The cape, the wine, the golf: Pearl Valley Golf and Country Estate

Posted on by Alexander Rose

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So far this journey had been fantastic throughout! We experienced wild animals, beautiful landscapes, amazing beaches and great golf. And this was before we even went to Stellenbosch and Cape Town.

And taking Stellenbosch as an example, for those of you who have been there and love wine, we know that this place is pretty awesome. It’s a picturesque place of earth, peaceful, relaxed and full of rich history of wine making. You basically can’t drive for one minute without passing another astonishingly beautiful vineyard, or wine estates as they tend to call it.

Putting the difficult history of the country aside, there were many settlers coming from Germany, France and the Netherlands, staying and producing one bottle of finest Pinotage, Chardonnay or Shiraz after the other. What’s left is a huge industry, world-renowned wine from across the winelands in and around Stellenbosch and with it absolute mind-blowing wine and country estates, beautifully restored and kept in good shape.

So in short, you can have a pretty good time in Stellenbosch, no doubt about it.

But one thing we had in mind as well was golf – as you do, naturally. One treat you might think about is get a good night’s sleep, play 18 holes of golf, get a shower, relax on the clubhouse terrace, eat some great food and then head off to a wine farm for a tasting or a normal dinner with a bottle of red, or two. Done. Perfect day!

There are actually several choices in terms of great courses in and around Stellenbosch: Erinvale, De Zalze, Devonvale and the one we were going for, Pearl Valley.

Pearl Valley is situated in a valley not far from the city of Paarl, which forms the wine triangle Stellenbosch, Franschoek, Paarl. The posh estate features another Jack Nicklaus course (the third we saw on our journey) and is venue to several tour events and national championship tournaments.

The course has quite a usual resort or estate feeling with beautiful holes meandering through areas with huge villas along the fairways and around greens. The contour of the course is rather flat but not boring at all. Contrary, Nicklaus again managed to come up with very interesting holes.

We actually played with a Frankfurt-based golf buddy of mine, who chose to spend some months in the Cape Town region. As you do. But seriously, if you can, money and time is available and you happen to love golf, in that case the Garden Route and everything west of it is golfer’s dream. We met in the car park, entered the lobby, paid the (quite expensive, for South Africa standards) green fee and headed to the driving range. That was actually the first time during our trip we were able to spend more than 2 minutes on the practice grounds to be honest.

One thing that I most likely will never forget, there was a guy standing in the middle of the driving range, I’d say 160 metres from our position to water the lawn. He hardly moved and just tried not to miss a spot of the ground. First I thought, when is this guy done and leaves. It turns out it takes some time to water the drinving range by hand, so he stayed. Then I figured, wow, that’s dangerous, I should use a club with which I can’t reach the distance where he was working, but apparently all the others around me were pretty relaxed about the situation. Apart from the guy next to me who at some point whispered “shit” just after a shot. He must have felt that his shot pretty much was dead straight towards the 160 metres mark. I looked up, saw the ball coming down 2 metres next to the suicidal lawn waterer, who couldn’t care less. No reaction whatsoever!

But anyway, after we got some practice shots and putts in, we went to the first tee and started our round. The starter was nice and friendly, although he didn’t want my buddy play from the championship tees. He wasn’t very convincing though. There are five tee boxes available and I went for the middle ones – it turned out it was a good choice because although the course doesn’t look overly complicated and demanding, it has its specialities and I was relieved that at least distance was no issue.

I struck the ball well, had some good, some very good and clearly some very poor shots. After a couple of holes we were joined by another player, an English bloke who was on sabbatical too and coincidently worked in London in an office building right next to the one I was working in. So we must have met before, at least in a queue waiting for the Wasabi sushi lunch one day.

Some words on the course: it’s an interesting setting, has large bunkers and although some holes look pretty standard from a course architecture perspective, you won’t get bored to play the course at all.

Most impressive holes:

  • 2: Dogleg par-4 right with water all the way to the right
  • 4: Split par-5 fairway with a creek meandering through. You have to cross it three times.
  • 5: Two-level fairway
  • 7: Straight hole with water to the right just before the green
  • 8: Par-4 gain water all the way to the right, but this also in front of the green, creating sort of an island green
  • 13: Par-3 with (take a guess) water all the way to the right.

