Ball & beast, sea & sun

by René Bourone

Sydney February 1999
Those who watch the Million Dollars annual Challenges will certainly remember Sun City. The images of Africa’s kingdom of pleasure and its two Gary Player golf courses overcrowned by the Palace Hotel appeared like a wonderful dreamland coming straight out of the book of the Thousand and one Nights.

Golfing in South Africa is not new. The Royal Cape and the Royal Johannesburg are both centennial golf courses and today there are about three hundred courses all around the country. Most of them along the Indian Ocean coast, but some are nearby the wildlife reserves.

For South Africa is also the country of the preserved wildlife with the big five (lion, elephant, rhino, buffalo and leopard) and a large range of wild animals and birds species. There is also an historical and geographical world known place: the Cape of Good Hope and one of the most beautiful natural site in the world: Cape Town and the Mountain Table. And the country offers a wide range of landscapes : mountains and valleys, deep tropical forest and deserts, rivers and lakes, cliffs and beaches...

So South Africa is really a complete tourist and golf destination with hotels from the charming guesthouses and lodges to the top ranked Sun International five stars like The Palace at Sun City or The Table Bay at the Waterfront of Cape Town.

Where to play ?
What to see ?
Where to stay ?
Information

As we said, there are about three hundred golf courses in South Africa. And some of them have just been developed in the past ten or twenty years following the criteria of modern golf conception in resorts with comfortable clubhouses, well stocked pro shops, carts, practice ranges, putting greens and halfway houses.

Greenfees are variable from 60/70 rands in Natal to 150/170 around Cape Town, 120 at Sun City and 300 (with cart) at Fancourt. For travelers, they are mainly included in their packages.

- Near Johannesburg at Sun City

Sun City is at about two hours driving from Johannesburg and there are two golf courses in the Kingdom of pleasure; both are classified in the best ten in South Africa.

It took only one year - with the play-off between Johnny Miller and Severiano Ballesteros in 1981 at the Million Dollars Challenge - for the Gary Player Country Club to become a must in the world championship golf courses. First, Gary Player designed certainly one of his best courses in the world. Situated on the slope of the Pilanesberg, the holes are slaloming along the hill around the dead crater which center has become a wonderful lake. So that, out of the pleasure of playing one of the most manicured course, you enjoy viewpoints on the lake, on the mountains or on the Palace as from tee departure of the 14th.

Don't forget to take the strokesaver. It's very useful, notably when it comes to the water hazards especially at the spectacular 9th and 18th.

The Lost City Golf Course is a recent one, but it is already a great one as Gary Player said himself; "the course is sublime to look at and exciting to play". Located in the deserted side of the Pilanesberg, the ambiance is created by the spectacular clubhouse made in a prehistorically way of piled big stones. A brilliant sculpture reminds to everybody entering the clubhouse that the king of the place is the crocodile" And there are many of them, sleeping" with one eye open in the pool your ball has to overflow just before the green of the 13th. A good advice: don't try to catch your ball if it falls in the croco's hole!" Up until now the most spectacular par 3 in the world has been at Cypress Point in California, but the hole 13 is even better" says Gary.