Silver Lakes Golf Estate – Gauteng in South Africa

Although Gauteng is the smallest province in South Africa, it is the financial capital and industrial hub of the country. 31 Gauteng golf courses are ranked within the Golf Digest top 100 golf courses for South Africa, and Gauteng is the main golfing hub of the country. 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. Gauteng has an ideal climate for golf, and golf can be played all year round. The favorable South African Rand exchange rate is also attractive for tourists coming from Europe or North America. When converted to euros or dollars, the price of golfing green fees, accommodation and restaurants is a fraction of what one would expect to pay in Europe or the United States.

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. Many European PGA Tour and South African Sunshine Tour golfing events have been hosted at Gauteng golf courses. 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. This famous golf course has hosted numerous South African opens and is one of the older courses in South Africa. A must play for any golfer visiting Gauteng.
• Royal Johannesburg Golf Club – The two 18-hole parkland golf courses at ‘Royal’ are among the best courses in Johannesburg. The challenging ‘East’ course is rated as one of South Africa’s 8th best course and has hosted 7 South African opens. 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 – Recently opened in 2008, Blair Atholl was designed by Gary Player and it is predicted to become one of Africa’s top golf courses.

To find out more about the golf courses in Gauteng, have a look at the GolfLinx golf directory for Gauteng.

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.

The famous Cradle of Humankind, 50km southwest of Johannesburg, is a strip of dolomitic limestone caves containing the fossilized remains of ancient forms of animals, plants and most importantly, ancient human fossils. 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. The few tourist attractions mentioned here are just the tip of the iceberg, and there are many other exciting tourist attractions in Gauteng, not to mention the spectacular Gauteng golf courses.

If you want to find and book accommodation within Gauteng, have a look at the GolfLinx Gauteng accommodation directory.

The World Famous Arabella Golf Club in South Africa

Cape Town is one of the world’s most beautiful cities, and is South Africa’s most popular tourist destination. Cape Town is a bit of a golfers paradise, and it offers a large selection of world class golf courses for the golf tourist to savor. Couple this with the numerous tourist attractions that Cape Town has to offer, and you have a golfing destination second to none. The favorable South African Rand exchange rate is also an attraction for tourists coming from Europe or North America. If one converts South African Rands to dollars or euros, the cost of accommodation, restaurants and golf green fees is just a fraction of the equivalent cost in the United States or Europe.

There is a large choice of Cape Town golf courses available as well as golf courses around the Cape Town area. In South Africa’s top 100 courses (as rated by Golf Digest), there are 15 Cape Town golf courses. This includes the internationally renowned Arabella Golf Club and Resort which is one hour’s drive from Cape Town. This championship course is arguably the best course in the Western Cape, and with good reason. Arabella is situated right next to the Bot River lagoon in spectacular surroundings. This course has a selection of tee boxes to suit any level of golfer, and the course has hosted several South African opens. Recommended golf courses in the beautiful Cape Winelands area near Cape Town include the Jack Nicklaus designed Pearl Valley Golf Course, Erinvale Golf Club, De Zalze Golf Club, Stellenbosch Golf Club and Paarl Golf Club.

The Cape Town golf courses and the golf courses in the Cape Town area will provide any golfer with enough variety for a memorable golfing holiday. Cape Town golf courses that are recommended include Royal Cape Golf Club, Steenberg Golf Club, Atlantic Beach Golf Club, King David Golf Club and Clovelly Country Club, to mention just a few. To find out more about Cape Town golf courses and the other Western Cape courses check out the Western Cape golf directory provided by GolfLinx.

Besides the Cape Town golf courses there are many other top tourist attractions in Cape Town. There is Table Mountain which towers over the city of Cape Town. At over 3000 feet high, it can be seen from anywhere in Cape Town. You can take a revolving cable car, or hike up to the summit of the mountain using numerous hiking trails. The viewing station at the top has a restaurant and a bar with spectacular views of the city and the Atlantic.

The wine farms in the Cape Winelands produce some of the finest wines in the world. The majority of the wine farms in the area offer tours of the vineyards and cellars, as well was wine tasting. There are numerous wine routes one can take through the region, and there are many guided bus tours which leave from Cape Town. Another popular attraction in Cape Town is its beaches. If you are looking for beaches, then Cape Town has a fine selection – the beaches have soft, white sand and incredible mountain backdrops as the scenery.

The V&A Waterfront is Cape Town’s most visited attraction, and offers good shopping facilities, wining and dining establishments, various live shows and the Two Oceans Aquarium. Many boat trips can be booked from the V&A Waterfront, including a boat trip tour to the Robben Island where one can tour the maximum security prison where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated. Besides the Cape Town golf courses, theses are just some of the other attractions that Cape Town has to offer.

To find available accommodation in Cape Town, take a look at the Western Cape accommodation guide provided by GolfLinx.