Golfers playing De Zalze will find the course drier and firmer, partly due to low rainfall this past winter in the Cape, yet mainly the result of extensive drainage work in 2022. De Zalze has had a past issue with wet, spongy fairways, damp bunkers, and sodden areas which affected the playability for golfers. Club member Martin Burger was tasked with the project of identifying poor drainage and took to the work like a trojan. Stormwater ditches and pipes were cleared, levelled and flushed (a new one installed on 17), silt removed from ditches, and some four kilometres of new drainage pipes added around the 18 holes, 572 metres alone on the second, a prime problem. A creek next to the ninth green was closed and moved underground into a pipe. The look of the holes at De Zalze has changed with the reshaping of many fairway and greenside bunkers, and removal of some, notably one behind the green at No 7 and those in the fairway mound at No 17. Plus, there’s an ongoing landscaping project that is transforming the out-of-play areas, adding contrast and improving the general aesthetics.
