Port Royal Golf Club, a Robert Trent Jones Course, Opens in Bermuda
With the PGA TOUR in Bermuda this week, we explore what it was like to travel to Bermuda and play a brand-new Robert Trent Jones course
After five long years of haggling over land purchases that required design changes, the Robert Trent Jones, Sr. designed Port Royal Golf Course, located in Southampton Parish on the Island of Bermuda, opened in 1970. Located on the rolling hilltops and sheltered valleys the course was constructed on farmland that cows once grazed, and farmers raised the famed Bermuda onions.
Jones had 168 acres of scrub land and farmland to work with and a $2.5M budget. He completed his work in two years and designed a course that required accuracy and strategy and of course, featured Bermuda grass. Despite the sheltered valleys, the prevailing ocean breezes played havoc on shots. At 6,531 yards, the par 71 course was the longest of Bermuda’s nine courses.
Henry Picard, Masters and PGA champion, walked the course and proclaimed, “This will go down as one of the greatest golf courses of the world.”
The course provides spectacular views of the western end of the colony and all, but five holes, have water views. The course was constructed with an irrigation system featuring pop-up sprinklers, a modern innovation at the time.
A popular tourist destination, Bermuda provided year-round golfing weather free of the discomfort of sticky heat and mosquitoes. Travel writers were quick to sing the praises of a Bermuda vacation and Port Royal. One such uncredited article ran in the November 27th 1970 edition of The Brandon Sun out of Brandon, Manitoba, Canada.
The article extolled the virtues of a round of drinks at the 19th hole in the cedar bar just steps away from the 18th green. The article also states that, “The golf widow can safely abandon her husband to the wiles of Port Royal while she spends a quiet session exploring the western end of Bermuda.”
One landowner who refused to sell to the project required a redesign by Jones that resulted in the most famous hole at Port Royal—the par 3 16th hole. The tee, fairway and green of this 140-yard hole sit perched on the edge of the cliff above the south shore. The professional at Port Royal, Walter King, the 1970 Bermuda Open champion, recommended how to play the hole for The Brandon Sun. He recommended an 8-iron in calm weather and a 3-iron if the wind is blowing.
The course underwent a renovation in preparation for the 2009 PGA Grand Slam of Golf. That renovation cost $14.5M. A far cry from the original $2.5M that Jones had to work with.
Robert Trent Jones and the Port Royal Golf Course
Bonus Story
Golf travel was much different in the 1960s and 1970s than it is today. Flights took longer, dress both during your flight and at your destination, was much more formal than today. And you didn’t have an Internet to help you plan and book your trip.
The October 1974 edition of Golf Magazine provided travel tips for the golfer making a sojourn to an exotic golf location. An article gave practical tips for packing for your golf trip that included what to pack and how to pack. The best part of the article is the checklist of items for a one-week golfing trip. Yikes! This is supposed to fit in a standard-sized Pullman case plus one smaller bag?
Travel tips and a checklist, both for him and her, for a golf trip in the 1970s (Golf Magazine)
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