The fashion nowadays is often to go back to "how the course was built". When this involves taking out trees courses can seem bare; plenty of width off the tee; hit it hard and play a shorter iron to the green. When it is accompanied by firm greens and extended run-offs around greens the course does get harder as the greens tend to repel badly hit shots and the extended run-offs mean that missing by a yard can mean being 10+ yards off the green. When the apparently expansive fairways are lined by ditches that apparent width appreciably narrows. Calcot Park has done all three - as a result, in a dry late April, the course played short, the course played narrower than it appeared and firm greens required well-hit irons to the right place and a deft touch with the putter. I liked it. I can understand why some felt the greens were less than fair.

The course opens with a long par 4, width to the left into semi-rough (I suspect proper rough is an option later in the year), a narrower gap through a couple of bunkers and a ditch to catch the over-faded tee shot. The sizeable green offering a way in along the ground, but with run-offs into bunkers to the right. The second is shorter, much shorter. A semi-blind tee shot if the fairway is one's aim, the green, in the other hand is visible on a rise. But should one go for it? A straight shot will find the bunker 30 yards short, a slight draw will rest up against the rise up the the green, a really strong draw will find the green, a pull will find another greenside bunker, this time to the left. In reality it's a hole on which one should play two irons, but one can do tings the aggressive way. The same applies to the 10th, though here the easier line in is a fade, started sufficiently up the left that the front right bunker isn't in play. I felt the 10th was easier; it was more laid out from the tee and the bunker positioning was such that going in one was not a huge penalty. On the second the first bunker in particular required a good shot out for a two-putt par.

The third was my favourite hole; the ideal line is down the left, the fairway slopes right to left. Go towards the right and have a bunker to carry; go left and it's an easier way in, though not easy as a ditch also guards the front. Visually it was great with the green visible in the distance off a high tee. The fourth is the first of the par threes, like 7 and 17 played up to the green with in this case a big runoff to the right. The fifth was a medium par 4, played uphill to a green with significant slope; three putting very possible. The best line is to the left, which, of course, is where the ditch can be found. The first of just two par 5s is the 6th; played gently downhill the main danger is the ditch running diagonally across the fairway - to the right about 100 yards from the green to the left about 40. And then there's the run-off to the left. Get that wrong and water beckons.

The par three 7th is described as the signature hole. It's played across water (which to be honest felt rather gimmicky) though the green was typically Calcot; sloping, sizeable and firm. The front nine concludes with a couple of longer par 4s; the 8th needs a straight shot or a draw; on the 9th a ditch at 310 yards (at the bottom of a hill) will catch out the longer hitters (or indeed the shorter ones' second shots). It's played to a raised, almost infinity green.