​Golf architect Gil Hanse is traveling to Bermuda to undertake a restoration of the renowned Mid Ocean Club, a course designed by Charles Blair Macdonald. This project follows recent restorations of Macdonald masterpieces at Yale Golf Course and Sleepy Hollow Golf Club. Earth-moving work at Mid Ocean, Macdonald’s sole international design and a 44th-ranked course on Golf Digest’s list of the top 100 outside the United States, is slated to begin in fall 2027 after a clubhouse renovation and upgrades, with a reopening anticipated in late 2028.
Hanse (pictured at right) and Jim Wagner (left) are leading the Mid Ocean Club restoration, with Hanse’s firm, Hanse Golf Course Design. Hanse first visited Bermuda and the Mid Ocean Club four decades ago on his honeymoon with his wife, Tracey, and he regards the chance to restore a course dating back to the early 1920s as a profound honor, especially given Macdonald’s placement on his personal “Mount Rushmore” of golf architects. Hanse previously completed a substantial rebuild at Sleepy Hollow in New York in 2018, and Yale Golf Course reopened this year after a major $25 million restoration guided by Hanse and his team. “He built only 10 or 12 golf courses, depending on how you count,” Hanse noted. “The fact that we now have a significant opportunity at Mid Ocean Club means the world to us.” He will again collaborate with partner Jim Wagner on the project. Among Hanse’s own designs, three rank among Golf Digest’s Top 100 U.S. courses, and with Wagner he has influenced around 20 additional restorations or renovations.
Hanse emphasized the importance of Macdonald’s work, stating, “Every single golf course C.B. Macdonald worked on was impactful, not only for that club but for the wider world of golf course architecture.” The historical research for Mid Ocean includes the recent discovery of a 1926 silent film that appears to capture Macdonald himself, offering what researchers believe to be the only moving images of the “Father of American golf architecture.” Rick Skelly, a Mid Ocean Club member and researcher, located the footage in the Smithsonian Institution’s archives while reviewing a 1926 Bermuda film for imagery of the course. The film shifts to what appears to be Macdonald taking a backswing and later putting on the opening green of the Mid Ocean Club’s first hole, providing a remarkable glimpse into the designer at work.
Macdonald tended to spend his summers at The National Golf Links of America on Long Island, but he also owned a home and cottage overlooking Mid Ocean Club’s famed fifth hole, wintering there annually until his death in 1939. He collaborated with Seth Raynor on the Mid Ocean course, a project renowned for template holes that include well-known names like Redan and Alps, which remain touchstones in golf architecture and a key part of Macdonald’s enduring legacy.