Port Royal Golf Course

After first opening in 1970, the Robert Trent Jones Sr designed Port Royal Golf Course spent the next 30 years as the younger and lesser-known sibling of Bermuda’s famed Mid Ocean Club. The Port Royal experience began to deteriorate as the years went by and the course became overgrown with vegetation.

But as the millennium passed Bermuda’s Premier Dr. Ewart Brown decided he wanted more for Port Royal and started the wheels in motion for a major renovation. It took the better part of a decade for Dr. Brown’s dream to become a reality but when the renovations were finally completed for the 2009 Grand Slam the results were stunning.  One of the primary accomplishments of the makeover was the removal of the vista obstructing vegetations and the views here now are breathtaking beginning with the driving range.  

But the restoration of Port Royal involved much more than simply clearing out trees.  All of the fairways, roughs and tees have been re-grassed, a new irrigation system installed, the bunkering has been totally redesigned and the yardage stretched to nearly 7,000 making it the longest course in Bermuda.  And the greens surfaces are now TifEAgle meaning the putts are true and fast.

There are many aspects of the Port Royal Golf Course that are definitely memorable, but the one place that you’ll surely never forget is the 16th tee.  This is one of the most dramatic and testing oceanfront par 3’s anywhere.  And during the Grand Slam the players were so mesmerized that play slowed down considerably.  The tee shot here is extremely daunting… the green is a very narrow target perched on the edge of the cliff and the recent renovations here actually made the hole even longer.

Last fall the Port Royal Golf Course proved to be championship worthy when the 2009 major winners gathered here in October for the PGA Grand Slam and got their first look at the new home of the event.  As you would expect from the game’s best, there were plenty of highlights and great shot making.  However the perils of Port Royal also extracted a toll from the participants.  In the end U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover prevailed making 2009 a two-win season… at Bethpage Black and then Port Royal.