Ballyshear in Thailand incorporates classic Lido templates

SAMUT PRAKAN, Thailand – There’s been a lot of Lido talk in recent years in golf architecture circles. A new Lido opened this summer at Sand Valley in Wisconsin, attempting to recreate in great detail the original Lido course that was built in 1915 on Long Island, New York, with a design by C.B. Macdonald – that course was closed during World War II.

But Sand Valley’s rendition isn’t the only one.

Ballyshear Golf Links at Ban Rakat Club just east of Bangkok opened in 2021, and like its cousin in Wisconsin, this Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner design attempts to recreate many of the holes from the original Lido, sometimes in principle and at other times in detail.

Photos: Lido at Sand Valley

At Ballyshear, Hanse and Wagner put into play many of the template holes established by Macdonald at the original Lido and beyond. The Eden, Channel, Alps, Short and Redan – each of those template holes and more are there to be played in Thailand. Such holes present shot values and demands identified by Macdonald that are now in play around the world, many of them borrowed from classic links courses. These holes are immediately recognizable to golf architecture buffs.

Ballyshear was built on the site of the former Kiarti Thanee Country Club on a flat piece of land less than half an hour’s drive from Suvarnabhumi International Airport. The former course on the property featured tree-lined fairways and was often wet, as land in this area outside Bangkok is often inundated during heavy rains – the property is surrounded by rice fields.

Hanse and Wagner – the team behind several restorations of top classic courses, including Los Angeles Country Club before the 2023 U.S. Open – removed the trees, shaping the land into an open parcel more reminiscent of a classic links course. Much better drainage was installed, and a fair amount of engineering was necessary to create frequently rolling terrain that would hold up in the area’s climate.

That’s important, because the course needs to play relatively firm and fast to get the most of the template holes, their designs having been established on links ground and the best of them playing across sandy conditions. The ball needs to roll to make the most of such holes.

The private Ballyshear was covered with a local zoysia grass that does, indeed, play relatively firm and fast, especially in comparison to most other…