I was fortunate enough to get an invite to Sherwood CC with one of the founding members of the club and two others so of course it was not something any golfer is going to pass up. The weather was qui... Continue »

I was fortunate enough to get an invite to Sherwood CC with one of the founding members of the club and two others so of course it was not something any golfer is going to pass up. The weather was quite cold at the start but kept switching back and forth between cold and mild before the light rains hit the last three or four holes. We had two caddies for the day and played from the blue tees.

Having just rained very heavily two days before our round, the course was not in its optimum shape, and of course played ever more difficult with the cold weather and minimal roll on the fairways. But even under those circumstances it was an absolute delight and superbly fun challenge to tackle this championship course. The design is wonderful and there are so many fun sightlines to this place, but of course it's also fraught with perils in the form of narrow tee shots on many holes, some difficult bunkering, water hazards running through and throughout and a number of barrancas splitting fairways and testing a player's mettle.

The front nine has a very interesting 3-3-3 split of holes, while the back nine is a more traditional 5-2-2. Both are outstanding and the surrounding views with deep forest, tall rock formations and gorgeous luxury mansions is simply stunning by any measure. It's a true treat for the senses.

In terms of conditions, of course every shot was highly playable but there were a lot of divot marks in the fairways ahead of some post-storm maintenance I imagine, but no one was complaining. It was more of an optics issue than playability. The bunkers were a tad on the wet side of course but the sand was very nice if we had caught it on a sunny day. Tee boxes were in very good shape with a massive variety of tee boxes, and the rough was absolutely perfect. There are some definite difficulties if you're outside of the rough and onto the slopes so accuracy is huge at Sherwood.

The greens of course were terrific. They actually held shots very well and rolled superbly. Absolutely great coverage and they were moving quite quickly at an around 11, but surprisingly they weren't over-the-top as one would expect for a PGA style course. They were actually quite manageable and I was thrilled to have only needed 30 putts on the day (don't ask about the other strokes to get the greens though!).

We got a nice tour of the clubhouse and locker rooms and it's as outstanding as you would imagine, and I happened to have the Turkey & Brie Grilled Cheese for lunch and it's probably the best sandwich (or one of) that I've ever had - forget that it was on a golf course! POP was also great as we kept moving at a nice pace all morning and got done in four hours (but did start late due to a frost delay).

So very lucky and blessed to be able to knock this bucket list course off the record, even though many years ago I had played here in a shotgun celebrity tournament that was not a true representation of what it would have been like to play a regular stroke round. Now I know and it was absolutely tremendous. Now I just hope I get to come back again to have a better round ...

*I will be adding photos from many of the holes later today *