DESTINATIONS / BA-PHALABORWA
Ba-Phalaborwa, the old Hans Merensky, is open again and remains GOLF IN THE
years. Locals are delighted to have a golf course again, and membership is growing. Over the past decade I had heard sad stories about Hans Merensky’s deterioration under private ownership. It was ranked as one of the Top 20 courses in South Africa until 2005, a bucket-list destination going back to the 1970s when it first caught the imagination of local golfers. By 2005 the place had already start- ed changing shape, with estate homes being built alongside some of the fair- ways (unobtrusive though, tucked away in the bush). Before that, golfers could feel quite alone in the far reaches of the course. I experienced a sense of that
oday, it’s a fairly common occurrence in South Africa to encounter wild animals on a golf course, but at Ba-Phalaborwa in the
grunt throughout the day in the large water hole behind the 16th green, and while I was playing two croco- diles stayed for hours basking in the winter sun some 30 metres from the 17th green. I had noticed them early in my round playing the fourth hole. Any water hole has to be approached with caution, as there just might be a croc lurking in its depths. It had been more than 20 years since I had last visited the old Hans Me- rensky Country Club, now renamed Ba-Phalaborwa, and I travelled there with anticipation on hearing that the course had been re-opened in May having been closed for at least two
far north of the country it feels very different from anywhere else. With 18 holes bordering the fence of the Kruger Park there’s a sense while playing golf that you’re intruding on their territory, rather than the other way around. Stray any distance off the fairway into the dusty bushveld and you’re walk- ing on parched red earth that’s full of hoof prints, evidence of a multitude of animals passing through. Hippos
14 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
JULY/AUGUST 2024
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