burg, Harburg and New Hanover. When a golf course was built at Noodsberg Country Club in the late 1970s, one of the first trophies to be contested was the Shackle Cup for a match between the English and Ger- mans. It is still played today, with as much fervour as the Ryder Cup. Tra- ditional regalia continues to be worn, there’s a flag-raising ceremony, singing, and a braai afterwards. The club chair- man is Kelvin Kaiser and club captain Jens Hillerman, an exceptional leftie who has won the club championship a record 14 times in the past 15 years. And he has twice shot a course record of 10-under 61. I was unprepared for the beauty of Noodsberg CC. After leaving Dalton there were endless kilometres of sugar cane flanking the roadside. At a cross- roads I turned into the mill and found myself driving along an attractive tree- lined avenue leading to the country club. Not quite Magnolia Lane, but impressive nonetheless, something rare for a South African golf club. The clubhouse is charming too, with sunny rooms and a pleasant 19th hole, opened in 1978 at the same time as the golf course. There’s a large cricket oval adjoining the opening hole. Polo was the sport played here in earlier years but has disappeared today. Admiring my surroundings, I was mostly at a loss to understand why it
St Cathryn’s. It’s a lengthy climb back up the hill from the fourth green all the way to the clubhouse, the steepest part being the 317-metre fifth, which has two giant oak trees guarding the entrance to the green. There’s a narrow gap past them if you drive far enough right, otherwise you have to play the approach over or under the trees. The holes back to the clubhouse are uniformly excellent, and the best of them is No 9, a 410m dogleg right closer with out-ofbounds on the cor- ner of the dogleg, a downhill shot with the approach. After a morning 9 holes at Greytown I headed along the hilly R33 towards Maritzburg, before a detour to Dalton in the heart of sugar cane country. Illovo have a substantial sugar mill at nearby Noodsberg, where I discovered a remarkable gem of a golf course hid- den away in the plantations. Unbeliev- ably, the weekday green fee is R70 for 18 holes. This is an historic area, first settled and named by the Voortrekkers in the 1830s. Nood means distress, which they were suffering at the time. Later settlers arrived from England and Germany, and the names of towns and villages in the area originated from them – Wart- AUGUSTA COMPARISON AT NOODSBERG
The finishing hole (left) at Greytown Country Club is an excellent par 4. Below is one of the stone markers found on each tee.
The green of Greytown’s uphill par-3 third.
time around (No 12) you play on a dif- ferent line to another green. The town is built on a hillside, and the club is near the summit, so the holes rise and fall throughout the round. The scenery is stunning and trees line the fairways. Mostly pines, which provide an income for the club when they reach a certain age and are felled. Playing the fourth, the longest hole (521 from the back tee), which plunges down a hill, there was a clear- ing right of the fairway where there had been a pine plantation. The fourth is a lengthy green with quirky slopes on the left half, and the greens do have plenty of character to them. There are various grasses in the mottled greens, yet they putted well, an improvement on those at
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 95
JUNE 2024
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