Glenvista - Gauteng - South Africa

Sid Brews – one of South Africa’s greatest ever golfers, winning eight national Opens and six PGA titles – was approached in 1967 to lay out an 18-hole course in the beautiful valley between the affluent Johannesburg suburbs of Bassonia and Glenvista.

Sadly, Sid passed away in 1972 and he never did see the end result of his work here because the fairways didn’t open for play until a year after his death.

Constructed by the Glen Anil Corporation, the course was purchased by the club five years after it opened when the corporation was liquidated and this led to a whole raft of improvements, including the construction of the present clubhouse and a tennis pavilion.

The 1990s brought a further period of improvements, this time to the golf facility. All eighteen greens were re-laid to USGA standard and an irrigation scheme was installed, with four of the five man-made dams that were constructed brought into play.

The signature hole here is the 10th, where a mid iron tee shot towards Glenvista’s famous 10th dam leaves golfers with another mid iron shot over the dam to a green protected by a bunker at the back.

The toughest hole on the course is the 12th, where out of bounds markers are placed all the way down the right hand side of a fairway that slopes from right to left towards a water hazard. The green is well protected by three bunkers to the front and water to the left.