Oppenheimer Park

Situated just outside the mining town of Welkom, which lies around 140 kilometres northeast of provincial capital Bloemfontein, the course at Oppenheimer Park Golf Club is set on the edge of a large dam where thousands of pink flamingos congregate. It’s a veritable green oasis in a landscape marred by thousands of acres of spoil from the large-scale mining operations.

Established in 1948, the course is a Bob Grimsdell design that has changed little in over seventy years of operation. The South African Amateur championship has been held here three times, with David Frost losing in the 1981 final and Ernie Els also finishing as runner-up in 1988. Englishman David Dixon won the 2001 event with a narrow 1-up victory.

In this extract from the book South African Golf Courses: A Portrait of the Best author Stuart McLean writes: “Few South African golf courses are named after famous people, but it is appropriate in this instance as Oppenheimer Park Golf Club is owned and subsidized by the Anglo-American corporation, which was founded by Sir Ernest Oppenheimer.

The club’s crest is a large lizard, Cordylus giganteus, which is more locally known as the Ou Volk lizard. During construction they were found in abundance around the course. The ‘Thursday Club’ members are known as Die Ou Volkers (the old people) to this day.”

The tree-lined holes are laid out as two returning nines, each of which measure in excess of 3,000 metres, and both circuits open with challenging par fours, rated stroke index 3 and 2 respectively. Feature holes include the par three 3rd, which plays across an inlet in the dam, and the par four 15th, located in the northernmost portion of the property.