Eastern Star Country Club & Resort

Eastern Star Country Club & Resort: Close enough to the coast to catch occasional sea breezes, Eastern Star is a golf course that's always a pleasure to play, but its not one from which you will either see or hear the ocean.

There's nothing overly dramatic or technical about this Trent Jones Jnr design. It is one of those pleasing layout's where the trouble is generally in view, and the strength of the layout effortlessly leads you from one well-designed hole to another.

The gently contoured and lightly palm-lined fairways are usually a good-width, occasionally narrowing down as at the 9th and 18th holes. These two closing par-4's not only have more trees to avoid, but also have a pleasant and distant ridge of jungle-clad hills as a backdrop.

Should you hit any wayward drives, ball-finding in the semi-rough between the trees should not be an issue, although you'll definitely need to avoid water hazards on about half the holes. Excellent bunkering is another Trent Jones hallmark found at Eastern Star, although the rather slow-paced greens may not be quite how he envisaged them.

Bird-boxes (usually inhabited) provide your yardage into the greens (red boxes at 150 yards, yellow at 100 yards), and some holes are nicely adorned with a variety of flowering plants, most notably at the excellent par-3 13th. Definitely a course that can be thoroughly enjoyed, while it gently probes and tests your all round golf game.