiden round at Augusta National. And I was so overwhelmed by the setting and the situation that it took me three tries to get my golf ball to stay on the tee on No. 1.
The other time was when I made my first pilgrimage to the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. Getting ready to hit my opening drive that morning, I remember thinking how small perhaps the widest fairway in the game actually looked. As for my backswing, it made the one that Doug Sanders possessed seem as long and languid as Sam Snead’s.
Now, standing on the tee of the Channel hole on the Lido course at Sand Valley Resort in central Wisconsin, I felt equally as amped up and awestruck.
Part of it was the design itself, for the Channel is perhaps the boldest hole Charles Blair Macdonald and Seth Raynor ever crafted. Inspired by the 16th at Littlestone Golf Club on England’s southeast coast, the par-5 gives golfers two routes on their drives, over water in each case and with one of the landing areas a kidney-shaped island. With regards to the approach of what for most players is a three-shot hole, it requires a short iron to a massive green perched on top of a dune some 15 feet above a gaping cross bunker.
I had never before seen or played anything quite like Channel. But what made the experience truly unique was that the golf hole is part of a re-creation by Tom Doak and Brian Schneider of the course Macdonald and Raynor had constructed more than a century ago at the original Lido Club, on the south shore of Long Island.
Formally opened in 1918, the course quickly came to be considered a masterpiece. And no one described the new layout so eloquently – or accurately – than the British writer Bernard Darwin, who opined that “the Lido, judged as a battlefield for giants, is the best, not only in America but in the world.”
But even in golf, the good die young, and the celebrated club with its well-heeled membership closed down in 1942, ravaged by financial problems during the Great Depression and then appropriated by the U.S. Navy as a strategic defense site shortly after the start of World War II. Since then, the Lido has existed only in the hearts and minds of course architecture aficionados, becoming over time a sort of golf utopia that people could only fantasize about playing.
But thanks to developers Michael and Chris Keiser – sons of Mike Keiser, the man who birthed Bandon Dunes nearly 25 years ago – that dream is becoming a reality. Nine holes on what will be the centerpiece of a members’ club with some resort guest access opened for preview play at Sand Valley on July 15. And next spring, the entire course, which is routed on some 220 acres, is scheduled to come online.
The Keisers had invited me to play those initial nine holes the day before preview play began. They included Nos. 3, 4 and 5 (Eden, Channel and Cape, respectively) and then 12 through 17 (Punchbowl, Knoll, Short, Strategy, Redan and Long). And when I prepared to hit my first shot on Channel, I felt that in some ways I was also driving into the Golden Age of golf course architecture – and playing what had actually ceased to exist eight decades ago. Or at the very least, a facsimile of that 5-par, which boasted the same features and length of the original and was routed in the identical direction, to replicate the prevailing winds of the old Lido.
I hooted a bit when my tee shot found the fairway. And I pumped my fist ever so slightly when I rolled in my putt for par.
Then I turned to my playing partner, a Scottish gent named Derek Kelso who is the head professional and golf operations manager at Lido, and said: “So, this is what time travel feels like.”
We both threw our heads back in the sunny Wisconsin morn and laughed.
The singularity of Channel is what made that hole so special to me. But truth be told, I relished each one I played that day. The Eden, among the best and most copied 3-pars on the planet. And the Cape, which offers a stunning look on a slightly downhill approach to an angled and well-bunkered green for those who are able to keep their drives on the ridge that runs down the right side of the fairway.
The hits kept coming, of course. Punchbowl. Knoll. Short. No. 15 was Strategy, a meaty par-4 designed by the Englishman Tom Simpson and created for the course architecture contest in Country Life magazine that Macdonald had conceived of as a way of generating publicity for the original Lido. The hole was reminiscent of the Bottle at the National Golf Links of America on Long Island, with bunkers stretching across the fairway off the tee and a fairway that narrowed considerably as we came closer to a mammoth green that runs uphill from front to back.
Then, there was the Redan, and I was almost as pumped about this classic as I was Channel, having grown up playing a rendition of the par-3 at Country Club of Fairfield in Connecticut. I managed to land my tee shot on the front-right of the green, and it rolled deliberately down and to the left, settling about 4 feet from the hole. As for the birdie putt that I subsequently left short, the less said about that the better.
But there are so many good things to say about the golf course that is taking shape at Sand Valley. The sandy soil. The fescue fairways and tees, and the 007 bentgrass greens. The vastness of the property, and the wind that tends to blow harder here than on the other resort courses, due to the utter lack of trees. The ways that this Lido stays so true to the original design, too. To be sure, there are no ocean views. And quite understandably, the holes that already are grassed-in still need time to settle and mature. But it is nonetheless a gem.
We finished our round on the par-5 17th, appropriately named Long given that it will play more than 600 yards from the back tees. This hole boasts its own version of the Hell Bunker from St. Andrews. And after I putted out, I looked down at the Home hole at 18, the brilliant par-4 that a relatively unknown Alister MacKenzie designed for the Country Life contest and think, “This will one day be one of the best courses in America.”
I only hope I am not so nervous the next time around.
Editor’s note: John Steinbreder is writing a book on this golf course, to be titled “The Return of the Lido.” It is expected to be released in late 2023
Top: No. 16 green (Redan), with the lagoon and Channel in the background
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