Placement off the tee is crucial throughout. In other words, golfers have to work the ball, with most of the holes favoring a cut shot started down the left. Compounding the difficulty is a basic strategic alternative. The option for players is to hit a generous uphill landing area some 230-240 yards off the tee, or to bomb it over the crest of a modest rise into a jail cell some 280 yards out. They aren't tricked up with multiple tiers, but they do require keeping the ball below the hole.
Most greens are of the pop-up variety and fall off severely to the sides and beyond.
Amazingly, the back nine is even tighter than the front. By the way, spectators on the course will not catch much of the action because the sight lines on this course are awful. Between the doglegs and the trees, few vantage points offer a glimpse of much terrain. Besides, there's precious little room for crowd movement, owing to the tight squeeze of the trees. With all those shots ricocheting off the conifers, fans following the action might well find themselves caught up in a 3-D version of pinball.