Kimberley

The Northern Cape is predominantly flat, and the Kimberley golf course is no different, with subtle undulations, making it a relatively easy walk. Safe passage, however, is skilfully interrupted by mounding and tight greenside bunkers included by Bob Grimsdell, who was commissioned in the late 1950s to design the city’s first course with grass greens.

The course, arid in places, parkland in others, has a rural feel to it, being on the city outskirts, just off the N12, close to Kamfers Dam with its flamingo population, and is unique in retaining the original indigenous Elliot grass on the greens. The grain of this cynodon species is particularly strong and puzzling for the visitor in terms of green speed and break. The kikuyu fairways are lush in the summer rainy season.

Kimberley is one of South Africa’s oldest golf clubs, founded in 1890 at the height of the Diamond Fields boom. It was one of the leading clubs in the country at the turn of the 20th century, hosting the first SA Amateur Championship in 1892, and three others until 1913.

The most celebrated characteristic of that period was the “greens,” each putting surface comprising of diamondiferous tailings, the famed Kimberley Blues.

The Blues were used from 1900 to 1960 on the original course, situated closer to the city centre in a suburb now called Monument Heights. The old clubhouse today serves as the MOTH Club. The Kimberley Blues were the course’s undoing as a championship venue when the SA Golf Union decreed that only grass courses could hold the tournament.