Mid Ocean Club is very much a testament to a bygone era of golf course design. It’s short by today’s “championship” standards (6,530 yards, par 71 from the back tees) but remains extremely challenging due to contoured, firm greens, many of which are elevated. Immediately noticeable are the numerous blind drives (notably #12 and #16) and road crossings that, for safety’s sake, a designer simply couldn't get away with today. Despite these anachronisms (and the stunning ocean side setting) the course still feels somehow familiar.

This, of course, is attributable to the fact that this course was designed by C.B. Macdonald, the “Father of American Golf Course Architecture”, who was known for his template hole designs. Each of Macdonald’s courses contain a number of his favorite hole concepts borrowed from courses that he had played and studied in the UK. Short, Long, Eden and Road (a.k.a. Mercer Hill at MOC) from the Old Course at St. Andrews, Leven from Leven Links and Redan from North Berwick all appear in both name and spirit at Mid Ocean. Macdonald also devised some of his own templates that were repeated on many of his courses – Biarrritz and Punch Bowl are featured often on his courses and can also be found at Mid Ocean.

The best part of seeing Macdonald’s templates in person (which I was also able to do at his seminal National Golf Links of America) is that they themselves have become templates for more contemporary golf course designs. For example, the steep grass faced bunkers around many of the greens at Mid Ocean look a lot like the steep grass faced bunkers at many of Pete Dye’s courses. The Cape Hole, which was a Macdonald original at Mid Ocean, has inspired thousands of “bite off as much as you can chew” water carry holes worldwide (e.g. the 18th at Pebble Beach). Most recently an entirely new course, called Old Macdonald at the Bandon Dunes Resort, was designed as a tribute to Macdonald’s tributes. A definitively meta abstraction of an abstraction - this, to me, is further proof that Golf Course Architecture is as much an art form as painting, literature, photography, music or sculpture.

While there are some who would deride Macdonald’s propensity for repeating concepts throughout his original designs (to be continued on many later courses by his protégés Seth Raynor and Charles Banks), it should be noted that Macdonald was a master at making his golf holes fit the land and wasn't averse to adjusting the templates (while leaving the strategies intact) to best suit the ground that he was building upon. Furthermore, it’s difficult to argue against the strategic merit of holes such as Road, Long and Redan; requiring the golfer to think on the tee, tempting him into taking risks he should perhaps not be taking, and rewarding the boldest successful golf shots with the greatest rewards. These are the fundamentals of strategic design and Macdonald’s courses exhibit them in spades.

**Hole 5 is the first ever Cape-style hole and arguably the best in the world.**

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