The exchange rate is equally good news for golfers who like to trade their local club for South Africa’s sun-soaked uplands during the British winter. Now, as ever, the country is golf crazy. “We’ve got more development work in progress per head of population over the current four-year period than anywhere else,” says Player. He should know. He’s building most of them.
But not all. New entries to South African golf-course design include Ernie Els and Annika Sorenstam. Her brief is to build a family course at the Euphoria Golf Estate and Hydro near Johannesburg. “Most courses are overpowering for all but the best players, but mine will provide a fair challenge for everybody,” she says.
Els, the current star of South African golf, has a short journey to enjoy a round — 200m from his home in Herold’s Bay to Oubaai, where he created his first signature course. Els plays it tough and his course reflects that: long, hilly and gruelling.
Oubaai adds a new dimension to the golf scene around George, a historic town midway along the “must-do” Garden Route from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth. The Pezula Resort Hotel and Spa, an hour to the east, offers an equally spectacular course, perched on top of Knysna Head. Allow the views to distract you and your ball will fly straight into the Indian Ocean 200ft below.
All self-respecting golfers check into the Fancourt Hotel and Country Club in George, a holiday complex with four courses. Three are parkland layouts, while the fourth, the Links, is Player’s interpretation of the Scottish values he discovered while winning three British Opens between 1959 and 1974.
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In 2003, it was the first South African course to host the Presidents Cup, the Ryder Cup-style competition between the US and the Rest of the World. “It’s the hardest course I’ve ever played,” says Player. “You can have fun at Fancourt on one of the others or torture yourself on mine.”
Player’s most celebrated contribution to golf design is the championship course at Sun City, a two-hour drive from Johannesburg. This is the venue for the Nedbank Million Dollar Challenge, contested each December by the world’s top 12 golfers. The setting is magnificent, with big game prowling the edge of the fairway, behind the fences that enclose the neighbouring Pilanesberg Game Reserve.
Sun City is a gambling resort with a range of hotels, headed by the five-star Palace of the Lost City. Don’t expect understated elegance: this is pure kitsch — the gardens are a fantasy theme park with an imported sand beach.
A contrast in style, Zimbali Lodge is a bolt hole, 40 minutes’ drive from Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, with a course designed by former British Open winner Tom Weiskopf. Player is working on a second layout. Both courses are real-estate led, with housing along the fairways.
Another of South Africa’s claims to fame is wine production, at its most prolific in the Cape Town area where vineyards and fairways form a powerful alliance. Steenberg, in the shadow of Table Mountain, has a five-star boutique hotel, restored from buildings that date from 1682. On the golf course, the vines provide unavoidable hazards for all but the straightest hitters. No matter: the 19th hole is a working winery.
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Ask Player about the future of South African golf and he has his answer ready: a championship course in Soweto, designed in advance of an opening in 2008, after which he hopes it will host the Nelson Mandela Invitational. “I’ll probably be watching from the sidelines by then,” he jokes. Maybe, maybe not, but for a man who has dedicated so much energy and money to helping his less fortunate compatriots, there could be no better way forward.
Africa Travel Centre (0845 450 5705, www.africatravel.co.uk) arranges golfing holidays to South Africa. A 10-night trip, with two nights each at The Palace of the Lost City, Steenberg Hotel, Western Cape Hotel, Fancourt Hotel and Pezula Resort, including rental car and return British Airways flights, costs from £2,245 per person