The course in general is well maintained, although from time to time I thought the greens could have been in a better shape. Which is strange because on no course on earth I experienced so many ground workers and green keepers (ok maybe in Mauritius) at the same time. Most of them weren’t working all the time, but when they did, they were standing in the middle of the fairway in driving distance or mowing the green.

The setting of the estate in the valley between all these beautiful mountains is somewhat special. You don’t have a spectacular view like at Pinnacle Point but you sense that this place has its own unique feeling. At least I mesmerised on every hole that Jack Nicklaus designed this course, that he had something in mind which really works and is a great course in between a posh residential country estate.

One last thing to service and equipment. The service, the friendliness and hospitality was very good, best example as always: you go inside for the halfway snack, come out, the carts are parked in front in the right order and your clubs have been cleaned—ready to go for the back nine. It’s always the little things that matter and which stay as positive memory. One thing that I definitely kept as a fairly negative memory is the quality of the carts and the on-board GPS systems. It’s a first world problem, I do see that, but they don’t have touch screen devices, so there is no measuring possible to possible obstacles such as bunkers, trees, water, etc. You have the information how far you have to hit for the green, that’s all you got.

All in all a great round, playing with friends and nice people in sunshine in mid December. What else can you ask for?

Golficiency Rating: 7/10

Pinnacle Point publishes Golficiency article

Posted on by Alexander Rose

My round at Pinnacle Point, Mossel Bay, South Africa has been an absolute delight. The course played itself into my heart and most definitely into my current Top 5 list.

This breathtaking experience led to a Golficiency course review in which the club earned 9 ouf of 10 points—and rightly so. It’s just an amazing golf venue and I cannot express how jealous I am of those who are members at the club or even live on the property. Of course I wouldn’t play the course every day if I could, but having the chance to play it more often than once a year, already is a treat.

Obviously Pinnacle Point appreciates the positive comments and posted the Golficiency article on Facebook. And I’d love to be back one day!

 

“Pinnacle Point is like Pebble Beach on steroids!”

Posted on by Alexander Rose

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Peter Matkovich, the course architect of Pinnacle Point, regards this place as “the most dramatic golf course site [he has] ever encountered anywhere in the world.” Darren Clarke describes it as “the best golf course on the planet.” And the press voted it as one of the top 10 new courses in the world the year it opened. So all these people can’t be wrong about the course, can they?

After we played St Francis Links, Pezula and Oubaai on our route along the Garden Route, on our quest to play some of South Africa’s best golf courses, we stopped in the lovely coastal town of Mossel Bay. It is home to Louis Oosthuizen and this is where he shot his famous round of 57 at Mossel Bay Golf Club. Not far from downtown Mossel Bay we arrived at Pinnacle Point, a golf estate sitting on top of rocky cliff formations, offering guests and members the most spectacular views you can imagine on a golf course. Pinnacle Point, the estate where Louis Oosthuizen now resides by the way, offers an 18 hole golf course in impeccable condition with breathtaking holes which you’ve never seen in your life.

The ocean is omni-present from 1 to 18, the tee boxes look like nowhere else in the world and you can’t put your camera down because there is another great picture to be taken at every angle. It’s hard to concentrate on golf – which would be necessary as this course is nothing for wimps. You need a decent swing, quite a carry and a well-trained direction and distance control. It’s target golf what’s useful here or you lose some balls.

Pinnacle Point has a strict rule: every ball that’s get sucked in the fynbos or thicket mustn’t be retrieved and you may proceed following the water rule. Any non-consideration can be fined with R1,000. It’s a harsh rule but it seems they want to speed up play a little (because everybody will definitely lose some balls) and also make sure nobody gets bitten by the local snakes. So they declared the whole rough as nature sanctuary and conservation area—clearly only until another billionaire wants to put up his villa at this very spot.

The scenery in general is delightful. The sea, the cliffs, the undulating and rolling fairways just at the rim, the interesting hole architecture, the tee boxes and even all these fantastic houses on the property make you think: “I wanna live, play and die here!”

Course-wise it starts with one or two pretty “normal” holes. Nothing to fancy. Interesting but just above average. Hole 3 is very nice, and holes 4 and 5 kick off with some serious badass stuff. I would say from hole 5 onwards, this course turns into a beast and lets only those through who are brave (and good) enough. I’m not saying the course is unplayable, it’s definitely not, even beginners can have fun here, it’s just that some shots are so intimidating, you need a steady hand to execute all these shots and you must believe in your game. And sometimes you just need to forget the bad shots and enjoy the beautiful view—there you have plenty. For free.

