El Bosque

The opening tee shot at El Bosque is simultaneously thrilling, bewildering and intimidating. You are standing on an elevated tee, so the shoulders feel a little more loose than usual over the opening shot of the day, but this dog-leg left doesn't let you hit driver with any comfort.

Such are the density of trees and narrowness of the fairway that you can only hit your longest club in the bag over the top of the trees in the corner of the dog leg. It seems a risky play on the first swing of the day, but it is a worthwhile one… because hit something safe off the tee and you face something like a 5-iron acutely uphill to a slender green with a bunker guarding the front.

The twisting 2nd, the land falling away to the right where sand and awkward stances await, confirms El Bosque as a technical, strategic course – as one would expect of Robert Trent Jones.

So, too, does the 3rd, a par 5 that urns over undulating land between pines of various sizes and heights. After driving up and over the brow of a hill you face an approach to a well-bunkered green.

And if you hadn’t worked it out already, the 6th confirms this as a Robert Trent Jones design, with another typical RTJ raised green at the end of a fiddly, tight dog-leg.

The downhill 4th is good but the 8th is probably the pick of the front nine’s short holes, played over water to a wide target with run-offs and bunkers making this pretty scene also a challenging one.

The sweeping 9th to another elevated green, with steep run offs to the left, is the closest residences come to the line of play – because otherwise they are well set back here.

The back nine is sprinkled with fine holes: the par-5 11th playing downhill all the way to a small triangular shaped green being followed by the an other par 3 over water – this time to a  shallow, wide green with bunkers set into bank – and then the well-guarded 13th, with a bank of water all the way across its front.

The funky 14th, again over water and this time to a kidney-shaped green, is succeeded by arguably the strongest on the course. And then there’s the 18th, which runs in the opposite direction to the 1st and also plays from an elevated tee – but this time you can really can open your shoulders with a wide target, and a good drive is required, because then its a steeply uphill approach to a green beneath the windows of glass-fronted clubhouse with a wall to the back of the green.