A Guide to Going On a Gauteng Golf Holiday in South Africa

November 19th, 2009 by articles

Silver Lakes Golf Estate – One of Top Courses in Gauteng

Although Gauteng is the smallest province in South Africa, it is the financial capital and industrial hub of the country. Gauteng is also the golfing capital of the country, and contains an impressive 31 courses within the Golf Digest top 100 courses for South Africa. Gauteng also has a wide selection of other tourist attractions, and is therefore the ideal destination for a golfing holiday.

A Gauteng golf holiday offers the golfer a wide variety of top rated championship golf courses which will challenge the amateur and professional alike. Golf can be played in Gauteng throughout the year because of its ideal year-round climate. The favorable South African Rand exchange rate is also attractive for tourists coming from Europe or North America. When converted to euros or dollars, the price of golfing green fees, accommodation and restaurants is a fraction of what one would expect to pay in Europe or the United States.

Many of the golf courses in Gauteng have been designed by some of legends in golf, such as Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Greg Norman and Ernie Els. A number of Gauteng golf courses have hosted European PGA Tour and South African Sunshine Tour events. Any Gauteng golf holiday should include the following courses:

Glendower Golf Club - Rated as the top golf course in Gauteng, and is one of South Africa’s most challenging and beautiful golf courses. Glendower has hosted many South African open tournaments and is one of the oldest golf courses in the country. A must play for any golfer visiting Gauteng.
Royal Johannesburg Golf Club – Two of the best 18-hole parkland golf courses in Johannesburg can be found at Royal Johannesburg. Although a challenging golf course, the famous ‘East’ course provides a spectacular round of golf. 7 South African opens have also been hosted at the ‘East’ course. For a totally different, but slightly easier golf challenge, try out the ‘West’ course, which is also ranked in South Africa’s top 30.
Blair Atholl Golf Club – This golf course was opened recently (2008) and is predicted to become one of the top courses in Africa. Blair Atholl was designed by Gary Player.

For more information on Gauteng golf courses, take a look at the GolfLinx Gauteng golf guide.

Besides its world class golf courses, Gauteng has many other attractions. Gold Reef City is a reconstruction of Johannesburg during the gold rush era, and is built around a functioning gold mine. Visitors can take a trip down an old mine shaft and observe the process of mining gold. Besides the gold mine, Golf Reef City has a brewery, a Victorian fun fair, pubs, hotel and tribal dancing.

Cradle of Humankind is a strip of dolomitic limestone caves found 50km southwest of Johannesburg. Here the fossilized remains of ancient forms of plants and animals can be found, as well as some famous fossilized remains of ancient humans/apes. There are more than three dozen fossil-bearing caves, with some of the ancient ape-man fossils dating back 2.3 million years.

Visitors wanting to see the Big Five, which are Elephant, Lion, Leopard, Rhino and Buffalo, can visit several excellent nature reserves and game parks situated around Johannesburg and Pretoria. Besides the few tourist attractions mentioned here, there are a large variety of other tourist attractions to keep you entertained whilst you are not playing the beautiful golf courses of Gauteng.

If you want to find and book accommodation within Gauteng, have a look at the GolfLinx accommodation guide for Gauteng.