Golf in South Africa

Africa is sold as a safari destination, and most first trips are built that way - and they should be. But the safari is rarely what brings people back. What brings them back is the discovery that the continent does several other things at a world-class level, and that they were a few hours' drive from them the whole time.

Golf is the clearest example. South Africa has produced Player, Els, Goosen, Oosthuizen, Locke, Schwartzel and Immelman - nearly 400 tour wins and 22 majors between them, which puts the country fourth on the all-time majors table behind the United States, Scotland and England. The courses are a consequence of that, not a coincidence: Player and Els have designed more than a dozen between them, and the climate gives you clear, cool, dry winters on the highveld and a Mediterranean summer and winter on the coast.

There are two sensible ways to use this, and they suit different people.

Adding golf to a safari

If your trip is already built around the bush, the question is whether golf fits without pulling the itinerary apart. Usually it does, and it costs less time than people expect.

From Johannesburg. Several of the country's best courses are within about an hour of the city by chauffeur-driven car - Pecanwood, a Jack Nicklaus Signature course on the Hartbeespoort Dam, is roughly 40 minutes from Sandton and one we've played. Johannesburg is where most safari itineraries connect anyway, so a round here uses a day you were likely to spend in transit.

Along the Garden Route. Starting from Cape Town, a self-drive east takes you past a string of coastal courses, Fancourt among them. This works as a week in its own right at the start or end of a safari, and it suits couples where one plays and one doesn't.

Neither option requires rebuilding the trip. It is a matter of where the golf days sit.

A golf trip to South Africa

If you are organising a trip for a group of friends and the golf is the point, South Africa deserves a place on the shortlist alongside the usual destinations - and it is a long way from the usual destinations, which is part of the appeal.

The most straightforward way to do it is the Rovos Golf Safari. Rovos runs it four times a year: nine nights aboard the train through the north-east of the country, five courses, five game drives, a guided visit to the Spionkop battlefields, and a parallel programme for non-playing partners so the group travels together without everyone being on the course.

We booked it for a group in 2025, and they came back very happy with it. It solves the two things that make group golf trips difficult - moving everyone between courses, and keeping the non-golfers occupied - by removing both problems at once.

Where to from here

If either of these fits what you are planning, the next step is a conversation about dates: the Rovos departures are fixed and fill early, and the Garden Route reads differently in summer and winter.

Legends of the Fairway: golf and safari in South Africa