Simbithi Golf Course - Ballito, South Africa

Simbithi Golf Course is a green paradise of swollen, bunkered dunes and rolling greens and fairways half an hour’s drive from the coastal hub of Durban. Dense riverine vegetation and yawning blue ponds frame 18 holes which have been accorded a 5 Star Golf Experience by Compleat Golfer. Nestled in the verdant embrace of the Simbithi Eco-Estate, guests will enjoy absorbing play between flourishes of grassland and sun-drenched hillocks.

Each hole has its own unique and rather descriptive name, ensuring that it will be affectionately ensnared in the memory. While names like ‘Wild Orchid’ and ‘Leguaan’s Lair’ speak for themselves, holes like ‘the Shebeen’, ‘Banana Hut’ and ‘Vegetable Garden’ all allude to the estate’s sugar cane farm history and the Ladlau family the used to own it.

The executive-style Peter Matkovich-designed Simbithi Golf Course is the first of its kind in the country. Smaller than other courses at 3902m, the Par-60 venture offers convenient shorter play with maximum satisfaction.  The length of the course does not take away from the challenge or gratifying playability. Matkovich cites the course’s objective as being to ‘test a player’s ability to use all the clubs in their bag’.

In addition to the course, the Simbithi Eco-Estate offers amenities like the stylish Fig Tree Restaurant that forms the heart of the clubhouse, the ultra-hip Drop Zone pub and a fully stocked pro-shop. Simbithi trundles over coastal forest between the popular seaside towns of Ballito and Salt Rock on KwaZulu-Natal’s beautiful North Coast.