Surrounded by a coral reef and covering an area of just eight square miles, the oval-shaped South Pacific island of Nauru is actually the smallest republic in the world. Phosphate rock was discovered on the island at the start of the 20th century and by the 1970s, the profitable export of this natural resource meant that Nauru enjoyed the highest per-capita income of any sovereign state in the world.

Sometime around World War II, a short 9-hole golf course – with eight par threes and one par four – was built by the Nauru Phosphate Corporation for employees who were working in its strip mines. With phosphate reserves now severely depleted and the local environment severely scarred, the course sadly matches the mining operation, declining into a similar state of disrepair.