Keiser/Lido in GolfWorld this week

[Ronald Montesano]

This is an old thread, but there is an update in the print issue of Golf World this week (not yet on the web site.)

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php?topic=14496.0;wap2

[Dan Byrnes]

Be neat thing to create!  Not overly familiar with the course personally but to recreate a lost classic and do it well would be a great project.

Dan

[Alex Lagowitz]

I think I remember reading in the Bandon Book Dream golf, that somewhere down the line, they decided against building the Lido course and instead pointed to the tribute course for CBM.

If i remember correctly, they warned Keiser of the Lido course being gimmicky.

[Garland Bayley]

Don't remember what the book said, but the making of Old MacDonald dvd has Doak saying that the land did not fit the Lido course so the idea was dropped.

[Mark Hissey]

With the right piece of land, Lido could be pretty easy to build. Don't forget that it was very heavily engineered and on a very flat piece of land. As I recall, it was built on an incredibly small piece of land and by todays standards was quite short. More importantly, the center lines were too close for comfort for todays tastes. But given those provisions, the ideal situation would be to find 140-150 acres plus the lagoons on an area with nice ocean views.

It would make things easier if a compromise was made on the ocean views.

 

[Peter Pallotta]

Hmm, I don't have a good feeling about this; in fact, I have a bad feeling about it. Now, that probably means the idea is a great one and if brought to fruition will prove yet another feather in Mr. Keiser's cap. On the other hand, there was this fellow once named Icarus, and, well....

Peter

[Michael George]

Count me as one that hopes it is never built and that Mike Keiser's desire to replicate it is lost.  If an artist paints the Mona Lisa and then it is destroyed in a fire, should the artist try and re-paint it.  No.  A golf course architect should take a piece of land and build the best course that he can within the economic means of the project.  No need to just copy courses of the past.  Now if Keiser wants to replicate certain holes and has a piece of property that allows him to do so, fine, but replicating the entire course is folly and in my opinion would be Keiser's first bad decision in his golf business.

Plus, in these economic times, I am not sure that an overly engineered and manufactured golf course, that was the most expensive course of its time, is all that necessary.

[Mark Hissey]

I'd argue that there is nothing wrong with it whatsoever.

Dresden and Warsaw were rebuilt after being flattened after WW2. Their great architectural treasures replicated completely. As was Monte Cassino.

The Houses of Parliament sustained massive damage in WW2 also and were restored to their identical pre-war condition.

There was a big debate after 9/11 as to whether to rebuild the Trade Center and it was decided for economic reasons not to. However, people talked about the restoration of the Capitol Building and the White House being rebuilt identically if planes 3 and 4 had hit their targts. And rightfully so.

Why not rebuild what many consider to be one of the greatest gems of golf history? Where is the harm? It's not like CBM and Raynor never replicated holes before. They made careers from it for goodness sake.

[Jeff Bertch]

I think Streamsong would be the perfect place for this. Similar conditioning with the sandy terrain and water features. With everything I have read, Lido was pretty flat and very expensive to build (most of that due to the dredging). With this in mind, I don't think an exact replica is the right decision, but I think they could find the right piece of land for a Lido-inspired course. I would love to see the MacDonald/Raynor bunkers at this resort.

[Mark Hissey]

Building the lagoons would take some effort, but certainly not prohibitive. The fill from there would be needed for the shaping in any case.

To me, the Lido seemed to be an experiment as much as anything else. One which in most respects was spectacularly successful and in a few respects a failure. But the piece of land that was used was essential for this experiment and the massive dredging and pumping was incredibly expensive. That was the price that had to be paid. De-watering in an area like the South Shore for a golf course was a crazy experiment, but one whose memory lives on to this day.

However, on a flat piece of dry land, these costs would be not nearly as much.

[Ronald Montesano]

My question would be, exact replica? What if you replaced lagoons with some other sort of hazard?

[Mark Hissey]

I suppose that would be a philosophical issue as much as anything.

The lagoon was entirely appropriate in the original location on the water. However, with DEC issues, building on the water and incorporating lagoons linked into the bay would make any waterside site almost impossible to work with.

But, an inland site faces this question. Should the lagoons be replicated make the new design identical or can it become a facsimile? Straying from the original design would make it just another homage to two incredible architects. In CBM's case, his holes have been copied endlessly. But these particular works of genius? They don't exist anywhere any more.

But they should.

[Gib_Papazian]

Read my last post on the Sequoyah thread.

The plans are sitting there, waiting to be built.

[Adam Clayman]

Peter, Of course it was a genius idea. It came from one of posters. But I am picking up what you are puttin down.
Augusta Nat'l circa 1934 would be a better course to build an exact replica, imo. Much more cache', and cash. What retail golfer wouldn't want to play Mackenzie and Jones' sophisticated version of a course they watch on TV every year? Likely, cheaper, and, easier to find a comparable in elevation changes, inland, sandy site.

Plus, Mr. Keiser answered Mackenzie, to the question on which ODG would he hire, if he could.

[Ronald Montesano]

"What retail golfer wouldn't want to play Mackenzie and Jones' sophisticated version of a course they watch on TV every year?"

What retail golfer not on this site would have paid attention to the changes made?

--They flipped which nines?
--They added trees where?
--They put rough in when?
--They extended which holes?

I'm sure that the average retail golfer would have these and other questions...unless you were being facetious.

[Tom_Doak]

Peter, Of course it was a genius idea. It came from one of posters. But I am picking up what you are puttin down.
Augusta Nat'l circa 1934 would be a better course to build an exact replica, imo. Much more cache', and cash. What retail golfer wouldn't want to play Mackenzie and Jones' sophisticated version of a course they watch on TV every year? Likely, cheaper, and, easier to find a comparable in elevation changes, inland, sandy site.

Plus, Mr. Keiser answered Mackenzie, to the question on which ODG would he hire, if he could.

Adam:

In a dream world, maybe that's a good answer.  But Augusta is really impractical to recreate because of the topography of the original site.  Lido was created from dead flat ground, and there's lots of other dead flat ground in developable locations all over the globe.  Finding a site where you could recreate Augusta would be WAY more difficult.