Played with club stalwart and honorary life member George Adelaine, who this year celebrates 60 years as a Kyalami member. He’s served the club as captain, chairman and president. When he joined in 1964 there was hardly a tree on the course (opened 1955), and it was a long drive from his home near Johannesburg city centre on dirt roads. George estimates that he has seen to the planting of 6000 trees on the course. Those mature trees certainly add to the scenic beauty of the layout today, and the challenges. Once in the trees, best to take your medicine and play back to the fairway. Kyalami, surprisingly for a property with numerous dams and pools, has had its issues with water this past summer which has impacted on the conditioning of fairways and rough, exceptionally dry and bare. The irrigation system is antiquated, and I’m told that Kyalami is curiously in an area which receives much less rainfall than courses further south closer to Joburg.
