Yellow 6 166 metres, CR72.8/127
White 5844 metres, CR71.0/125
Blue 5472 metres, CR 69.1/122
Red 5164 metres, CR 67.4/114
Women’s white, CR77.7/136
Women’s blue, CR74.9/129
Women’s red, CR72.9/124
October to April
R1 750 non-affiliated
R1 055 affiliated & hotel guest
May to September
R1 275 & R820
Golf carts R630 & R605
Peter Matkovich 1996
021 713 2233
www.steenberggolfclub.co.za
45 (2023), 48 (2022) & 54 (2021)
Cape Town’s first golf estate is one of the country’s premier residences, with properties at trendy Steenberg in the Constantia Valley fetching high prices. Numbering just 225 explains why. It’s more than just a residential address though. There’s a luxury boutique hotel, restaurants and a wine estate. The golf club is a similarly smart upmarket venue commanding one of the high-end visitor green fees in the Cape Peninsula; plus a considerable entrance fee for new members.
A feature of the parkland course is its mountainous surrounding and neighbouring vineyards, some of which adjoin holes. Although an archetypal Peter Matkovich estate design, it doesn’t feel as hemmed in as some. Housing seldom flanks both sides of a fairway, and there’s ample width off the tee to offer different angles of approach to the greens. The course Aesthetics are excellent, with streams and wetland areas enhancing the experience. Steenberg set out to establish the best conditioned course in the Cape, with fast-paced greens, and it achieved that pristine look for many years.
Conditioning issues due to Cape Town’s water crisis, however, saw Steenberg fall outside the top 50 for the first time. All the bent grass greens and surrounds were replanted, and Golf Data changed the design of three greens to improve the course’s playability. It has since returned to the top 50.
The modern greens with their undulating bent grass surfaces provide the biggest scoring challenges. Most of Matkovich’s original waste bunker areas have disappeared, although one remains left of the fairway on the par-5 12th, stretching for some 200 metres.
2023 Lance Sherrell & Heidi Pentz
2022 Benjamin Schaffer & Bobbi Brown
2021 Noel Anderson & Bobbi Brown
2020 Freddie Spencer & Bobbi Brown
2019 Lance Sherrell & Bobbi Brown
68 by the late Andrew Carris in 2007
Women: 62 by Chiara Noja (Germany, age 16) in 2023 SA Women’s Open. One eagle, 9 birdies.
Steenberg has excellent and varied design balance, with several doglegs to contend with. As with many Matkovich designs the 18th is a risk-and-reward par 5 with water right of the green and bunkers left. The par-4 third is an attractive hole bordering a vineyard, where a good drive leaves a downhill approach to a rumpled green falling away steeply on the left. The par-3 seventh has a unique peninsula green within a water hazard, and the par-3 14th – where you view Elephant’s Eye on the mountain – has a 65-metre long green.
Steenberg Hotel & Spa, which includes the award-winning Tryn Restaurant, formerly Catharina’s.
1/ Steenberg’s history dates back to 1682 when a farm was first established by early Cape settlers.
2/ A new modern art gallery by the Norval Foundation frames the entrance to the estate. It was endowed by Steenberg member Louis Norval, the 1979 SA Amateur champion at Humewood.
3/ Steenberg hosted its first major tournaments with the 2022 and 2023 SA Women’s Open. Ashleigh Buhai won in 2023, her fourth SA Open title, with a record score of 22-under-par 266 (64-65-69-68). Lee-Anne Pace won in 2022 on level par 288. German 16-year-old Chiara Noja shot 62 in first round of 2023 Open.
4/ Former Springbok rugby player Lance Sherrell has been men’s club champion several times.
5/ The club has caddies, and visitors can hire clubs and electric trolleys.
Steenberg has an excellent long range with artificial mats at the clubhouse side, and grass tees at its opposite end. Practice balls do tend to stray on to the edge of the first hole. There are two putting greens, one at the first tee, and a larger one together with short-game area nearer the tenth tee. The club is home to the EOGA Golf Academy, founded at Steenberg by teaching pro Etienne Olivier.
Conditioning RatingsFacility RatingsPlaying Steenberg was an absolute joy. Greens were excellent. Quicker than most but true and fair. They've made some wonderful design changes in the greens. This is a high-end course in terms of the visitor green fee, and the service standards and hospitality of the staff is outstanding, friendly and attentive.
The long turn-around of Steenberg's conditioning is nearing completion in the greens and surrounds. But bunkers remain below par, with little consistency in sand depth or texture. Most have pebbles, and some liners are visible. Steenberg, like many courses, is over-watered and would support better play and more interesting shot-making if it was firmer. But the modern mentality is that golfers want a lush green course to admire.
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