A Guide to Going On a Gauteng Golf Holiday in South Africa
Silver Lakes Golf Estate – Gauteng in South Africa
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. Because of its ideal year-round climate, golf can be played throughout the year in Gauteng. The favorable South African Rand exchange rate is also attractive for tourists coming from Europe or North America. The price of accommodation, restaurants and golfing green fees are a fraction of what one would pay in the United States or in Europe when converted to dollars or euros.
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. Many Gauteng courses have hosted major golfing events for the South African Sunshine Tor and European PGA Tour. 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 is one of oldest golf courses in South Africa, and has hosted numerous South African opens. 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. The challenging ‘East’ course is rated as one of South Africa’s 8th best course and has hosted 7 South African opens. 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 – Recently opened in 2008, Blair Atholl was designed by Gary Player and it is predicted to become one of Africa’s top golf courses.
If you want to obtain more information about the courses in Gauteng, go to the GolfLinx golf directory for Gauteng.
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. Any visitors can observe the entire process of mining gold, and can even take a trip down an old mine shaft. Besides the gold mine, Golf Reef City has a brewery, a Victorian fun fair, pubs, hotel and tribal dancing.
The famous Cradle of Humankind, 50km southwest of Johannesburg, is a strip of dolomitic limestone caves containing the fossilized remains of ancient forms of animals, plants and most importantly, ancient human fossils. 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.