View from the elevated back tee of the par-5 15th hole at Amphitheatre.
The clubhouse and practice green.
The sixth green backs on to the Tugela River.
esty from this elevated site. The drive is not for the faint-hearted, as you must carry at least 200 metres over a wetland to find the fairway. The river runs just behind the green. There’s a lily pond fronting the green of the par-3 eighth, and then comes the toughest hole on the course, a par 5 playing uphill to the clubhouse. A proper Cardiac Hill for walkers. This is where a golf cart is most welcome. No 18 is 500 metres, and that feels like 600 when your drive only just makes the start of the fairway. Most of the greens are relatively small or narrow and can be on the slow side in summer. The Hlalanathi turnoff is at the bot- tom of the Oliviershoek Pass between Harrismith and Bergville, just over an hour’s drive from Champagne Sports, worth a stop as a golfer if you’re head- ing that way.
The mighty Amphitheatre The course is named after one of the outstanding geographical features of the Northern Drakensberg near Hlalanathi. The cliff face of the Amphitheatre is five kilometres in length and its precipitous cliffs rise 1 220 metres. It is roughly three times the size of the total combined area of all the cliff faces in Yosemite’s famous El Capitan and is part of the Royal Natal National Park. The bottom of the valley floor is 1 830 metres below the highest point of the Amphitheatre, the summit being 3 050 metres. The Tugela Falls plunge 948 metres from the
top and are the world's second highest tallest falls behind the Angel Falls in Venezuela. Several of the movie locations for 1964 epic Zulu (Michael Caine & Stanley Baker) were in this area close to the Tugela River.
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 109
MARCH/APRIL 2025
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