par-70 course, extensively redesigned by a former colleague of Trent Jones, Roger Rulewich, as its centrepiece.
Currently under construction on the highest point of the property is a 5-star hotel and spa, while dozens of luxury villas and apartments are being built on various plots of land alongside the course. The only downside to this process of reconfiguration is that the start to a round is now relatively prosaic compared to Castle Harbour’s breathtaking first tee, which used to look down on a shortish par-four with trees and shrubbery to the left and sand to the right. The view in the near distance, past an elevated green, stretched across the eponymous Castle Harbour, over
Bermuda's international airport and through to the azure infinity of the Atlantic beyond. Fortunately, that original hole is still part of the course and now plays as the 17th.
It is unlikely that any such rearrangements will ever
be made at the delightful RIDDELL’S BAY, which juts
out into Little Sound on the island’s southern prong.

“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.”

Riddell's Bay, built in 1922 on a peninsular which
measures no more than 600 yards at its widest point,
stretches to barely 5,700 yards from the back tees but
its condition is immaculate throughout.
The part of the course which really sets the heart
fluttering, and the camera clicking, is the loop from
the 8th through the 12th. The 8th, a 360-yard parfour,
stroke index 1 and very much the signature hole,
doglegs sharply right around Little Sound and poses
the agonizing question of how much of the sea to cut
off with the drive. Take the brave line and stay dry and
you should be rewarded with a mere flick to the green,
but a telephone number score beckons should your
ball find a watery grave.
The 9th and 10th, shorter par-fours, both necessitate
accurate drives across apparently harmless yet
quite treacherous expanses of water. The 11th is a
short par-three across a valley, but it is the 12th, with