The bonnie links of KwaZulu
T HE halfway-house breakfast at Umdoni Park provides a powerful afterburner for the second nine. You will need the fuel (curried beans and mince) because the course demands any extra help you can get.
If a contemporary architect had to craft the outlandish holes at the KwaZulu-Natal gem, he’d be laughed out of the boardroom. It is a hunk of hilly seaside dunes knitted with thick chunks of subtropical bush. The fairways simply have to make do because at Umdoni nature is the only boss.
Our ragtag group, fresh from a trip last September to Scotland, felt a bizarre rush of déjà vu when we breasted the rise that gave us a first look at the unsullied links: not as flat as Carnoustie or Muirfield but in an uncanny way akin to Balcomie Links near St Andrews.
The gulf between the Kingdom of Fife and the Zulu Kingdom is vast, yet the two courses hew to a pattern nailed down at the home of golf more than 200 years ago. Old Tom Morris refused to mess with the landscape at Balcomie, and the grandees of Pennington village in the former Natal province back in the 1920s paid Earth similar respect.
So one toils up hill and down dale, more often than not leaning at a peculiar angle to compensate for the slope. Hemmed on every side by thickets of wild banana and dragon trees, hibiscus, palms and bushwillows, it takes an intrepid soul to play a consistent round — to complete 18 holes with one ball would be a miracle.
The weather had been balmy and mild on previous visits to the South Coast in winter. This time we met a snorting cold front head-on. It brought more weird echoes of our sojourn on the eastern shores of bonny Scotland.
Much like Balcomie, Umdoni’s fairways undulate where the lie of the land takes them — placing players at the mercy of the offshore gale, and making club selection a lottery. Swap gorse and heather for mamba-riven jungle, and the penalties at both courses justify
Jeremy Thomas finds echoes of Scotland on a golfing trip to KZN their relatively short length and rating. Umdoni is 84th in Golf Digest’s local Top 100 ranking.
We had begun our tour four days before, determined to play links golf, South African style. Man, did we find it.
Durban Country Club, ranked 11th, was for many years voted the nation’s best layout until undone by mega-rich estate and resort courses such as Leopard Creek, Fancourt, Sun City, Arabella and Pearl Valley. Yet there it is: in the shadow of the city and sprayed by the Indian Ocean, coddling the heart of every golfing traditionalist.
Those more familiar with the gentle sweep of Highveld parkland will be flummoxed by the lies found at Durban CC. Over the years, no effort has been made to smooth the natural humps and gullies of the native dunes. Approach shots may plunge into dips or perch on the lips of ridges no human could ever have sculpted. And should a lofted ball balloon into the breeze, beware.
With that treat behind us (albeit all nursing scores far removed from our handicaps), we made our way through a howling thunderstorm southwards. Ninety minutes later, we reached home base at San Lameer, the vast gated community between Margate and Port Edward. A not-very-early night filled with beer, rock’n’roll and pool did not
bode well for the righteous challenge ahead.
Eight bleary old goats emerged the next morning to face the Wild Coast Sun, with good reason voted the 10th best course in South Africa. By then the wind was really up, and chilly, too. The elevated first tee invited a slice into the Mtamvuna River or beyond, into the heart of the old Transkei. A hideous start, staring us in the chilblained face.
Oddly enough, we faced down the gauntlet with dignity intact. The best player on the day proved that a properly struck shot will, to hell with the wind, go where you hit it. The rest of us scrambled like troops in a trench, doing what needed to be done. The astonishing par-three 11th hole required the more feeble among us to use a driver over a mere 160m. Picture our boyish joy as our shots gasped up and over the gaping ravine, Antarctic hurricane be damned, onto the green.
Southbroom, by contrast, was benign. Rated 77th in South Africa, the course has remained a staple destination for golfers seeking a taste of the South Coast. That does not mean it is easy. Several holes skirt the beach; on a bad day your cap will be blown off, but the beauty of it all will more than make up for it. The course feels like a
grand dame, less rugged and forbidding than its neighbours but no more forgiving. (Special mention must go to its kitchen: the midround steak-and-ale pie is worth a visit on its own.)
And then what happened? Something-something more beer, rock’n’roll and pool, followed too few hours later by the short drive north to Umdoni. But that is another story already told. Suffice it to say: we had a gas.