Good woodland courses

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Given the general dislike of trees in many GCA posts and the frequent suggestions that courses have intrusive trees removed, are there any good (even great?) courses which use trees as the principal strategic hazard which, nevertheless, offer choices of shots to the player?  Presumably the so-called Golden Age architects worked in forests and woodland as well as open ground.

[Marc Haring]

Good question Mark.

I suppose the drawbacks are that woodland courses tend to create one dimensional golf in that it is simple control of distance that gets the golfer thinking. I mean if you have trees on both sides it is just a question of what club you hit off the tee to avoid them while leaving a reasonable length second. If you have space left and right it becomes two dimensional and if you have a need to keep the ball down or occasionally hit it high (links golf) then I guess it is three dimensional and therefore requiring significantly more thought which equals interest.

However, are there occasions when you have a dogleg hole with trees both sides that the golfer has the option of shaping a shot around the dogleg (two dimensional) or perhaps launching one over a tree to cut the corner (three dimensional).

I recognise there are always limitations to wooded courses but I do remember Aoki taking the European Open at Sunningdale in a howling wind mainly because he was the only one that could keep the ball below the tree line.

Classic wooded courses? Didn’t Colt cut his way through Forests at St Georges Hill. I wonder if the heather came in later once the clearance had been done.  

[Chris Perry]

I'd say the best answer would be Sahalee. Though Firestone this week is up there too even though the trees aren't as tall.

[Mark Brown]

Harbour Town: the placement of the trees is the major design feature -- more than any course I know of.

[Philip Gawith]

not really answering your question mark, but i suppose the shame about some of the tree-lined course is that trees were absent at the birth of the course, and hence were not part of the architect's strategic intent. inasmuch as they are now a hazard, they are better described as a punitive hazard, rather than as being strategic.

[tonyt]

not really answering your question mark, but i suppose the shame about some of the tree-lined course is that trees were absent at the birth of the course, and hence were not part of the architect's strategic intent. inasmuch as they are now a hazard, they are better described as a punitive hazard, rather than as being strategic.

This is similar to my general feeling. I agree that whilst not every good wooded course may have started out as a wooded course, there is to me a general diiference in quality and strategy between a course that was crafted among trees or where trees were deliberately planned to grow, and a course where trees have grown when they were not intended, or at least not intended around certain lines or areas of play.

How many of the great US courses that are heavily treed were heavily treed at birth? Probably a few no doubt? What did Pinehurst No.2 look like on day one?

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Cornish mentions that Colt was the first architect to prepare tree-planting plans for his layouts.  Presumably, then, he was expecting his designs to be complete only after 30 or 40 years.