It’s timely in writing this golf course feature (late December 2024) as it is less than two weeks shy of the 25th anniversary of my historic ‘First Person To Hit a Golf Shot on a Golf Course In 2000‘ and also just a month away from 25-years when I played my first game of golf in South Africa.

My visits to the Rainbow Nation sadly have been just a few and each to be present at DP World Tour tournament venues in Joburg and Durban.

A maiden visit was to Joburg in the second week of 2000 jetting in from Sydney, and only days after my new Millennium golfing ‘first’ in Tonga. See: http://www.golfbytourmiss.com/2024/01/bernie-mcguire-hits-first-golf-shot-of-2000-at-midnight-on-tonga-golf-club-course/

While visiting Joburg for the maiden 2000 Alfred Dunhill Championship, and an event won by England’s Anthony Wall, we visited the Centurion Golf Club course located beside the famed Centurion Cricket Club grounds.

One of my colleagues on the trip and dear friend was Graham ‘Otters’ Otway, who arranged the golf and in visiting the clubhouse post the round we bumped into South African cricketing legend Graeme Pollock who, at the time, enjoyed the honour of being the living cricketer with the second highest batting average of 61.87 behind Aussie great Sir Don Bradman who enjoyed an average of 99.94, Sadly ‘The Don’ passed away 13 months later in February 2001 aged 92.

The Centurion Golf Club course was designed by Peter Matkovich and which leads me onto to Durban and my visit exactly 13-years later for the 2013 Volvo Golf Champions event at the Durban Country Club.

I had been recommended to play – the Cotswold Downs Golf Club – and as it happens it was another Peter Matkovich design that was officially opened on the 10th November, 2006.

So, with the leaders on the final day of the Volvo Golf Champions not out to around 1pm, I got myself organised for the 40 klm drive north-east of Durban to visit Cotswold Downs.

Cotswolds Downs is named after the famed Cotswold region of central South West England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper River Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and the Vale of Evesham.  Cotswold Downs is laid out over nearly 230 acres in a similar-looking English countryside landscape just south of an area known as Valley of 1,000 Hills.

The actual Cotswold Downs estated was opened in 2005 and is made-up of eight villages though the economic recession of 2008/’09 hit South Africa hard with nearly a million jobs alone lost while the estate found itself in serious financial difficulties, so much so, it was put under the control of a High Court-appointed receiver.

My research revealed the developers had taken a loan in 2006 of 35 million Rand to fund the initial project, but costs escalated to some 107 million Rand. Their sales drive also was not helped as it coincided with the global economic meltdown and despite considerable pre-sales, demand evaporated.

Fortunately the economy began to recover so much so that towards the end of 2014 Cotswold Downs was rated as one of the fastest-selling residential golf estates in South Africa.  That trend clearly looks to have continued as 10-years on, and in comparing my 2013 photographs with the 2024 video on the Cotswold Downs website, the estate abounds with some spectacular housing.

The golf course is interestingly routed in a figure of ‘8’ round a former large sugar cane plantation while a number of wetland areas have been retained or introduced to enhance the natural landscape.

And in speaking of valleys, Cotswold Downs is also very much characterised by a number of spectacular elevation changes including the par-5 opening hole and also the just as stunning par is the par-3 5th hole where the tee shot plunges 250-feet from a cliff top tee-off area to the heavily water-guarded green.

What is really striking about the course, and given it’s hilly nature, is that Matkovich has designed a golfing layout where there is so many spectacular views at most every hole and none better the view from the tee at the par-3 5th hole looking down to a green some 250-feet below.

 

It’s the same with views off the first and right through to the might of the par-5 18th and the club’s No.1 index hole.

It’s a bold course with many striking features to it, set in a beautiful valley, and exceptionally good fun to play. The land is continually sloping, so the ball is always bounding forward or sideways.

The only really flat area is the top plateau on the back nine from the 11th to 16th. Matkovich had to build an unusually steep par 4 to climb out of the valley on to the plateau.

As you near the close of your round there is a great penultimate hole – the par-4 17th – where the tee-off area is located about 40-meters above the fairway.

And while the course just recently celebrated its 18th birthday what really surprised me was looking at the club’s official video and comparing those parts of the course from where I have taken my 2013 snap shots and being overawed by the now vast number of stunning-looking houses compared to just a handful on that overcast January morning 11-years ago.

So, my thanks to Cotswold Downs in being afforded this opportunity to put this article together.

And in signing off, I can’t leave without giving the world’s most travelled headcover a spot in this article as ‘Ted’ was also there in 2013 – and looking quite sprightly (smiling) ….

Check out his ‘X’ page @ted_koala as I’m sure Ted would love to have you as a follower.