South Africa’s Garden Route has long been one of the most popular destinations for locals and visitors alike, with its scenic mix of beaches and forest, lakes and holiday towns. But, in the last 15 or 20 years the area has become known for greenery of a different sort. A world apart from the Big Five safaris further north, the
area is now widely regarded as the premier golfing destination in the country, if not
the entire African continent.
There are a dozen 18-hole courses in the 150-kilometre stretch between Mossel Bay and Plettenberg Bay, the heart of the Garden Route, and the Fancourt Estate outside the town of George is a fitting place to start a week spent golfing along this scenic southern coastline.Fancourt opened in the early-1990s, and is now a part of The Leading Hotels of the World.
It offers a stylish hotel, fine-dining and family-friendly restaurants as well as a state-of-the-art golf academy and a well-equipped leisure centre and spa. But most importantly, it boasts three remarkable courses laid out by South African golfing legend, Gary Player. All three — The Links, Montagu and Outeniqua — rank among the top 20 in the country, offering something for almost every handicap.
Outeniqua and Montagu are traditional parkland courses that offer challenging but forgiving rounds to high-handicappers such as myself; players that really shouldn’t find themselves standing on the first tee at The Links on the windiest day of the month.
Gary Player called The Links his greatest achievement as a golf-course designer and the 6,477-metre track is breathtaking in its ambition, beauty and challenge. Player’s design team spent months studying the classic links courses of Scotland before turning their eye
to the hectares of flat land on the southern
edge of the Fancourt estate.
What was once pastureland and an airfield is today an expanse of rolling dunes covered in thick, grassy swales, undulating fairways and deep-pot bunkers. Ah yes, those bunkers. As with any good links-style course, the bunkers are a hallmark of Player’s layout, where each hole has a name — from ‘On Ye Go’ at the
first, to ‘Sheer Murrrder’ for the 12th — that hints at what lies in store.
Layout aside, there’s a lovely loneliness to The Links that is rare on many other courses. While it may not have the North Sea off to starboard, the course is striking in its careful design and rarely permits you to glimpse another fairway from the one you’re playing. More often than not, you’ll feel like the only player on the course; exclusivity perhaps demanded by the high green fees.
The overall laid-back feel of Fancourt fits in well with much of what the Garden Route has to offer. The region is full of small country hotels, cosy bed-and-breakfasts and self-catering, family-focused resorts.
I spent many a family holiday on this stretch of coastline, so I know it well: the sinuous Kaaimans River Pass, where the road drops from George to Wilderness; the lovely boardwalk that meanders here on the fringes of the Touws River; the lonely beach at Wilderness that runs for miles, all the way to what is officially known as Gericke’s Point, but has
for years been known to locals as Lion Rock.
There’s wonderful snorkelling to be had in the tidal rock pools, and safe bathing on the beaches that frame it on either side. The estuary that runs into the sea here is one of many on this coastline, with the inland lakes that drain into the Indian Ocean providing a rich nursery ground for fish. No surprise, it’s a popular spot for rod anglers, too.
Swartvlei and Groenvlei blur past on my way to Knysna; a popular town that’s packed to the gunwales in December and January, but pleasantly quiet at most other times of the year. It’s a bustling little town and a good base for visitors who prefer a bit of buzz on their holiday, with the Knysna Waterfront and Thesen Island developments offering a range of shopping and dining options.
Although it verges on the snooty, Thesen Island is perhaps my favourite corner of town, with its wonderful lagoon views and the delightful Turbine Boutique Hotel and Spa
set in the town’s old power station. A short
walk away you’ll find Ile de Pain, the renowned eatery run by master baker Markus Färbinger and chef Liezie Mulder.
The town is most famous for its signature lagoon that flows out to sea between the iconic Knysna Heads, and pleasure cruises up to the entrance of the treacherous waterway are a must for visitors. How treacherous, you ask? Well, it is famously one of the few places in the world where Lloyd’s of London won’t insure vessels entering and exiting.
