Special Places - East London Golf Club & Kapalua Resort

The 2012 golf season kicks off this week with the 3rd playing of the Africa Open at East London Golf Club on the European Tour. This fledgling tournament claims a strong pedigree based on the winners of the first two events – reigning Masters Champion Charl Schwartzel in 2010 and the 2010 Open champion Louis Oosthuizen.

Opened for play in 1929, Peck and Hotchkin’s Buffalo City gem is the second oldest layout in South Africa’s Top 15. Carved out of dense coastal bush and meandering over undulating terrain with unpredictable changes in elevation, the course is a combination of links and parkland features just a stone’s throw from the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. Players will have to contend with challenging winds whistling across the dunes, and will be rewarded with some spectacular views from numerous points on this course that has hosted six SA Open Championships. The signature hole is the 9th, a 425m par 4 that is played from an elevated tee to the bush framed fairway below and from there to a narrow sliver of a green guarded by three bunkers.

On the US PGA Tour, the New Year begins with a winners-only field of just 28 for the Hyundai Tournament of Champions at Kapalua Resort’s Plantation Course in Maui, Hawaii. Designed by Major Champion Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore, this spectacular layout provides breath-taking ocean and mountain views from almost everywhere on the course. Kapalua is a mixture of long and short holes, with seven holes longer than 460 metres and six par 4’s less than 360 metres, two of which are driveable. Additionally, there are dramatic elevation changes, such as the 17th where the tee sits on a mountain top.

Unique on the US Tour with a par of 73, the Plantation Course is also unusual by claiming to have six signature holes. However, the downhill 600m par 5 home hole is by far the most recognised, reachable in two when the trade winds are assisting, and with its expansive green seemingly perched on the edge of an impossibly blue Pacific Ocean. A special way to start what promises to be compelling and dramatic season.

Golfweather Editorial