The Lido

Overview: The Lido is a modern links course at Sand Valley in central Wisconsin, where Tom Doak recreated the strategic spirit of a famous lost design on a broad sandy property. The routing uses large-scale landforms, open fairways, waste areas and bold green complexes to create a course that can look expansive from one angle and surprisingly exact from the next. Its interest comes from the relationship between the ground, the wind and the position of each target, with the landscape doing much of the visual work.

History: The original Lido was C.B. Macdonald's celebrated Long Island course, but it disappeared during the Second World War. Decades later, Michael and Chris Keiser worked with Doak to resurrect the routing beside Sand Valley. Historical photographs, plans and digital mapping helped the team reconstruct the course's principal lines and architectural ideas. The Wisconsin Lido opened in 2023 as a new course that deliberately connects a living resort to one of golf architecture's most important lost layouts.

Did You Know? The Lido is unusual because its central idea is historical reconstruction rather than a loose quotation of an old style. The project takes its name, routing concept and architectural vocabulary from Macdonald's vanished course, then places that inheritance on a new Wisconsin site. It is therefore both a playable modern design and a rare physical reminder of a course that no longer survives on Long Island.