Issue link: http://pgaofcanada.uberflip.com/i/589113
Harry D. Butterfield, manager of the Bank of N.T. Butterfield and Son, who was also chairman of the Transport Committee of the Trade Development Board, an advisory board to the Bermuda Government, was in London on business. He took the opportunity to spend a highly convivial evening with a long-standing barrister friend and it was while the pair were enjoying port and cigars that the legal man let slip that he had been consulted by Furness Withy to advise on the disposition of their world-wide assets, including propertyin Bermuda. Butterfield, later to become Sir Harry, was not a man to let the grass grow under his feet, and he immedi- ately set in motion a movement to raise the necessary funds to secure Mid Ocean. There are two accounts of how he set about it. One suggests that he spent lengthy hours that same night in placing a long-distance tele- phone call to Sir Eldon Trimingham in Bermuda. The other, that he cabled H. Jack Tucker, manager of the Bank of Bermuda, with instructions to gather subscriptions for the purchase. It is highly likely that he did both, discuss- ing the options with Sir Eldon before committing to the raising of funds. Sir Howard Trott and Edmund Gibbons then took the front positions in negotiations with Bermuda Develop- ment Company, the Furness Withy subsidiary which controlled Mid Ocean. They sat across the table from Lord Essington of the steamship company in discussions that lasted many months. Golf enthusiasts had by now pledged subscriptions totaling 105,000 pounds and at the first meeting of shareholders on September 17, 1951, Sir Howard outlined the situation. The Legislature had passed a bill entitled "Mid Ocean Club Limited" authorizing a limit- ed liability company to be formed with the power to carry on the club and course business and to purchase the prop- erty. An agreement had been reached between the Bermuda Development Company and a small group of members to purchase the club, the golf course and the beaches, ap- proximately 180 acres, for the sum of 130,000 pounds. In the 1950's leading golf designer Robert Trent Jones was invited to make suggestions for improving the course. Many of his new layouts and remodeling work around the world have been dominated by big, bold statements, yet his touch at Mid Ocean was light, subtle and restrained. Respecting the design of Macdonald, he re-worked a num- ber of tees and bunkers, enhancing a slightly ageing mas- terpiece rather than indulging in invasive surgery. The result is as good today as it was then, the course now measuring slightly longer and playable between 5,045 and 6512 yards. Some 7,000 new trees were also planted in the mid-fifties after many cedars were blighted by disease. Hurricanes and tornadoes continue to show no respect for course design and have marginally changed the playing characteristics at a few holes by uprooting mature trees, but in essence the course is still the one first built in 1921. Not so the clubhouse. The original was demolished in 1974 and replaced with a more practical and attractive design, which, in turn was completely renovated in the 1980's.