Playing on an Robert Trent Jones Jnr (RTJ2) course is always a pleasure, playing golf on one in Africa is just brilliant, add in a river cruise, petrified forest walk, water park, casino, and a hotel for all, and you’ve got the making of a great couples break, mates trips away or a wonderful family retreat - its a place for everyone.
The Golf
Luckily for us, it doesn’t end there with a blind tee shot on number 2 up a fairly steep incline and the river basin snuggled in on the right, the ocean once again beyond that, barely bearing its teeth with the small curls of white water, but as enticing as ever the Indian Ocean can be.
Keen and left wanting more, our golf eagerness was satisfied by the bucket load. Big greens, blue skies, like a temptress, you’re willingly lured in, unashamed and unabashed without hesitation you embark upon any advance the course throws at you.
In fact so blown away by the course, they layout, the condition we forgot how to play golf. Its a proper gown up golf course, which is simply just a golf course - no estate, no houses jostling for position on the elevations, just simply a great golf course which itself benefits from the magnificent views. Big greens with some humps and waves to think about. It seemed to be one of those course where the ball is heading towards the hole, then about a foot away takes a slight detour as it mocks you into believing you’d made the perfect putt. With so many pretty and well thought out holes, with incredible bunker placement - for any length of hitter, its a course that you want to play well and want to enjoy too.
The reddish sandy coloured sand in the bunkers contrasted perfectly and didn’t scream at you as white pristine reflective sand might and didn’t at all detract from the overall appearance of the course. In fact the bunkers enhanced it as they skulked into the background and only came up to menace you as the ball made its unforgiving and unwavering path towards them. Whilst the sand was fairly dense, it is also nice and gritty which aided the club to slide through.
With so many amazing holes, it is difficult to highlight or pick out one, but it would be remiss of me not to mention hole number 13, over a ravine, a ravine with a cascading waterfall on the right and the putting surface just past the uphill of the rock outcrop ravine. This par three is a test of your mettle, almost holding your breath you can finally sigh with relief as the ball lands snugly onto the large green. A golf hole with everything to challenge every sense within your body. By careful design the waterfall and ravine are in sight, if not play, for the holes around number 13 too.
The previous nights rain made the course zing with bright green excitement as the various shades of green shone through the early morning rays of sunshine.
With its great use of natural contouring of the landscape, there was some minor sculpturing/reshaping, which we think is actually good to see, as it means they are invested in keeping this course a pleasure and a challenge to play.
A course to put on your bucket list, but let me now try and enhance your experience and tell you about the rest of the resort?
The Petrified Forest
Many, many years ago, logs washed up onto the shores of the Wild Coast. Today these make up the petrified Forest and whilst not obvious at first glance, once pointed out, the outline shapes of the final resting places of the logs are now evident. As if a match box has been opened upside down these logs look like a matchstick graveyard. Hollowed out outlines strewn along the beach discarded and left to rot and then to fossilise taking with them to their watery now solid lost in time grave the bugs that fed upon the rotten wood, and are now still visible today too. Not really what we were expecting as we walked on the wild side and took in the stories of the petrified forest, but definitely worth spending bit of time taking in the scene.
The Hotel
A large ambling buildings dominate the scene. A casino sitting by its side, we were told that this was the major attraction a number of years back and the resort has grown up around it. Not only the night owls burning the midnight oil in the windowless building with brightly coloured ‘come and get me to win your fortune’ tables, fruit machines and games. But this hotel is very much geared up for families or couples of just a group of buddies to indulge in its every corner. Our big spacious and comfortable room overlooked the pool and the ocean beyond and despite being on the top floor, the monkeys still found there way up that high to menace us, staring in and waiting for us to leave the balcony door open! Dinner and breakfast was in a large cafeteria style room
with a huge buffets - very much all you can eat buffets. A lovely view out over towards the ocean was welcome in the morning sunshine. With children being allowed to run freely, there was a bit of a mess at times, especially around the deserts and sweetie tables, but the friendliness and willingness of the staff was just brilliant and they were clearly in control, busily topping up and mopping up - all with a smile.
The Waterpark
Testimony to the ‘we cater for all’ ethos this hotel has adopted, there is a water park, just a short walk from the hotel. Also open to not resident guests, its a popular pastime with children and adult of all ages with all desires of craziness acceptable as they whoop and swing themselves around. Bouncing from one ride to the next battling for the inflatable rings to toss themselves upon as they slip happily down the various twisty turning slides or around the ‘river’ with a current to help them along as they lie back and drift along in relative peace. A frenzy of activity with each and every person smiling and enjoying there time.
The River Cruise
A separate business which works hand in hand with Wild Coast Sun to offer more for their guests. This delightedly river cruise along the Mtamvuna River to view from a different angle the curvy and shapely bridge which is also visible from the golf course. It helps put it into perspective how close they are! Before embarking, we had a couple of cocktails in the busy, lively and friendly bar area, where we relaxed on the sofas enjoying our pre-cruise cocktail. A gentle tootle up the river as we watched the world go by in a relaxing and serene environment, listening to the engine chug along as the only noise, before it ended too quickly and we were back at the bar. The owners and staff will make you feel welcome and they offered us some great advice for travelling south.
Don’t forget to watch the video which helps put these words into pictures and if you have any questions, please do ask. We are here to offer unbiased advise based on our experience, we don’t sell anything but can point you in the right direction, and we are always happy to help you decide.
About us
We are Sarah and Steve and we’ve decided to make our home a Land Rover defender 110, then ship it to Africa to play 100 African golf courses, but we also like share non-golf things too.
Sarah has been in the golf travel business for 20 years, Steve joined a couple of years ago and has helped enhance the you tube offering as well as provide some top notch photography, drone work and videos. Together they play golf and consult for tourist boards, hotels and golf complexes to provide a better all round travel or golf related experience. They also help people with impartial advice.
Please consider subscribing to the Travel lifestyle Golf You Tube channel or following us on social media also @Travel Lifestyle Golf we want you to enjoy our journey as we navigate Africa through the eyes of golfers.
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