Gowrie moves from hybrid 9 to a full 18 ‘Template’ holes from Scottish links are a feature of new holes at KZN Midlands destination.
and is brave enough to recreate them in this country where his kind of penal bunkering and sloping greens is not universally admired. Now that it has 18, Gowrie may have more bunkers than any course in South Africa. The count is around 160, and they lurk everywhere. One of the seven new holes is appropriately called Sa- hara. But these are not just bunkers. They sprout grass and reeds too. And the texture of the sand varies, as does the depth and steep faces. As they say about the Old Course at St Andrews, if you can avoid going into a bunker for 18 holes you’ve played exceptionally. The
ing up against the big boys in the Top 100 rankings. As a hybrid Gowrie was good enough to reach as high as No 48. Having capacity for bigger fields will make Gowrie a prime destination at Nottingham Road in a scenic farm- land region as it offers 5-star lodging upstairs in the clubhouse and behind the 18th green. Smith is a lover of old-fashioned course architecture, an amateur com- parable to men a century ago who built such masterpieces as Pine Valley, Pebble Beach and National Golf Links of America. He grasps ideas for holes from visits to Scotland’s great links
en years ago Gowrie Farm in the KZN Midlands was rated by Golf Digest USA as being among the best “Short
Courses” in the world outside the Unit- ed States. A tremendous accolade for this unique hybrid layout with 12 greens and imbued with style and character. The designer was Guy Smith – who had been involved in the early 1990s de- velopment of Prince’s Grant on the KZN North Coast – and Gowrie Farm was his first foray into course architecture. He built it on a low budget, using push-up greens. Now he’s taken Gowrie into a different realm of being an 18-holer go-
Gowrie’s version of the “Pit” hole with a stone wall separating fairway and green.
90 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
MARCH/APRIL 2024
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