Wanderers

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!