Most impressive holes:

  • 4: Playing on top of a ridge
  • 5: More or less blind tee shot, long carry over some thicket, larger landing area than it seems. Huge bunkers and downhill second shot.
  • 6: Tee boxes hillside laid out like terraces, driving over a gorge in a huge ditch. Second has to go towards a green formation which looks more like a green moon rather than golf hole. Unreal!
  • 7: Par-3 with elevated tees, over a cliff onto a rather small green. Unbelievable hole!
  • 8: Playing alongside the cliffs, normal tee shot with a second shot to another clifftop green
  • 9: Par-3 over a cliff. Incredible hole!
  • 13: Another par-3 over a cliff. Scenic!
  • 17: Longest par-3, difficult but worth it.
  • 18: Par-5 and a true test in the end with huge bunkers on the left, dogleg left, towards the cliff rim with a rather big-sized green.

All those holes I didn’t mention are equally stunning. It’s really difficult to do justice to the whole course as everything is standing out for various reasons.

Pinnacle Point is probably the most scenic course I’ve ever played. It’s not easy, features an incredible design and players are in constant dialogue between club, ball, green and the sea. A club member later told us, for him Pinnacle Point is like Pebble Beach on steroids. We couldn’t have phrased it better. It really is a great test of golf in one of the most beautiful scenery in the world. Some holes I definitely won’t forget my whole life.

I have to say that the complete staff is extraordinarily helpful and friendly. In South Africa service at similar locations is generally very good. People taking care of your clubs, shoes, the carts and so forth. At Pinnacle Point it is just a bit better than everywhere else: service personnel well trained, quick and friendly, the starter knows your name even during halfway or when you’ve finished and they clean your clubs and equip your cart with everything necessary after hole 9, just when you are having a nice snack in the halfway house. It’s even the tiny bits that fit together here. And we absolutely appreciated the hospitality that day.

On a technical note, the carts featured the newest high-end touch screens which helped a lot with the required target golf. Then it’s just on you as the golfer to find the target…

As far as club houses go, this one stands out as well: multi-level sun decks, enough space to sit, relax, enjoy drinks, food and the view. I can’t remember when I so much enjoyed a round of golf before.

And now imagine people like Louis Oosthuizen live here on the property and can play this course every single day… Makes me extremely jealous! That very evening we went out for dinner at the Route 57 restaurant in Mossel Bay. Guess who owns it! Exactly, Louis Oosthuizen. That guy…

Golficiency Rating: 9/10

Ernie Els’ clifftop resort course at Oubaai Golf Club

Posted on by Alexander Rose

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When you are an avid golfer and you are staying in George, South Africa for a little while, you have a couple of choices. You have 3 world-famous Gary Player golf courses at Fancourt to choose from, one Ernie Els signature course at Oubaai, the George Golf Club and at least 5 other courses in the region not far from each other.

Fancourt are quite strict with people who are admitted to play the famous ‘Links’ course. That’s generally just possible for estate residents and resort guests. As we stayed at the Oubaai Resort a bit outside of town in Herold’s Bay, not at Fancourt, we figured it’s probably not a bad idea to play the resort’s own Oubaai course. Especially because the Montagu course at Fancourt was blocked for a corporate tournament that day.

A word and a blow, we got a tee time quite short notice—2 hours in advance really. How is that even possible, you might ask, but truth be told, the hotel and the course was pretty empty. Especially the hotel seemed as if we and maybe another handful were the only guests on the rather large compound. What seemed weird in the hotel in the beginning turned out to be quite cool on the golf course, as we hardly saw anybody else playing there.

But first things first. Oubaai is an Ernie Els signature golf course, and it’s actually his first one in South Africa. And although the hotel complex is falling behind in quality, the course seems to be in rather OK shape. There might be some yellow-ish areas here and there and some others which lack maintenance, but nothing too bad to mention.

