Pine Forest courses

How a forest course looks and plays

Every daily course is one of four types, chosen from the date, so each turns up on roughly one day in four. On a forest day the holes run through pine woodland: the fairway is framed by rough, then deep rough, then the trees. The corridor is no narrower than anywhere else, but missing it is expensive — deep rough keeps only 62% of your distance and spreads the next shot two and a half times as wide.

Water appears as woodland lakes beside some holes, and bunkers guard the landing zones and greens as on every course type.

Fallen leaves

The forest's own hazard is a pile of fallen leaves lying directly on the fairway. It does not turn up every day, but when it does it sits right where a good drive wants to finish. A ball in the leaves plays exactly like a bunker shot: 70% distance, nearly double the spread, half the roll and a 160-yard cap on how far you can carry it.

Because it sits on the fairway rather than beside it, the leaf pile changes the tee shot. Either lay up short of it, play past it with enough club, or aim down the side of the fairway away from it.

The squirrel

On recent courses a local animal keeps a patch of ground in one or two landing zones on par 4s and longer. In the forest it is a squirrel. Stop your ball inside its patch and it carries the ball off to its den in the rough, a little back down the hole. There is no penalty stroke — the cost is the worse lie and the lost yards. The patch is always in plain sight and never covers the whole fairway, so it is a line you choose to avoid, not bad luck.

Scoring on a forest day

Forest days reward patience. The fairway rolls out nearly five times further than rough, so a 3 wood that stays on the short grass often finishes level with a driver that strays. Think about where the next shot is played from, and play the hole backwards from the green.