You have to admit the sound of a golf ball smashing into a tree trunk always has significant comedy value (as long as it’s your mate’s ball).

Here I was standing in a fairway bunker with a bunch of trees a few yards away right in my line. I could hardly avoid the timber on this occasion and it felt reasonable to assume the original design strategy may have been compromised on the hole. Trees should be seen and not heard.

Deforestation of hardwood forests in the tropics is very bad and arguably should be stopped, but deforestation of forested golf courses in temperate regions should be mandatory. Perhaps someone (Elon Musk?) could re-deploy all those Brazilian & Indonesian forestry contractors to Europe and set them to work restoring our old courses. A slight digression, but arguably a valuable one if it leads to better golf (and saves the planet).

The bare bones of design, routing, bunker placement on the gently undulating fairways of Royal Antwerp were all of the right stuff. The forest does admittedly provide a nice setting and it’s actually a charming course. Any risk of further osteoporosis appears to have been tempered as the most recent review suggests a surgical makeover is well underway.

This course lacks the land movement of Royal Des Fagnes, so it’s more engaging than exciting. However, the 2 nines are more coherent as a whole compared to its Spa cousin. I’d rate them at a similar level. We played here in 2016 and it did feel like a slightly faded classic - but a classic nonetheless