Guido Migliozzi of Italy plays his shot from the 16th tee during the third round of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course on October 30, 2021 in Southampton, Bermuda. (Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)
With seven courses to choose from, Bermuda boasts it has more courses per square mile than anywhere else in the world.
Bermuda is an isolated Atlantic archipelago about 600 miles off the coast of North Carolina. It spreads out in the shape of a fish hook, covering 24 miles from end to end and averaging only about a mile in width. From the flamingo-hued beaches, pink dominates Bermuda’s color scheme. It’s on houses, hotels, polo shirts, trademark Bermuda knee-length shorts and all the transit-system buses that careen across winding roads.
Located on the far western end of the island, Port Royal Golf Club has long and winding fairways banked by blooming oleander and whispering casuarina pines. Hilltop greens afford stunning views of turquoise sea, craggy coral rock formations, swaying palm trees and white-roofed, pastel cottages. The back nine is considered more attractive – with views of Hamilton Harbor from Nos. 11 and 12 – as well as more challenging because the wind frequently blows from the west. The infamous par-3 16th demands a tee shot to a spit of land that practically hangs over the sea.
Robert Trent Jones designed the public-access layout in 1971, and in 2009 it was refurbished at a reported cost of $15.9 million after becoming the host of the now-defunct PGA Grand Slam. It upgraded to a PGA Tour stop in 2020.
Not far away is the Fairmont Southampton Princess, home to an 18-hole par-3 course that rolls to the edge of Gibbs Lighthouse, the highest point in Bermuda, then bends down to the ocean and up past the impossibly pink hotel. Mid Ocean is the best of the bunch, a perennial Top 100 course, whose most famous hole is the fifth, a par 4 that doglegs around Mangrove Lake.
At the 19th hole, Bermuda’s drink is the Dark and Stormy, consisting of dark rum and ginger beer over ice and popular on the island with locals and tourists alike.
Port Royal ranks No. 23 on Golfweek’s Best Courses list for Mexico, the Caribbean, Atlantic islands and Central America.
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