A Gauteng Golf Holiday in South Africa

Silver Lakes Golf Estate – One of Top Courses in Gauteng

Although Gauteng is the smallest province in South Africa, it is the financial capital and industrial hub of the country. Gauteng is also the golfing capital of the country, and contains an impressive 31 courses within the Golf Digest top 100 courses for South Africa. Gauteng also has a wide selection of other tourist attractions, and is therefore the ideal destination for a golfing holiday.

A Gauteng golf holiday offers the golfer a wide variety of top rated championship golf courses which will challenge the amateur and professional alike. Because of its ideal year-round climate, golf can be played throughout the year in Gauteng. The favorable South African Rand exchange rate is also attractive for tourists coming from Europe or North America. The price of accommodation, restaurants and golfing green fees are a fraction of what one would pay in the United States or in Europe when converted to dollars or euros.

Many of the golf courses in Gauteng have been designed by some of legends in golf, such as Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Greg Norman and Ernie Els. A number of Gauteng golf courses have hosted European PGA Tour and South African Sunshine Tour events. Any Gauteng golf holiday should include the following courses:

• Glendower Golf Club – Rated as the top golf course in Gauteng, and is one of South Africa’s most challenging and beautiful golf courses. Glendower has hosted many South African open tournaments and is one of the oldest golf courses in the country. A must play for any golfer visiting Gauteng.
• Royal Johannesburg Golf Club – Two of the best 18-hole parkland golf courses in Johannesburg can be found at Royal Johannesburg. Although a challenging golf course, the famous ‘East’ course provides a spectacular round of golf. 7 South African opens have also been hosted at the ‘East’ course. Royal Johannesburg’s ‘West’ course offers a slightly easier, but a totally different type of golfing challenge, and is also ranked within South Africa’s top 30 courses.
• Blair Atholl Golf Club – Designed by Gary Player, this course was recently opened in 2008. Blair Atholl is predicted to be one of the top courses in Africa in years to come.

If you want to obtain more information about the courses in Gauteng, go to the Gauteng golf directory provided by GolfLinx.

Besides its world class golf courses, Gauteng has many other attractions. Gold Reef City is a reconstruction of Johannesburg during the gold rush era, and is built around a functioning gold mine. Visitors can take a trip down an old mine shaft and observe the process of mining gold. Besides the gold mine, Golf Reef City has a brewery, a Victorian fun fair, pubs, hotel and tribal dancing.

50km southwest of Johannesburg is the famous Cradle of Humankind. This is an area of caves set in dolomitic limestone formed billions of years ago, and the fossilized remains of ancient plants and animals, as well as ancient human/ape fossils can be found here. There are more than three dozen fossil-bearing caves, with some of the ancient ape-man fossils dating back 2.3 million years.

Visitors wanting to see the Big Five, which are Elephant, Lion, Leopard, Rhino and Buffalo, can visit several excellent nature reserves and game parks situated around Johannesburg and Pretoria. There are many other tourist attractions in Gauteng besides the few mentioned here to keep you busy whilst you are not on the golf course.

In order to locate and book Gauteng accommodation, go to the Gauteng accommodation guide provided by GolfLinx.