Nelspruit Golf Club | Bushveld Golf at its Best

Located amongst the signature granite hilltops of the Lowveld, Nelspruit Golf Club is deservedly regarded as one of the premier golf courses in Mpumalanga, and provides a high-class but affordable golfing experience with a distinctly bushveld twist.

Text and Photographs by Dale Hes

From left to right: View from clubhouse, 11th, 9th.

Designed by Southern African Golf Hall-of-Fame legend, Bob Grimsdell, the Par 71, 6082 meter course was established in 1939 and was a 9-holer for nearly thirty years. Grimsdell only returned to complete a second nine in 1967. The course was left largely untouched until 1998, when the club enlisted the help of designer extraordinaire Peter Matcovitch to upgrade the course to its current layout.

As a tribute to Percy Fitzpatrick’s legendary Staffordshire Terrier, Nelspruit Golf Club is famous for hosting the annual Jock of the Bushveld Festival of Golf, considered the biggest amateur tournament of its kind in the world. Started in 1968, it has grown to the extent where some 800 amateurs from far and wide play more than 2 000 rounds during a week in May.

The golf club’s impressive facilities include well-equipped mens- and ladies dressing rooms, putting and chipping greens, a recently upgraded pro-shop and a spacious clubhouse complete with bar, flat screen televisions, comfortable seating arrangements and complimentary coffee or tea.

The course, which has consistently ranked within the top one hundred golf courses in South Africa, has the feel, quality, scenery and character to satisfy the most discerning golfers. The smooth Kikuyu grass fairways and immaculate Bent grass greens remain lush and green all year round, meaning that golfers will find themselves on comfortable lies if they manage to stay on the short stuff.

The fairways are lined with over fifty species of indigenous trees including fruit-laden Marulas and Monkey Apples, beautiful fever trees and towering Natal Mahoganies.

Although the course is relatively short, it is essential to find the fairway or semi-rough with your drives, as errant tee-shots will more often than not find you stranded behind a tree or end up in a fruitless search for your ball in the thick bush found on many of the holes.

First 9 Holes

Nelspruit Golf Course As patrons play their way around the course, they will encounter an attractive and diverse array of holes which will see them making use of every club in the bag. The 433 metre (383 metres for ladies) par four first, running alongside a large granite outcrop, is an exceptionally challenging opening hole with a wicked dogleg to the right and an undulating fairway which will invariably leave you with a blind (and long) second shot to the green.

Most golfers would be more than satisfied to leave this, the most difficult hole on the course, with a bogey on the score card.

The second hole is an all-downhill par five, easily reachable in two if one is able to find the narrow fairway from the raised tee box and avoid the lake next to the green.

After the third hole (a relatively straightforward but lengthy par 3), Nelspruit Golf Club’s signature hole lies in wait. This par five has a strategically placed stream traversing the fairway around 250 metres from the tee. Invisible from the tee-box, longer hitters would be wise to make use of a three-wood if they do not want their balls to trickle down the hill and into the drink.

Beyond the stream, golfers are treated to a particularly pretty scene, with the fairway flanked by bunkers left and right and sloping up towards a Marula tree-guarded green.

More beauty is to follow: the par three fifth hole is a short par three requiring a tee-shot over a vast and deeply forested donga, while the sixth, seventh and eighth holes are all shortish, straight par fours dotted with soft white bunkers and characterised by large, sweeping greens.

The front nine is ended by another straight par-four, but a large Natal Mahogany in front of the green and a few rock-pools add to the challenge.

Second 9 Holes

Nelspruit’s halfway house is a far cry from the small, poky structures that are found on many golf courses in South Africa: large tables under umbrellas and a comprehensive menu allow for a relaxing and fulfilling break before golfers move on to the second nine, which has a slightly wilder, African feel to the front nine. Almost every hole has thick tangles of bush to the left or right of the fairway and the course winds its way over dams filled with indigenous kurper, up into granite koppies and across a bridge built over a deep tree-filled gully.

On the back nine, golfers may well come across mongoose scurrying around in the bush and duikers and klipspringers grazing on the fairways, accompanied by an array of Lowveld birds such as Crested and Black-Collared Barbets, African Hoepoes, bee-eaters and Red-Chested Cuckoos (Piet-my-vrou).

The course ends with a challenging uphill par-four, and one would do well to avoid the massive fig tree which towers over the left quarter of the fairway, as being stuck behind it can be likened to standing in front of a five storey building.

A small statue of the intrepid Jock stands guard over the eighteenth green, hopefully giving you the steely nerves needed to sink that final birdie putt before you head for the nineteenth hole. At this, the final essential stop-off before heading home, you and your fellow golfers can sit sipping cold beers on the outside verandah, which has an exquisite view over the course and onwards to the mountains in the distance.

Whether you are a scratch handicap or golf is your handicap, Nelspruit Golf Club provides an incredible golfing experience for all and is a must-play for golfers visiting the Lowveld area.