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A Gauteng Golf Holiday in South Africa

By RomanticHeart | December 27, 2009

The Best Courses in Gauteng - Silver Lakes Golf Estate

Although Gauteng is the smallest province in South Africa, it is the financial capital and industrial hub of the country. Gauteng is also the golfing capital of the country, and contains an impressive 31 courses within the Golf Digest top 100 courses for South Africa. Gauteng also has a wide selection of other tourist attractions, and is therefore the ideal destination for a golfing holiday.

A Gauteng golf holiday offers the golfer a wide variety of top rated championship golf courses which will challenge the amateur and professional alike. Golf can be played in Gauteng throughout the year because of its ideal year-round climate. The favorable South African Rand exchange rate is also attractive for tourists coming from Europe or North America. Visitors from Europe or the United States will find that the price of accommodation, restaurants and golfing green fees a fraction of what they normally would pay when converted to euros or dollars.

Many of the golf courses in Gauteng have been designed by some of legends in golf, such as Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Greg Norman and Ernie Els. Many Gauteng courses have hosted major golfing events for the South African Sunshine Tor and European PGA Tour. Any Gauteng golf holiday should include the following courses:

Glendower Golf Club – Rated as the top golf course in Gauteng, and is one of South Africa’s most challenging and beautiful golf courses. Glendower has hosted many South African open tournaments and is one of the oldest golf courses in the country. A must play for any golfer visiting Gauteng.
Royal Johannesburg Golf Club – ‘Royal’ contains two 18-hole courses which are considered two of the best parkland courses that Johannesburg has to offer. Although a challenging golf course, the famous ‘East’ course provides a spectacular round of golf. 7 South African opens have also been hosted at the ‘East’ course. The ‘West’ course provides a different, but slightly easier challenge and is ranked 30th in South Africa.
Blair Atholl Golf Club – Recently opened in 2008, Blair Atholl was designed by Gary Player and it is predicted to become one of Africa’s top golf courses.

To find out more about the golf courses in Gauteng, have a look at the GolfLinx Gauteng golf guide.

Besides its world class golf courses, Gauteng has many other attractions. Gold Reef City is a reconstruction of Johannesburg during the gold rush era, and is built around a functioning gold mine. Any visitors can observe the entire process of mining gold, and can even take a trip down an old mine shaft. Besides the gold mine, Golf Reef City has a brewery, a Victorian fun fair, pubs, hotel and tribal dancing.

Cradle of Humankind is a strip of dolomitic limestone caves found 50km southwest of Johannesburg. Here the fossilized remains of ancient forms of plants and animals can be found, as well as some famous fossilized remains of ancient humans/apes. There are more than three dozen fossil-bearing caves, with some of the ancient ape-man fossils dating back 2.3 million years.

Visitors wanting to see the Big Five, which are Elephant, Lion, Leopard, Rhino and Buffalo, can visit several excellent nature reserves and game parks situated around Johannesburg and Pretoria. There are many other tourist attractions in Gauteng besides the few mentioned here to keep you busy whilst you are not on the golf course.

In order to locate and book Gauteng accommodation, go to the Gauteng accommodation guide provided by GolfLinx.