The course is a very typical hotel resort property layout with wide fairways, mainly challenging golfers not with the tee shot but with the shot into the green. It features an interesting design but is far from being overly complicated, difficult or consequently exciting. But it’s not getting boring either. All golf holes have their right to exist in the way they do and there are at least two fantastic and outstanding holes: the 6th and the 17th.

The 6th is a 180m par-3 over a gorge (for men) and hence demands a brave tee shot to a fairly small target. This is by far the most interesting hole on the course, at least in heart beats per minute terms.

The 17th is another par-3 and is the absolute signature hole at Oubaai; very short, played from an elevated tee box towards a green sitting directly on the cliff. It’s an easy hole but has some serious golf porn potential. Unfortunately we had some low hanging clouds that day, otherwise we had some pictures taken that could easily work as Golficiency homepage banners. Very beautiful. It must have been the distracting views across the ocean that we both screwed up our birdie putts.

We finished up our round surprisingly quick for a high-season mid-day round of golf but quite liked the fact that it was possible at all.

The only sub-optimal points I’d like to mention are the pretty lame GPS and screen devices on board the golf carts. They are non-touch-screen devices and lack quite some functionality compared to those with touch screens.

The other annoying thing is that the golf club somehow belongs to the hotel, but somehow doesn’t. So you can’t charge any purchases or beverages/food onto your room bill, nor are you allowed to enter the property without the hotel porter who takes you to the club house in a 15 minute ride with a golf cart. All that is for security reasons obviously as nobody should be allowed to enter the golf housing estate without proper and official company. Understandable but a bit inconvenient if you ask me. As in all golf estates in South Africa the upper ten thousand want to feel secure when they step outside their huge beachside and clifftop mansions. Point taken. But there must be other ways to keep out the non-golfing burglars. It works in other estates too.

We were later told that Nelson Mandela’s niece lives on the property (in quite some palace) and even Ernie Els, Mr Big Easy himself, lives just around the corner from there, at least when he’s around which obviously is not too often as a touring professional with other residences in Florida and London.

By the way, as a warning, if you are like me and you booked the hotel not only for golf, but for the Hyatt Regency resort quality, the hotel amenities and the South Africa Golf Hall of Fame museum on premise, please be warned: the Hyatt Regency group left the resort to new owners a while ago, all shops in the yard are closed down, the overall look and feel of the hotel complex has to be described as ‘surrendering’ and last but not least the South Africa Golf Hall of Fame was also closed down and apparently moved on to Cape Town.

So after all, some mixed feelings about the hotel property in general but quite positive on the course itself. Not a top-notch course from an architectural standpoint but absolutely a great day on the course with breathtaking views.

Golficiency Rating: 6/10

High up with the (golf) gods at Pezula Golf Club

Posted on by Alexander Rose

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On our way along the Garden Route in South Africa we also stayed in Knysna for a couple of days and enjoyed the comforting and luxurious Conrad Pezula resort. As a hotel guest it was no question that we wanted to play the attached golf course, especially as it constantly ranks high in South Africa’s list of best golf courses.

Pezula is a word in the Shona language and loosely translated means something like ‘high up with the gods’. After playing this magnificent course located on the Eastern Knysna Head we can support the idea that some golf gods might have been involved in creating this beautiful course. It’s a breathtaking experience and you feel some supernatural powers all the way, it’s just not easy to transform that into perfect strokes and scores.

But anyway, Pezula sits on top of the Sparrebosch cliff and offers views over the Indian Ocean to the one side and the Knysna lagoon to the other. With that there is a lot of distraction which again does not support your score either; it’s both the landscape and the course layout which will blow you away.

It’s difficult to put Pezula in a specific golf architecture genre, but like Pinnacle Point, which has a similar look and feel, Pezula wouldn’t fit into a strict segmentation. It features some inland holes with a classic parkland feel, offers some rolling holes without any (or at least very little) vegetation just like links courses – and all this on top of some cliffs with great views over the ocean.

The course in general is quite difficult to play, you would want to place your balls wisely, need some length off the tee and some course experience will help as well. The wind plays a role and also the huge elevation changes from tee to green or vice versa are not to be underestimated.

Pezula is a cart-only course, which is a good thing because the overall setting of the course can be described as extremely hilly and also the distances from green to tee are longer than usual I would suppose.

The service of the personnel was extremely good, everybody is friendly and helpful, just as you would expect in South Africa.

