Pinnacle Point Estate

According to Peter Matkovich – the architect behind Pinnacle Point – this is: “The most dramatic golf course site I've ever encountered anywhere in the world!”

The following edited extract is taken from South Africa's Greatest Golf Destinations by Jamie Thom and Stuart McLean:

“No South African course has created quite such a buzz within the international golf community as Pinnacle Point near Mossel Bay. It was named as one of the ten best new courses in the world soon after opening, and acclaim for its rugged beauty and dramatic holes has made it one of the most talked-about golfing destinations.

The reason for the hullabaloo is simple: no golf course designer before Peter Matkovich had previously been given the opportunity to work on such an extremely high site next to the ocean, and to build a continuous stretch of holes that hop and skip for a few kilometres, from the edge of one sheer cliff to another, suspended above pounding surf.

It took Matkovich’s bold and creative thinking even to contemplate the possibility of laying out eighteen holes on steeply sloping rocky terrain that seemed ill suited for the game of golf. Matkovich has succeeded spectacularly by letting his imagination run wild, and allowing the terrain to dictate the flow of the course.

He found room for three adventurous par threes on the cliffs, greens perched perilously close to the edge, created a short par four where the direct route to the green requires a 200-metre carry over a rocky inlet, and finished with a risk-and-reward par five banking along the side of the cliffs to its green on a headland.

The opening holes climb away inland away from the clubhouse before turning and falling back towards the ocean. There are thrilling drops in elevation before you reach the cliffs and play the short par three 7th, a flick wedge to a green on a rocky promontory. The back nine is routed in a figure of eight along the coastline, each hole having its own spectacular view.”