Walmer Golf Club

Walmer Golf Club is one of the oldest clubs in Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha), founded in 1897, situated in one of the city’s oldest suburbs, Walmer, overlooking the Baakens Valley nature reserve. It has one of the biggest memberships of a 9-hole course in SA, with 899 affiliated golfers and 1122 members in total.

The club had unusual origins, evolving from a commonage where PE citizens were entitled to graze their animals. Golf had strong roots in the Eastern Cape (PE Golf Club was founded in 1890), and a golf club was founded on the commonage with 18 shortish holes (sand greens), each having its own name and being allocated to a family for its design, construction and maintenance. The name of Walmer had been taken in honour of the Duke of Wellington (a leading military and political figure in 19th-century Britain), who died at Walmer Castle in Kent, one of his favourite homes.

The club lost members during the Great War (1914-18) and also nine of the 18 holes. And it has stayed as a 9-hole parkland course, with 18 tee boxes, ever since with its clubhouse in upmarket River Road. In earlier years it was one of several 9-hole clubs in the Port Elizabeth area (like Fairview and Redhouse), most of which have long disappeared.

Tall pine trees frame several holes. The nine holes were built in an L-shape, the opening hole, a 393-metre par 4, playing down towards the Baakens Valley, before the second turns uphill in the opposite direction. The two closing holes border River Road. For many years until early in the millennium it had a small, wood-and-iron clubhouse. The club first received a liquor licence in 1980.

Walmer Country Club was formed two kilometres away after World War Two with an 18-hole layout, and Walmer GC then became commonly known as Little Walmer. It still had Kimberley blue-ground greens in those years, and grass greens were only established in the early 1970s.

Today, the course is part of a large residential estate established in 2005. The course was redesigned with advice from former SA Open champion Simon Hobday. New greens were constructed on holes 5 to 9, creating more undulations and providing a more stable putting surface.

Out-of-bounds is in play on several holes, including a par 3, No 4/13, on the edge of the Baakens Valley. There are two par-5s, back-to-back at No 7/16 and No 8/17. The round ends with a strong 401-metre par 4, its green guarded by water right. The par-3 sixth/15th is considered to be the signature hole, only 139 metres, but with a large pond guarding the front and right of the green.

A spacious modern clubhouse, upgraded with the development of the estate, caters for functions, conferences, weddings and celebrations up to 200 people.