Champagne Sports - KwaZulu-Natal - South Africa

Johannesburg golfer Hugh Baiocchi – well respected member of the European Tour in the 1970s and 1980s – designed the 18-hole championship course at Champagne Sports Resort and it first opened for play in 1997.

Located in the Drakensberg mountain region between Johannesburg and Durban, the golf course here is one of several outdoor pursuits on offer at a 122-bedroomed hotel complex, including fishing, mountain biking, hiking and horse riding.

It is easy to see that no expense was spared in setting up the course – greens were sown with L93 bent-grass, fairways with kikuyu grass and bunkers lined with white Bronkhorstspruit sand , providing a well balanced test over 7,363 yards from the back tees.

With the Champagne and Cathkin Peaks as a spectacular backdrop, teeing it up in the mountains here is an exhilarating experience that really should be sampled during a golfing getaway trip!

In this short extract from the book he co-authored with Jamie Thom entitled South Africa’s Greatest Golf Destinations, Stuart McLean writes:

“Golf of this stature and quality of conditioning is a relatively new experience in the Drakensberg, where for many years the courses were predominantly of the shortish 9-hole variety like neighbouring Monks Cowl, its fairways firm and fast in the winter months.

Champagne Sports, which graduated from a 9-holer in the late 1990s to a 6,700-metre layout, has kikuyu fairways and bent grass greens that retain their colour all year, even if the surroundings turn brown after the first frosts – making it both a summer and winter golfing destination.”