Sun City a magical kingdom
Iwent away this weekend to the magical Sun City, for a farewell for one of my friends. I say magical, partly because of the friends who came with me to celebrate, but also because of the 360-degree transformation and experience the resort can offer the sports enthusiast. I have been coming to the city in the sun since I was a child and one could easily have found themselves bored with nothing to do in the past.
One of Sun City’s new tourist attractions is the Sports Hall of Fame. Thanks must go to Nicole Turner, the resort’s public relations manager, who managed to organise a private tour for us.
If you play sport, love sport and love South Africa, then be prepared to get a little emotional when you take a visit down memory lane. They have a timeline on the wall from the beginning of the great sporting achievements and then there are highlights of all of South Africa’s greatest achievements. Next is the virtual reality station and this fully interactive station allows you to slip on a pair of VR goggles and snow ski or battle the rapids in a dual canoe with a friend.
Just next to the VR station is Golfzon “GDR” – golf driving range station which won the Golf Digest 2017 award for best golfing virtual reality simulator. GDR, which is used by the Korean national team, provides an ultra-high speed dual camera sensor system. The system allows for statics graphics, swing shot, play-back videos and ball trajectory. As you hit the ball the V2 camera lens tracks how you hit the ball off your club, and the rotation and revolution speed to give you an accurate trajectory on the projected drive range course in front of you.
The technology is astonishing. Not just for the fun aspect, but can be used as a training tool for correcting areas of your game. For all those golf-mad fans, start saving, the GDR system will set you back about $50 000.
For all those rugby enthusiasts, the Hall of Fame has set up a 20m sprint track where you can sprint against our 2017 Sevens rugby star Seabelo Senatla. He runs a 20m dash in an apparent 2.01 seconds. I say apparent and have questioned management, only because Usain Bolt, in his world record time in 2009, was calculated running the 20m dash in 2.89 seconds (world record analysis breakdown) – Nonetheless I am sure it was a typo and should be 3.01 seconds. The interactive station was a smash hit and a brilliant concept.
For those who are not too keen on sprinting, you are more than welcome to sit down and watch 90 minutes of South Africa’s greatest sporting moments. Bring those tissues along.
The weekend had to be concluded with a round of golf at the Gary Player golf course. I just had to inspect the course, to make sure it was still in world class condition ahead of the Nedbank Golf Challenge later in the year.
I really have to say it is one of South Africa’s most beautiful golf courses. The greens were in immaculate condition, the caddies were super friendly and knowledgeable and the views from each hole, breathtaking. If the course marshal had allowed me to make grass angels on the fairway, I think I would have been in heaven.
One of the great parts of playing on the course is that they don’t allow any golf carts – that means 12km and four hours of pure walking and swinging pleasure.
The weekend away hit the right notes, especially for a sports enthusiast. The Hall of Fame does bring a flurry of emotion of how incredible South Africans really are – and we have a lot to be thankful for.
The political instability is real in SA at the moment but among the chaos you need to stop, take a deep breath and take in how beautiful our country really is, and then come to the realisation that it is a country worth fighting for.