destinations, Bermuda does not come cheap, something in common with expensive gems.
As a member of the Commonwealth and host to more than 25,000 visitors annually from the UK, Bermuda bears many British hallmarks (like the population’s love of football, rugby and cricket) even though it has been a popular playground with wealthy Americans for more than a century. Its culture is therefore best described as traditional – a pleasing mixture of colonial gentility (its seven parishes have quaint names like Somerset and Derbyshire), non-conformist reserve and Yankee conservatism, with a dash of calypso thrown in for good measure. Yet from the rum-based ‘Dark ‘n Stormy’ cocktails which help the evening go with a swing and the peerless fish chowder that sets up many a memorable meal to those eponymous shorts worn by the island’s males almost like a uniform, Bermuda has its own distinctive flavour.
“Bermudians have a long history of hospitality and friendliness, and will go out of their way to make your visit just a little bit nicer,” says local hotelier and former minister for tourism, David Dodswell. Nowhere do those words ring truer than at the golf courses, most of which pre-date the Second World War and are a lasting testimony to the island’s prolific fertility and temperate, year-round climate.
Perhaps the most prominent club on the island, where guests can generally only be introduced by a member, is MID OCEAN, laid out on the southeastern shore in 1924

by Charles Blair Macdonald (the celebrated designer of the National Links of America on Long Island) and updated in 1953 to its present length of 6,512 yards off the back tees by the late Robert Trent Jones. Mid Ocean’s setting is often compared with that of Turnberry and Cypress Point, but in reality few of its holes run hard by the sea. Its landscape is more a collage of valleys, crests, woods and shrubs than water, which is only intermittently a threat. Most spectacular of the three tees which are the exception to this rule is the 5th, where golfers have to decide how much of Mangrove Lake they are tempted to cut off as they drive towards a fairway which doglegs sharply to the left.
Mid Ocean and the rest of the island’s courses are carpeted with Bermuda grass, the strong, sharp, broad-bladed greenery which has become a worldwide standard for durability wherever golf is played in a warm climate.
A near neighbour of Mid Ocean, and another with a stunning range of scenery, is TUCKER’S POINT, formerly
Marriott’s Castle Harbour, which is undergoing a major facelift. The course was originally created by Charles H.Banks in 1931 and, like Mid Ocean, it was subsequently modified by Trent Jones. With its steep drops, banks and hills, it is easy to see why Castle Harbour was chosen to host a World Cup of Golf qualifying event in 1984. But when Marriott closed their hotel which overlooked the course
around five years ago, its condition quickly deteriorated as a new owner was sought. Thankfully, the rolling 200-acre site soon attracted the attention of developers and a $350 million project is now well under way with the 6,361-yard,