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.

Felix Oliver

Gauteng

South African PGA

South Africa

The Wanderers Golf Club moved to its present site in 1937, when it became clear that the club had outgrown its previous location. Club Captain Felix Oliver assisted architect Bob Grimsdell with laying out the original 10-hole course which was extended to a full 18-hole layout by 1942. Three of the opening holes were redesigned in the early 1950s due to construction work on the Wanderers cricket stadium then Rob O’Friel re-laid the greens and revamped the bunker complexes in 1999/2000.

Home to the very successful PGA tournament between 1972 and 1995, the Wanderers was a firm favourite of the professionals, where they relished the challenge of shaping tee shots through the long, narrow avenues of trees on this lovely parkland course. It was the PGA that finally persuaded the club to re-sequence the holes as they felt the old 9th hole was a better finishing hole than the 18th.

Most of the SA PGA champions during the event’s 24-year tenure at the club were South African but there were also a handful of non-indigenous winners in between Harold Henning’s victory in 1972 and Ernie Els’s triumph in 1995, namely Americans Tom Weiskopf (1973), Hale Irwin (1978) and Corey Pavin (1983) then Tony Johnstone (1989) and Mark McNulty (1993) from Zimbabwe.


Water, in the form of ponds and streams, comes into play between holes 10 and 12 (where the floodlights from the famous Wanderers cricket ground loom large in the background) but the most difficult three holes are kept until the very end of the round. The long par four 16th plays uphill all the way, followed by an innocuous looking, but potentially card-wrecking, par three. The home hole at the 18th is rated stroke index three on the scorecard so no easy finish here!

Wanderers

Glendower

Africa

Home to the PGA tournament between 1972 & 1995, the Wanderers was a firm favourite of the Pros, where they relished the challenge of shaping tee shots through the long, narrow avenues of trees...