Bob Grimsdell left his native England when he was a teenager and travelled to South Africa. He joined the South African armed forces and was subsequently deployed to France during the First World War, holding a commission in the Royal Air Force until 1920. After hostilities ended he moved back to England, married, and became the professional at Chorley Golf Club in Lancashire.

He soon became interested in golf course architecture and struck up a friendship with 

, soaking up as much knowledge as he could from the two masters of design..

“A fine competitive golfer in his youth and a devotee of H.S. Colt, Bob Grimsdell moved to South Africa in the twenties to establish himself in a year-round golf career,” wrote Cornish and Whitten in 

Grimsdell and his wife lived in Cape Town and he became attached to the Mowbray Golf Club. Ironically, in the early 1950s, Grimsdell designed the nearby course for the newly formed King David Golf Club. Unfortunately, Grimsdell’s King David course (considered one of his best designs) was recently lost to a non-golfing development, so the Mowbray and King David clubs merged, creating King David Mowbray Golf Club.

“He became pro-greenkeeper at several South African clubs,” continue Cornish and Whitten, “including Royal Johannesburg, whose East course he laid out in 1933. A talented player, Grimsdell won the Orange Free State Open and Match Play Championships as well as the Belgian and German Opens.” Unfortunately, Grimsdell was unable to win at South African national level, twice finishing as runner-up in the South African Open and four-time finalist in the South African Match Play Championship between 1925 and 1932.

Grimsdell remained professionally attached to Royal Johannesburg (now Royal Johannesburg & Kensington Golf Club) for twenty years. After the Second World War he became a full-time golf course architect based in Scottburgh close to the Indian Ocean, south of Durban.

For the next thirty years Grimsdell was South Africa’s foremost golf course architect. He first introduced grass golf courses to the arid bushveld regions in the northeast of the country, Nelspruit Golf Club (now called Mbombela) being one of the earliest examples.

Robert Grimsdell died of natural causes in his adopted homeland in September 1986 at the ripe old age of 89. He was the pioneer of golf course architecture in South Africa and his legacy has been sadly overlooked, although he was recently inducted into the Southern African Golf Hall of Fame.

After World War II, Grimsdell became a full-time golf course architect based in Scottburgh, South Africa. Over the next 30 years he established himself as the leading designer in South Africa and surrounding nations. Geoff Cornish and Ron Whitten

Bob Grimsdell

Bob Grimsdell was a skilful professional golfer and the pioneer of golf course architecture in South Africa whose legacy has been largely overlooked outside of his adopted homeland.

Free State

South African Open

South African Amateur

South Africa

Bloemfontein Golf Club is one of the oldest clubs in South Africa, having been founded in 1894, and it moved to its current location next to Schoeman Park Golf Club in 1953, with Bob Grimsdell designing the 18-hole layout. Forty years later, Peter Matkovich was brought in to upgrade the layout with new greens and bunkers.

The putting surfaces on the club’s original course were constructed – like Kimberley’s – from blue-coloured diamondiferous mine tailings, a by-product of the local mining operations, but the new course was built with grass greens, which helped to attract both the SA Open and the SA Amateur championships to the club in 1958.

The club hosted the SA Open again in 1963 and it also staged another three editions of the SA Amateur in 1964, 1968 and 1975. In the last of these prestigious national tournaments, club member Peter Voster won the event 3&2 in the final, having won the title at Humewood ten years earlier by a more convincing 7&6 margin against his opponent in the match play final tie.


Feature holes include par threes at the 8th and 11th, which play in opposite directions across the intimidating spruit that runs through the property. The long, left doglegging par fours at the 9th and 17th (rated stoke index 2 and 1) are the toughest holes on the card but the par three 16th, with a sloping green protected by water on three sides, is another one to watch.

Bloemfontein

Maccauvlei

Africa

Golf in Bloemfontein dates back more than a century but the parkland course in play today at Bloemfontein Golf Club is a Bob Grimsdell layout that was later refashioned by the prolific Peter Matkovich and Dale Hayes.