Randpark Golf Club

Randpark, in Johannesburg’s western suburbs, is another first-rate parkland course with a proven championship pedigree: it has hosted many top amateur and SA Tour events as well as the SA open of 1995 and 2000. The club also boasts a second 18-hole layout (the gentler Windsor park course) as well as a variety of club amenities.

Randpark is championship layout with great flexibility and good balance; in recent years, new back tees were added in the quest to enhance its tournament credential, but from the range of members’ tees, it is a pleasure for the club golfer to play. It also leavens some of its brutal two-shotters (the 403-metre 3rd which doglegs right alongside the perimeter fence; the long, uphill 10th) with some shorter challenges, the character 9th being the best example. Like so many of the best highveld facilities, the familiar Kikuyu (fairways) and bent (greens) recipe is deployed and course-condition is generally excellent. A noteworthy playing feature is that most of Randpark’s greens are raised or crowned; they require a high approach, which pitches on the surface. Run-up and inaccurate approach-shots are fed away from the putting surface into swales or bunkers from where an up-and-down par is difficult.

The course has a magnificent crescendo of a finish: the long, doglegging par-four 16th has water on the left and a smallish green fronted by mounding; the 190-metre 117th is some short hole, playing downhill to a green guarded over water and uphill to a tricky, well-trapped green. Randpark also boasts a top-class-teaching academy, a well-stocked pro shop and very fine practice facilities.