Having a river run through your course is a mixed blessing for many clubs in Gauteng. These waterways provide excellent natural hazards and attractive aesthetics, yet summer storms bring flooding, unattractive erosion and unsightly debris due to poor management of these rivers upstream. The water quality is usually mucky and contaminated. Glendower’s river enters the course behind the first green, and it chugs past eight holes before exiting the property after the par-5 13th. It’s hard to imagine what Glendower would be like without it. It enhances the par-5 second and par-3 third, and forms a forbidding barrier short of the seventh green. The pond on 10 turns this long downhill 4 into a scary proposition. And the way the river winds in front of the diagonally shaped fairway at 12 towards the green makes this par 4 an excellent example of a “Cape” template, the essence of risk and reward tee shots. The longer the carry, the closer you get to the green.