As a collector I was a bit disappointed that Pezula doesn’t offer any yardage book. Their excuse was that their GPS system would do all the work, which is correct in a way, but I would have loved to take something home with me together with the customary logo ball.

Some small areas here and there were unfortunately under repair and even some bunkers were completely closed due to ongoing maintenance work. That’s not pretty but understandable as we played the course just days before the big holiday season kicked off. Usual prep I guess.

Most impressive holes:

  • 1: Difficult start, par-5, stroke 1 with a split fairway. Long-hitters can reach the second part of the fairway behind a small but ball-sucking gorge with the second shot. Others have to lay-up and hope for a bogey.
  • 2: Along water to the right.
  • 5: Parkland par-3.
  • 10: Down-hill tee shot followed by up-hill approach shot.
  • 14: Probably the most scenic green in the whole of South Africa?! Definitely the most photographed in Pezula. Relatively short par-4 with a medium-sized green, guarded by a totally crazy bunker system. Offering fantastic ocean views!
  • 16, 17: Two par-4s with intimidating tee shots for men, playing over huge rough and gorge areas, asking for long hits and enough carry.

As a conclusion, when you are traveling the Garden Route, Knysna is a typical stop. Treat yourself with at least one fantastic round of golf at Pezula if you have time, probably another one at Simola on the other side of town and make sure you enjoy the ocean and the South African hospitality as much as you can. It’s a beautiful country and this spot is particularly pretty.

Golficiency Rating: 8/10

A Jack Nicklaus Masterpiece in the Eastern Cape: St Francis Links

Posted on by Alexander Rose

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The moment you stand on the first tee at St Francis Links in St Francis Bay, you realise what waits for you along the following 18 holes: a masterpiece, laid out in the rolling dunes of the Eastern Cape in South Africa, a links course meandering through dunes of coastal fynbos and coastal thicket, two omnipresent pieces of local flora.

Golf legend Jack Nicklaus has designed a number of golf courses along the Garden Route in the passed years. During our trip we had the chance to experience some others, but what he created and established at St Francis Links really stands out in our opinion.

St Francis Bay is a small, chic holiday home town in the Eastern Cape. It’s famous for its Cape Dutch houses, all painted white with thatched roofs. It looks adorable and although we could only stay for one night, you get a feeling that life has a different quality over there with all the pretty and huge holiday houses, the beach, the canals, the breeze and the golf.

We had a 8am tee time and just arrived on time for check in, pay, buy the logo ball and yardage book and then head right to the first tee. Definitely not an optimal start, especially as we haven’t played much before, but our score wasn’t in focus that day, it was the course we wanted to experience to the fullest.

Most South Africa tourists wouldn’t even know where St Francis Bay is, even those who come regularly wouldn’t necessarily and immediately know where it is to be found. Between Port Elizabeth and the Tsitsikamma National Park, St Francis Bay is for some in the middle of nowhere. Even more outstanding that the initiators of St Francis Links and Jack Nicklaus chose this piece of land to create what we would call a top-notch course with all necessary facilities you can imagine.

St Francis Links is a complete golf estate, one of which you often find in South Africa. A gated golf community with an impressive and vast club house, loads of staff, huge villa properties and town houses nestled somewhere in the dunes and a fantastic course.

The club offers conferencing and wedding facilities too, but it’s fair to say that the golfer is in the club’s focus (next to the residents obviously). And boy, what a great course this is! Although we’re talking links golf here, it features a very interesting routing. Some holes are designed and shaped in a way that we’ve never experienced a hole ever before.

The course condition has been outstanding and the flora, the dunes, the setting in general together with the interesting course makes a great combination. It wasn’t much traffic on the course at that time in the morning and we could enjoy the undulated fairways, the heavy bunkering and the challenges Mr Jack Nicklaus had in mind for us. Penalising but definitely joyful.

What I really liked most was the setting of some of the tee boxes for the more backward located tees. Unbelievable imagination, Mr Nicklaus. Hats off. Best example may be the mens tees on hole no. 5. Definitely a stunner.

