Photos: Famed Lido Golf Club to be reincarnated at Sand Valley in Wisconsin

Sand Valley in Wisconsin, already home to two of the top Golfweek’s Best Modern Courses in the United States, has big plans for a third 18. And while it will be new, this track by Tom Doak won’t be quite so modern.

The Keiser brothers, Michael and Chris – sons of Bandon Dunes founder Mike Keiser and the operators of Sand Valley – are starting construction on The Lido, an 18-hole layout that will, with exacting efforts, reconstruct Long Island’s long-vanished but still-alluring Lido Golf Club in Long Island, New York.

The original Lido was designed in 1914 by C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor – with an 18^th hole inspired by Alister MacKenzie’s entry in a course-design contest. It featured many of the classic template holes, such as the Redan, Biarritz and Punchbowl. Considered by many to be among the finest courses in the world, the Lido was plowed under to accommodate a U.S. Navy base in World War II.

The Keiser brothers’ ambitious plans for a new Lido on 850 acres adjacent to Sand Valley include rebuilding the original Lido layout as closely as possible, this time in Central Wisconsin’s Sand Barrens region.

“This is not a design project inspired by the Lido,” Michael Keiser is quoted as saying on the website announcing plans for the new layout. “Our aim is to restore the Lido.”

The Keisers are being assisted by historian Peter Flory, who spent three years researching the original Lido. He recreated a 3-dimensial layout of the track, which Doak and his Renaissance Golf team will use as a guiding model to build the new course. The layout will be a par 72 at 6,582 yards and is scheduled to open in 2023.

This won’t be the first recreation of the Lido. Course architect Gill Hanse has recreated a tribute to the original Lido named Ballyshear Golf Links in Thailand. Construction on that course began in 2018, and it should open in the next couple years.

The Keisers’ Lido will be a private club, unlike the existing two 18s at the resort: the eponymous Sand Valley (No. 32 on Golfweek’s Best Modern Courses list in the U.S.) and Mammoth Dunes (No. 30 on that Modern list). Plans include allowing limited play for resort guests.

Check out the renderings of the Keisers’ planned Lido:

A photo rendering of The Lido, a new 18-hole layout at Sand Valley in Wisconsin (Courtesy…
A photo rendering of The Lido, a new 18-hole layout at Sand Valley in Wisconsin (Courtesy of Peter Flory and Sand Valley)
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