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Editor's note: This article was originally published in LINKS Magazine. Visit the magazine website here.
By George Peper
After a nine-hour night flight and a 90-minute drive, I unpacked at my hotel and enjoyed a restorative breakfast. Returning to my room on the fifth floor with a balcony overlooking an enormous swimming pool, I was about to decide what to do with my day when I sensed that something about the room had changed.
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No, not the room. The balcony. An hour ago it was the picture of well-ordered serenity; now it looked as if a cyclone had hit it. The two deck chairs were overturned, a dark liquid was splattered across the glass doors, and the floor was littered with shards of white china. On closer inspection, I saw that a full pot of coffee had been smashed with extreme brutality.
I knew I had locked all the doors before heading down to breakfast. And given the configuration of the hotel, it was impossible to gain access to my balcony from a neighboring room. Utterly befuddled and more than a little scared, I moved stealthily to the only closet in the room, hesitated and yanked the door open, half-expecting an axe-wielding Jack Nicholson to scream, "Heeere's Johnny!"
Nothing. Nor was Anthony Perkins behind the shower curtain. By chance, however, two maintenance men were down the hall, and I called them in. They took a quick look, exchanged knowing glances, and broke into ear-to-ear grins.
"The baboons, sir," said one. "They were playing this morning. They must have snatched the coffee from another balcony and smashed it on your porch."
Clearly, this would be a golf trip unlike any other, full of sights, sounds and smells I had never experienced, to a land both pristine and primal, triumphant and troubled, a land blessed with an astonishing diversity of natural beauty and a growing collection of world-class courses. This was South Africa.
Stop one: Sun City
I arrived with 14 clubs, two dozen balls and zero expectations-just a few preconceptions. To me South Africa was synonymous with the Africa from childhood myths and movies-the Dark Continent, home of Tarzan, lions and rhinos, pith-helmeted hunters and spear-carrying Zulus. I had an ugly-American-level familiarity with Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk and the end of apartheid, but beyond that all I knew about South Africa was what well-traveled friends had told me: The weather is mild, the beaches are gorgeous and you can get a great meal with a bottle of wine for $25.
Sun City offered a gentle introduction. Self-anointed as Africa's Kingdom of Pleasure, Sun City is sort of a bushveld Disney World. The flagship accommodation, the Palace of the Lost City, was built in 1992 to look like a city buried by a volcano and rediscovered centuries later (by a billionaire developer). The grounds are dotted with fountains and life-size statues of elephants and cheetahs, and the lobby brings to mind Grand Central Station, only bigger.
No South African layout is better known than Sun City's Gary Player course, host to the Nedbank Golf Challenge, which dates to 1981, when Johnny Miller defeated Seve Ballesteros on the ninth hole of sudden death. Remarkably, for this over-the-top resort, the course is a bit understated -- no Donald Trump waterfalls, just an unrelenting succession of tough but fair holes. The greens were faster and smoother than I expected, so my punchy St. Andrews stroke was of little avail. The most memorable hole is the 9th, a do-or-die par 5 where I skulled my third shot under the lily pads.
I see how the pros would respect the Gary Player course, but I was more charmed by its sibling, the Lost City course. Also designed by Player, it sits on more dramatic terrain-particularly the back nine, which sweeps through the foothills of the Pilanesberg Mountains with several elevated tees providing marvelous views. The hole everyone comes to play is the par-3 13th, a mid-iron to a green shaped liked the African continent. The stone pit short and left of the green serves as home to a large community of crocodiles. I managed to push my ball safely to the back fringe.
The golf was very good, but the poolside club sandwich, made with fried eggs and avocado on deep-fried bread, was the best of my life. And the gourmet dinner at the Villa del Palazzo restaurant was so satisfying in every way that I returned for a second night -- Sun City's 42 other restaurants will just have to wait for my next trip.