It has been a great round of golf. And even with no warm-up at all I managed to score two birdies and almost a hole-in-one. Only 10cm…

Most impressive holes:

  • 4: Par-3 with two(!) greens. It’s called ‘Double Vision’ and offers a second pin location on a completely separated green. Seen that before?
  • 5: One of the best tee boxes on earth and a hole with crazy bunkering along the fairway
  • 6: Challenging par-5
  • 11: Uphill par 4 with an intimidating tee shot for men
  • 13, 14, 15: A complete section around/over a lake, obviously loads of water in play
  • 16: Double-split fairway with a creek running right through it (check out the video below)
  • 18: Fantastic tee box, water left, dog-leg left and a great finish towards the club house

Check out the fantastic Hole Explorer on the St Francis website for more interactive information about the holes which Jack Nicklaus beautifully laid out in this gorgeous piece of land.

So for the course, we couldn’t be happier. In 2007 St Francis Links was awarded ‘Best New Course in South Africa’ and since then it ranks amongst South Africa’s Top 10 courses and also hosts Sunshine Tour events. And rightly so.

Although we were a bit disappointed by the staff friendliness and comforting on that day, the club facilities are indeed very good, people take care of your clubs, equip the cart with everything you need and make sure you have great time.

The carts feature the newest GPS systems with convenient touch-screens and with it no excuse for bad yardage or errant shots. So it’s only on you if you have a bad golf day. But we would recommend to enjoy the day to the fullest anyway, and not to concentrate on the score so much. But that’s obviously on you to decide.

So, in case South Africa is on your list for a golfing trip, make sure to take SFL into consideration. It’s a bit off the standard route along the Garden Route but definitely worth the detour. You won’t regret it.

Golficiency Rating: 8/10

Follow Golficiency around South Africa

Posted on by Alexander Rose

Golficiency is currently having a great time traveling along the Garden Route in South Africa playing some of the country’s if not the world’s most spectacular golf courses. We’re trying to keep you in the loop with everything we do as quick as possible, so please check the respective social media sites of your choice – we’re using the hashtag #GolfSA2015 for our journey.

Twitter
https://www.twitter.com/hashtag/GolfSA2015

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https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/golfsa2015/

Facebook
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Thanks for following us. If you need any advice on courses or have questions on the route we’re taking and courses we’re playing, please do not hesitate and comment below.

South Africa here we come!

Posted on by Alexander Rose

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Yesterday we booked flights and accommodation for our trip to South Africa later in the year. There are obviously some standard tourist topics on our agenda but golf plays a big part too.

Not less than 5 rounds are penciled in right now, on some of the finest golf courses South Africa has to offer:

I can’t wait for it to happen and to be honest, my knees are already shaking just thinking about all the great hours we will spend on the courses. Everybody seems so positive about South Africa and I’ll definitely check out whether golf has a stake in that opinion as well.

Feel free to recommend another great course that we should play while we are down there. Just comment below, provide name and link and we’ll check it out.

Update: As we will be staying at the Conrad Pezula Resort in Knysna for a couple of days, I’d rather play the attached course at Pezula Golf Club instead of the one by Jack Nicklaus at Simola Golf Club. Both seem to be equally stunning. Also, in George we won’t stay at Fancourt but instead went for the Oubaai Resort, which is home to a cliff-top course by Ernie Els overlooking the Indian Ocean. Pretty similar to Pinnacle Point, so I might play that too. And last but not least, we will integrate the Arabella Western Cape Hotel into our itinerary (or an even better hotel in/near Hermanus), which as you all know feature the Arabella Golf Club, the 3rd best golf course in the whole of South Africa. So all this brings three new courses to the table… guess I have to re-negotiate.

Planning for South Africa in full swing

Posted on by Alexander Rose

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You may or may not know, Golficiency will travel to South Africa later this year. We’ll be heading south again to Africa and this time it’s the Cape region we’re gonna travel to.

The planning and organisation is in full swing but nothing is really fixed yet. Therefore the overall agenda is quite packed, but we’re still trying to figure out how to get all the dots connected.

Obviously on our list is a safari, then traveling along the Garden Route, a bit of hiking, beaching and whale watching at the coast, wining and dining in the Winelands, sightseeing at the Cape Peninsula, chilling in Camps Bay and then finishing and relaxing in the beautiful city of Cape Town.

When you’ve been there already and you know what I’m talking about here, then you are lucky. I’ve never touched ground on South African soil, but I can’t wait to and will definitely read more and more about this great country over the next months.