I was more interested in what lay above the Knysna Heads though, with the fynbos-clad slopes of the Eastern Heads home to some striking coastline that the course at Pezula makes glorious use of.
Designed by David Dale and Ronald Fream of GolfPlan USA, Pezula balances its relatively short track — 5,963 metres off the Club tees — by making full use of the area’s dramatic topography. Pezula’s layout is dictated by the environment rather than a design template, and ranges from parkland to links across its run of 18 holes.
The gauntlet is thrown down from the very first tee, with a stroke-one, par-five that requires careful course management to carry a wooded gully and reach the green in three shots. Happily, the pace settles down for a meander through wooded valleys and wide-open hilltops. Carts come as standard here, with plenty of steep inclines making a
walking round almost impossible.
Into the back nine, the ocean begins to dominate the horizon. The elevated tee-box of the precipitous par-five 13th is as dramatic as they come, while the signature 14th matches it with a finishing green perched on the rocky cliffs. With the manicured fairways and a stylish clubhouse overlooking the 18th hole, it’s no surprise that Compleat Golfer magazine has rated the course a ‘Five Star Golf Experience’ every year since 2005.
Fitting the five-star golf experience, the on-site resort is one of the best on the Garden Route and has recently joined the respected Conrad stable. Perched on a hill overlooking the 10th fairway, the Conrad Pezula Resort & Spa was easily the most stylish hotel I encountered on my five-day meander. The contemporary suites are decorated in earthy African tones, and offer plenty of mod cons to satisfy discerning travellers. There’s a spacious spa on site offering a range of wet and dry body treatments, alongside a heated pool and steam room that is open to all hotel guests.
My idea of pampering leans towards the Bacchanalian though, and chef Geoffrey Murray at Zachary’s is only too happy to oblige. A firm proponent of farm-to-fork dining, Murray offers some of the most innovative cuisine on the Garden Route, with wines from the hotel’s award-winning wine list to match. If you love wine, food and golf, Pezula is hard to match.
Acclaimed South African golfer Ernie Els is known for dabbling in wine-making, but is perhaps more famous in the area for opening his first signature course at Oubaai Golf Club, part of Hyatt Regency Golf Resort & Spa, in 2002. A short drive from the airport at George, the resort is near the idyllic holiday village of Herolds Bay, where Els himself has a seaside bolt-hole. Aside from kid-friendly rock pools and a flat beach, there is great surfing to be had both here and at neighbouring Victoria Bay.
For travelling golfers looking to step up from the area’s rustic holiday cottages, the combination of luxury accommodation, a modern spa and an outstanding course makes the Hyatt Regency Oubaai a popular choice.
The course’s unconventional layout of five par-fives and five par-threes adds another
layer of entertainment to a links/parkland hybrid that appears fairly straightforward at first, but reveals plenty of surprises through the round. Forgiving fairways ease you gently into the morning, before the bunkers become plentiful and the topography of the Gwaing River Valley comes into play.
And Els ensures every hole uses the landscape to full effect; on the flat, bunkers and water line the course, while on the fringes, thick bush and unforgiving dune grasses will really focus your attention. Yet none do that quite like Oubaai’s signature 17th, a hole that for me sums up all that is good and great about golfing the Garden Route. Behind me on the tee box, the Outeniqua Mountains spread out in a hazy line. To my right, the finishing 18th makes a lazy curve around a forest-guarded dog-leg.
And in front of my pitching wedge? Just 119-metres of fresh air falling to a green backed by the sparkling Indian Ocean. A par here and a bogey to follow give me my best score of the week. But, with world-class courses and unbeatable views, chances are that on your Garden Route golf adventure your eyes won’t spend much time looking at the scorecard.
THE GOLDEN BOOK
Fancourt
Tel: +27 44 804 0000
www.fancourt.co.za
Conrad Pezula
Resort & Spa
Tel: +27 44 302 3333
conradhotels3.hilton.com
Hyatt Regency Oubaai
Golf Resort & Spa
Tel: +27 44 851 1234
oubaai.regency.hyatt.com
