The Lido Golf Club

C.B. Macdonald's famous Lido golf course located on Long Island opened in 1917 with just about all of the holes Macdonald had previously found on the well-known links of Great Britain. The course was turned into a base for the U.S. Navy during World War II and the course was closed following the end of hostilities in 1945.

Fast forward to seventy-five years later when entrepreneur Mike Chris Keiser as well as Chris Keiser engaged Tom Doak and his Renaissance Golf Design firm to recreate the legendary layout thousand miles to the northwest of its original site, on the 225 acres of sand dunes located to the north of the Sand Valley resort near Nekoosa, Wisconsin.

The course was dubbed "the holy grail of the lost golf" by one commentator it was the Lido Golf Course was an idea that professional in finance and professional golf historian Peter Flory had worked on for a few years and his computer-generated model of the whole 18 holes was utilized extensively in the process to precisely recreate the course at its new location.

Flory's course was converted to the elevation of scans made from Brian Zager (who did something similar for two courses in near Sand Valley) and these topographical maps were later utilized by Doak colleagues Brian Schneider and Brian Slawnik to precisely design the holes.

The pine trees that surrounded the landscape were removed, and water-adjacent holes were recreated by creating an enormous lagoon. The holes were designed to reflect the wind direction at the site. The decision was made to place holes further apart due to reasons of safety, which permitted additional back tees.

The similarities between The Lido in Wisconsin and Gil Hanse's interpretation of similar design in Ballyshear at Thailand are entirely coincidental obviously... It was was finally made available for play as a private operation during The summer of 2023 with limited access available to guests of the resort at close by Sand Valley.