One of all the great things you can do in South Africa as well is golfing! The British brought their love for the game and it stayed when they left. Plus in this region you have the perfect golf weather all year round. That in combination with numerous first class courses makes this place on earth somewhat special; a golfing heaven.

I talked to quite a number of people already, received a lot of great advice and I’ve read so much about golf in RSA over the last weeks that I’m pretty confident that I came up with a superb list of golf courses which I could play. As I said, the planning is not yet fully done and I have currently no feeling for how many golf days I can manage to squeeze in but if I could, I’d play all of them!

Due to the route we’re taking and to reduce the number of domestic flights, I crossed out two major golf destinations already. One being Sun City and the other one the famous Leopard Creek Country Club, just at the southern tip of the world famous Kruger National Park.

What I came up with is a list of some highly regarded courses and clubs, which I tried to group in sort of the geographical order along the south coast of South Africa (incl. architects):

Knysna

George

Cape Town

So that’s the list of courses which is my basis for further planning. I keep you in the loop once I decide on further steps in the organisation process. As always there might be some changes to the current plan but I have to start with something.

Even Gary Player likes the idea!

I really feel humbled that Gary Player from time to time responds to my tweets. He is one of my heroes, not only for the golf but from a personality standpoint as well and I can’t wait to be in South Africa, walk in his shoes and play golf courses that he had designed. I have a similar strong feeling to Ernie Els and as he’s from RSA as well, I’m sure the trip will be unforgettable.

If you have a personal tip to share, please let me know—via a comment below or the contact site. Thank you.

Golf travel plans in 2015

Posted on by Alexander Rose

The longer I think about travel plans with my wife in 2015, the more I keep golf in my mind. It’s not what she’d appreciate to hear, but for nearly every location we have on our list, I check whether there are sufficient possibilities to swing a club. If not, I’d find a better place to stay—which is not entirely true, but almost…

But it’s more the general travel bug combined with golf rather than pure golf trips I have on my list for 2015.

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First thing on my list is a one-week trip to Dubai in February. We’re meeting up with friends, staying at their house, playing with their new baby girl and on three consecutive days I will excuse myself for 6 hours respectively to play 3 awesome courses according to current plans. I’m currently checking rates for green fees and boy, these are quite expensive!

  • The Els Club Dubai
  • The Address Montgomerie Dubai
  • Jumeirah Golf Estates Dubai

Next on the agenda so far would be a one-week hiking trip to Kitzbühel, Austria in June. Together with my parents we’ll stay in the Wilder Kaiser region to climb some mountains. As “Kitz” offers a variety of courses (which is not common in Austria) and beautiful country side alike, it was the perfect match for joint hiking and golfing endeavours. The courses I have on my list are these:

  • Golf Eichenheim, Kitzbühel
  • Golfclub Kitzbühel
  • Golfclub Schwarzsee, Kitzbühel-Reith

Some time in summer, when the weather is nice in Germany too, I’ll go and see my cousin who recently moved to a new place outside of Hamburg, Germany. I grew up in the north and I do have quite some friends living in Hamburg but I never managed to play a round of golf there. This is about to change this year. As my cousin lives south of Hamburg, I figured I’ll start with the “South of Hamburg Courses” first (and attempt the others such as Gut Kaden, Falkenstein, Wendlohe, etc. in 2016 maybe):

  • Hittfeld
  • St. Dionys
  • Green Eagle
  • Schloss Lüdersburg

After a short romantic break in Venice in September, during which I (guess what) won’t play any golf at all, we might end up in South Africa for a long Cape Town and safari vacation later this year. This has been on our list for quite a while but we did postpone it again and again as we decided to go to Mauritius for honeymoon instead. Now it’s back in our heads but yet not fully confirmed. Especially the golf is not set in stone at all but of course I think about Fancourt, Pinnacle Point, Leopard Creek and others. In case you have a great idea or even a travel itinerary which combines sight-seeing, safari and golf, I’d be really grateful to receive good advice. I’ve never been there but I’m sure it’s a beautiful country with loads to see, to do and many magnificent courses to play.

Sounds like a plan? The next 12 months will tell whether we managed to get all this golf scheduled into our other commitments. Fingers crossed we all stay healthy to execute everything as envisaged. We’re always very thankful that we are as blessed to have the opportunity to travel that much as this is not taken for granted at all.