Sherwood Hills Golf Club

Sherwood Hills is one of three Jack Nicklaus signature golf courses in the country, and apparently it happens to be the Golden Bear’s favorite.

Located only a half hour outside Makati City, Sherwood Hills is not to be missed.

Nicklaus was in the country doing a site inspection of the construction of the two golf courses at Manila Southwoods Golf and Country Club (both Nicklaus signatures) when Freddy Campos invited him out to Trece Martires, Cavite to check out another property they were in the midst of developing.

Jack liked what he saw and created these 18 excellent holes, that are now always listed in the top 5 in the country.

The course was also graded as 85 out of 100 by the “Rolex World’s Top 1000 Golf Courses” in the year 2011-2012.

Inland Links

Jack Nicklaus and his son made excellent use of the natural landscape at Sherwood Hills, which features relatively few trees but lots of thick brush, to produce a course in the style of an inland links.

The course plays to 7,265 yards and features wide fairways and mostly small greens. The generous fairways make for the bump and run game, very typical of links golf.

The rough is cogon grass and this can prove tough from which to escape, especially if you have a long distance remaining to the green.

Volcanic gorges run along the front nine on one side, and the 1st has in addition a drop-off right before the green.

Three Lakes

The back nine proceed along the shore of one of the three lakes that figure in the layout to a 452-yard par 4 with a green on another of the lakes. There is a nice balance of longer par 4s (there are eight of them over 400 yards) and shorter par 5s where the green can be reached in two.

The clubhouse features a restaurant, pro shop, locker rooms and showers. If you would like to practice before teeing off, you can use the chipping and putting green, which are located beside the driving range.