USGA Courses Rating System takes all of the factors of a golf course into account. The process involves assessing all of the features that impact a golfer. These are called Obstacles and include: Topography, Fairway, Green Target, Bunkers, Rough and Recovery, Out of Bounds/Extreme Rough, Trees, Green Surface and Psychology. These are all of the details beyond the length of a hole that impact play and difficulty.

This month’s topic is Trees. Our mission is to evaluate how Trees come into play and how difficult it may be for the player to recover. 

Tree rating is based on:

• Overall impact of the trees on the play of the hole
• Level of difficulty (Minor, Moderate, Significant or Extreme Problem)
• Existence of additional issues (Chute, Obstruction in Fairway or at Green)

The difficulty factor for trees is based on:

• Number, height and density of trees (at mid-season) near landing area and on the line of play
• Length of shot to be hit to the target landing zone or green (trees on a full tee shot are more likely to come into play than when a player lays up or hits less than a full tee shot
• Distance of the trees from the center of the landing zone or green
• Presence of low-hanging branches that impact swing and obstruct recovery shots

Conditions under the trees that impact the lie of the ball (roots, rocks, etc.) 

Things to think about:

• Bushes, palmettos, gorse, cacti, scrub oak and the like are considered trees when their height exceeds 6 feet.
• Trees that are located within Extreme Rough will require balancing whether the Trees or Rough is more impactful

If a golf course loses multiple trees due to planned maintenance or storm, it may or may not impact the Course Rating. 

Next month, we’ll go over Green Surface. We’re almost finished with the Tee to Green series. All of the Obstacles are online if you’d like to take a look.

If you have any questions, please contact Gretchen Yoder in the OGA Course Rating department.

Click here for a printable PDF file of this article