The Golf Course On Tour This Week Is Very Different. Check Out Trinity Forest.

The golf architecture world hates most PGA TOUR courses. They hate the water, the rough, the tree lines, the greenness, and the general lack of interest and uniqueness provided hole by hole, week by week, year by year.

This week is different. This course is different. Trinity Forest Golf Club in Dallas opened for play in 2016. It’s wide and quite open with basically no trees. It plays firm and fast. It’s typically windswept. It plays more like a links golf course than like an American parkland course, which is what we like to see.

Andy, who runs The Fried Egg, has done a great job showcasing the venue. His full breakdown is here.

Shoutout to Andy letting me post his photos here.

The Bill Coore / Ben Crenshaw design is a minimalist, old school style in STARK contrast to the heavily irrigated, tree-lined courses we typically see hosting PGA TOUR events.

I’m obviously no architecture expert but the one thing I will say is this — courses where the ball runs and trundles on and around wild undulations are infinitely more fun to play than courses with monotonous straight fairways, trees, and circular greens onto which the ball must be flown. That’s course architecture in a sentence.

Do yourself a favor and tune into the Byron Nelson sometime this week. You’ll see something quite different and, we’re all hoping, more interesting than you typically see. Now I’ll let the photos, videos, and the hardcores who are obsessed with this stuff tell the story on Trinity Forest.

2nd green

3rd hole approach

Double green for 3 & 11

5th

8th green

12th tee

13th

17th

18th green & clubhouse

Unfortunately, rumors are swirling that the TOUR’s watered down the course and the grass is playing slower than even the members typically play it. Hopefully plays like it’s meant to play.

Will be interesting to watch regardless.