The Lido

The original Lido Golf Club opened in 1917 on Long Island's south shore, designed by Charles Blair Macdonald and Seth Raynor on a stretch of reclaimed marshland. It was considered one of the finest courses in the world. By 1942 it was gone, reclaimed by the U.S. Navy during World War II and never rebuilt. For eight decades, the Lido existed only in photographs, course descriptions, and the increasingly mythical reputation that attaches to things that can no longer be experienced firsthand.

Tom Doak and Brian Urbina spent years studying those photographs, original survey maps, and written accounts to reconstruct the course on a stretch of glacial sand in central Wisconsin. The Lido at Sand Valley opened in 2023 as a down-to-the-inch recreation, every green complex and bunker position drawn from the historical record. The sand dunes of Adams County provided the raw material that the Long Island site once offered: natural elevation, excellent drainage, and soil composition that supports firm, fast playing surfaces without artificial intervention.

The Architecture

Macdonald was the great collector of golf hole templates. He travelled to the British Isles, identified the holes he considered the finest in the game, and brought their strategic principles back to America. The Lido contains his greatest concentration of these template designs. The Redan, the Alps, the Cape, the Short, the Channel: each appears here in a form faithful to Macdonald's original interpretation, which itself was a translation of the Scottish and English originals.

The Channel hole is perhaps the most discussed. In Macdonald's era, it was the subject of the first-ever golf course architecture competition, with designs submitted through Country Life magazine. The winning entry, by Dr. Alister MacKenzie (who would later design Augusta National and Cypress Point), was incorporated into the final layout. Doak's reconstruction preserves MacKenzie's concept: a diagonal carry across a sandy waste area to a green that rewards boldness and punishes indecision.

The green complexes throughout are larger and more contoured than most modern designs. Macdonald believed in big greens with internal slopes that created multiple pin positions of varying difficulty. A ball that reaches the correct quadrant of the green leaves a makeable putt; a ball on the wrong side can face a putt of genuine complexity across a ridge or a swale. This is architecture that predates the era of precise yardage numbers and high-spin wedge shots. It rewards the golfer who reads the ground and plans the approach based on pin position rather than simply aiming at the flag.

Walking and Conditions

The Lido is walking only, consistent with every course at Sand Valley. The terrain is gentle enough that 18 holes on foot is comfortable for most golfers, and the sandy soil means the course drains quickly. A morning round after overnight rain will play firm by the turn. Caddies are available and recommended for first-time visitors, not because the course is confusing but because the strategic options on each hole are numerous enough that local knowledge materially affects scoring.

The course rating of 74.5 and slope of 148 confirm the challenge. This is the highest-rated course at the resort by both measures. The difficulty is architectural rather than physical: the course does not require extraordinary length, but it demands thoughtful positioning and an understanding of how ground contours influence the behaviour of the ball after it lands. Golfers who play an aerial game exclusively will find the greens less receptive than those who use the terrain to feed the ball onto the putting surface.

Significance

The USGA has selected The Lido to host the 2026 U.S. Mid-Amateur, with future championship hosting confirmed. This is validation of both the recreation's fidelity and the course's competitive merit. A design that existed only in archival material three years ago will now test the best amateur golfers in the country.

At $295 during peak season, the green fee is in line with the other 18-hole courses at the resort. What distinguishes The Lido is the specificity of its ambition. This is not a course inspired by golden-age principles or influenced by template design. It is a faithful reconstruction of a specific lost course, rebuilt by architects with the skill and the obsessive attention to documentation required to get it right. For golfers who care about the history and theory of course architecture, playing The Lido is less a round of golf than a conversation with a ghost. For everyone else, it is simply an excellent and demanding 18 holes through beautiful sand-dune terrain. Both experiences are available on every visit.