Refinishing a gem
Joe Lee’s 1972 South Ocean design gets an overhaul for the future  

NASSAU--To paraphrase a handful of old adages, the only enemy to grace and good looks is time, and the saying isn’t just reserved for the celebrity.

Before the bay beneath the bridge linking Nassau and Paradise Island was anything more than a marina cove for local fishermen to store their boats, golf architect Joe Lee laid out what is, still to this day, the purist and most interesting golf course on the island. At 6,707 yards, the Lee design benefited from a host of favourable conditions—interesting elevation changes, atypical to island terrain, and the privacy of a secluded peninsula—upon its construction, and for years garnered the word-of-mouth reputation as a modest but bright gem on New Providence. When Paradise Island exploded in the 1970s and 1980s, press lavishing praise on places like the Ocean Club became commonplace, while South Ocean, tucked away in the southwest corner of the island near Lyford Cay, took to the back seat in the popularity contest. One of the main projects of E.P. Taylor, the Canadian business baron who spent the last half of his life in the Bahamas, the South Ocean Club held a secure place in local and travel industry circles as an unsung golfing treasure. When the chatter slowly began to fade, the South Ocean Golf and Beach Resort took swift measures to resuscitate the Lee design’s reputation.  

In the fall of 2003, the course’s condition had been victimized by three decades of trade winds and tropical storms. While the character remained, the aesthetics had faded. Bunkers wore tattered collars, the complexion of the tees, fairways, and greens had been washed out, and undergrowth had begun to encroach on the limited boundaries of the property. Rather than trim a tree here and a weed there, the club has endeavoured to recharge the weathered face of an old beauty, and they are now moving forward with decisive action. 

The complete renovation and modernization of the South Ocean Club has begun in earnest with the reconstruction of the outdated irrigation systems and issues regarding the perimeter fencing. The new Ocean Club will have a handful of holes lengthened, allowing the course to be played at around 7,000 yards from the back tees, and the green and tee on one hole will be reversed to take better advantage of an unemployed ocean view. In limited space, plans have been implemented to add a driving range to the South Ocean facilities. To call the changes a mere renovation would be an understatement, says Warren Adamson, President of the Caribbean division of PRK Holdings Limited, which controls the South Ocean Development Company that operates the golf course.

“We are at the beginning of a journey right now to fully upgrade and modernize the entire course,” said Adamson in conversation with Golf TI last winter. “There are many who think that South Ocean is the best test of golf in the Bahamas, and very few who would dispute that it certainly will be once the rehabilitation is complete. Still, we’ll have to wait a year or so for that.”  

As it is, approval for the extensive renovation plan is currently on the desk of New Providence Development Company Limited, founded by E.P. Taylor and the present-day landlord of South Ocean Golf Course. With a collective think-tank that included landscape architects, turf specialists and agronomists, financiers, engineers, and even archaeologists (South Ocean is built on the ruins of slave residences), PRK has submitted a multi-million dollar renovation plan. Subject to approval, the lion's share of the task will begin with the closure of the course on the last day of April, 2004. All things considered, the target date for re-opening, sometime in December of this year, is an ambitious one.

Still, PRK Holdings and South Ocean golf fans have reason to be excited. The original visions of Joe Lee and E.P. Taylor provided thousands of golfers with a thrilling experience, and a new chapter will begin anew once the changes take root and a new Joe Lee-inspired design emerges. The whole project has been an endeavour into the forensics of golf course reconstruction that a guest of the club, and club management in particular, would have never imagined necessary in the 1970s and 1980s.

The clubhouse at South Ocean

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