Today, there are three public and five private courses, but many hotels and cottage colonies can make arrangements for guests to play the private layouts since three open days are generally available for non-club members. At the moment, another private golf course has been promised to us. Designed by Jack Nicklaus, it will be an 18-hole, par 72 course, and rumor has it that the Golden Bear will model it after his favorite Pebble Beach golf course in California. Seven-thousand yards long, it will be Bermuda's first full championship course. It will also be the first completely irrigated course on the island.
Plans are in the making for a luxurious clubhouse and a championship practice range.
For the Birdies Today, Bermuda claims to have more acreage per square mile dedicated to golf than any other country. Whether this is true or not, it is definite that golf courses take up about 17 percent of our open space. Given that we have a total of just 21.6 square miles of land, our open spaces are obviously very important to us, and Bermuda is becoming more and more environmentally aware. In the past, golf courses were not altogether friendly to the environment. For starters, they had a definite aversion to land crabs.