Golf on the Wild Side

GOLF ON THE WILD SIDE
SOUTH AFRICA

By Katharine Dyson

I’m searching for my ball in the bushy area next to the 15th green at Zimbali, when like a carnivore from hell, a flying insect nails my arm creating an angry red welt. But why let this spoil an otherwise perfect day on a spectacular golf course in the forests of KwaZulu-Natal  in South Africa.

just being on this dramatic course cut through dense tropical vegetation, climbing up and down steep hills and traversing deep ravines was reason enough to feel everything was —  perfect.
 
I know, I know. Who thinks of taking golf clubs on a trip to South Africa? A khaki safari shirt, a digital with a super zoom? Sure. But golf clubs? Well, why not? 

South Africa with more than 400 courses along with greens fees averaging in the $30 to $50 range and the alluring safari option is a golfer’s dream.

More than 100  of the top courses such as Zimbali and Durban Country Club, are located in KwaZulu-Natal; some are along the “Golf Coast,” a stretch of quality resort courses running south from Durban.  Others are near game reserves.

In George at the three Fancourt courses: Montagu, The Links and Outeniqua, the exuberance of gardens help take the sting out of landing in one of the many sweeping bunkers. Here you can use a caddy, a great help when you  face fierce water hazards, carries up and over no-man’s lands and hills,  and tough clumpy dunes grasses and winds.

Less than an hour outside Cape Town in the Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl regions after golf, you can check out South African wines at vineyards like the Spier Cellars and Morgenhof Wine Estate.

We stayed at Erinvale Estate Hotel & Spa, in the Helderberg Valley where spacious guest rooms were located in former stables.  Just down the road, we teed off at Erinvale Golf Club designed by Gary Player.  As you drive your cart over this scenic rolling course, you pass affluent Cape Wineland homes and tidy rows of grapes terraced up the steep hillsides.
 
And where else but in South Africa can you play golf and on the same day, get close enough to a lioness to see her eye lashes? Driving across the bushveld to follow a lion hunting for dinner and stopping for a sundowner to admire the sky raked by streaks of orange, red and pink while enjoying wine and Biltong (preserved dried beef), can be as thrilling as getting a hole-in-one at Augusta.

From your patio at Bushman Sands Lodge In Alicedale in the Eastern Cape Province, you can sip a Pinotage as golfers pass by. Bushman Sands is a very walkable course with distinctive quirks like on the 10th hole where you have to carry your ball over a family cemetery and then over a working railway.  

Shamwari Game Reserve, a 49,000-acre private game reserve situated in the Eastern Cape in a malaria-free region along the Bushmans River, has six luxury lodges, some thatched, some former manor houses.

Though you’re in the African bush, you still have luxuries like sunrooms, private plunge pools, wellness spas and luxury linens.

It is at Shamwari’s Lobengula Lodge that Tiger Woods popped the question to  Elin Nordegren while Brad Pitt and John Travolta unpacked their safari gear at Eagles Cragg Lodge. We stayed at Riverdene.

Game drives take place in early morning and late afternoon as Land Rovers go off road giving you a close-up view of the animals.  One morning we sat motionless, breathless as a bull elephant brushed his trunk on the front of our Rover’s grill before ambling on his way, ears flapping.

Almost like hitting a wedge over the ravine at Zimbali. Almost.

www.shamwari.com; reservations@shamwari.com
Bushman Sands: www.bushmansands.com
Fancourt: www.fancourt.com
Erinvale Estate Hotel & Spa: www.erinvale.co.za