Dainfern certainly offers a varied test of interesting golf holes, which you would expect from a Gary Player design, although his shortest par 4 is 364m from the back tees. The course, a bushveld-parkland hybrid with a wonderful balance to the routing, keeps your attention throughout the round, with fabulous elevation changes, numerous doglegs, a fair mix of challenging hazards (among them, rocks on the 12th fairway, and occasional oversized bunkers), and attractive greens of contrasting sizes. The rest of my fourball, unfamiliar with the layout, enjoyed themselves immensely. It’s a walkable estate course even with its hilly terrain, as the distances between green and tee are not enormous, other than the uphill climb from No 1 to 2. The Jukskei River flows through Dainfern, and it was encouraging to see the large number of staff working to clear away piles of debris after a rainy night had increased the river’s flow. What a colossal undertaking.
