I always enjoy my visits to Goldfields West, a special tranquil place in the bushveld an hour’s drive from Johannesburg, and in the last few years it has been comforting to see the excellent rehabilitation of the course and clubhouse under owner Hans Vierra’s tenure. It has become a destination again. (A fleet of 40 new lithium battery golf carts arrives in January.) Goldfields is a “heritage site” in SA golf, alongside the likes of Royal Port Alfred, because the Bob Grimsdell layout is unchanged from the original design. No modernisation has taken place and it still has the distinctive and unusual feature of cynodon greens with a strong nap, the direction determined by the adjacent hilly ridge. It’s astonishing how slow the greens can be into the nap. Very confusing for golfers who have never encountered this before. A Barbados strain of cynodon is now competing on the greens with the local Skaaplaas variety, in an attempt to speed them up.