| South African Golf |
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Page 2 of 8 
Even
on the night of my arrival, against the mundane backdrop of a hotel
bar near the Johannesburg airport, I got the sense that I’d come to
an unusual place. I was sipping syrah, munching on a springbok
burger, and babbling to the bartender about my plans. An Australian
businessman perched a few stools down overheard my conversation and
blurted, “You want to see what golf in this country is about?”He flipped open his cell phone and scrolled to a photo he’d snapped on a recent excursion. It showed a picturesque par three, its flag at rest, and, in the foreground, two worked-up warthogs in flagrante delicto on the green. “Look,” he said, chuckling. “The warthog’s making a hole in one.” Heat waves shimmered from the runway when we touched down the next morning in Phalaborwa, a sleepy, low-slung town hacked through the bush near the country’s border with Mozambique. The thick hothouse air smelled of strange fruits pushing swiftly past their ripeness and gnarled roots composting into tropical rot. Tangles of tall grasses, backed by prickly, sage-green brush, crowded the road leading to Hans Merensky. Pushcart vendors paused in what little shade the shrubbery provided. It was 10 a.m., but the triple-digit temperatures already induced torpor. Even the van that had fetched me seemed to be moving at half-speed. Like a lot of golf courses, Hans Merensky was conceived as corporate entertainment: It was built in the late ’60s as a playground for the Phalaborwa mining brass and is distinguished by its location, abutting Kruger National Park, the country’s largest game reserve. Dozens of operators dot the region, offering rides into the wild to spot the Big Five: elephant, lion, rhino, leopard, and buffalo. But at Hans Merensky a visitor can go on a self-guided safari, with a set of clubs strapped to his back. A resort now borders the golf course, with swimming pools and fairway-side cabanas. When I arrived, however, the grounds were hushed in the late-morning heat. After checking my luggage at the reception desk, I ambled past the putting green. The pro shop looked shuttered, but a sign was posted: Please come in. Door closed due to monkey thieves. Di Pappas, the sweet, silver-haired woman running the shop, had, with her late husband, raised four boys here, and all had grown into golf pros. Three of them now live in the United States; two of them play on the Nationwide Tour. Only Sean, the second-oldest, has returned to the nest, after a golfing stint in the U.S. during which he’d once carded a 59 in competition—the golf equivalent of batting .400. “Of the four boys, Sean was the most talented,” Di said. “But he’s like me. He likes to stay close to home.” |
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