Blue Valley

Houses line every hole at Blue Valley – there are 1450 homes on this vast residential estate midway between Johannesburg and Pretoria – but this is a spacious golf course on an undulating property. The estate is built on the slopes of two wide hills gently falling into the Rietspruit river valley. There were no trees on the land when the course was built, so water features and mounding were created for definition.

On the front nine the holes tend to play down or climb up the slopes, quite steeply at times, while the back nine sees the holes mostly running along the slopes until the 18th, a par 5 which climbs uphill back to the clubhouse.

Gary Player and Phil Jacobs came up with some excellent design features to suit the rolling terrain. The first and tenth holes run parallel to each other down a slope – separated by a water feature – to an enormously wide double green fronted by a water hazard and rocks. From the elevated back tees they are reasonably short par 4s, and exciting holes to play.

There is a good selection of par 3s, with the second played across the river to a narrow green guarded by bunkers. It is one of Gary Player’s favourite par 3s. There are several strong par 4s, among them the downhill fourth, uphill sixth, downhill ninth (with an out of bounds fence to the right), the flat 11th (stroke 1) alongside the river on its left, and dogleg right 14th. Three of the par 5s play steeply uphill, and the 516-metre fifth (stroke 2) is a beauty, starting from an elevated tee over the river to an angled fairway.

Blue Valley featured in the Top 100 rankings from 2004 to 2014, with a highest position of No 68 in 2004.