Course name: Prince's Grant
Location: Stanger, Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa
Four Word Course Review: Surprisingly engaging, memorable greens
In this internet age, it's rare to be completely caught by surprise when visiting a new course. There's just so much information and discussion out there.
But I had never planned to play at Prince's Grant, so anything I might have seen about it in passing didn't register. I set out early on a Monday morning with the intention of playing at Umhlali Country Club, but it was busy and there wasn't availability until later in the morning, so I drove across to Zimbali - a course within a residential and resort development - but they insisted that I had to take a cart and could not walk the course.
Returning home frustrated, a non-golfer relative said he had heard Prince's Grant was good, and at the very least that it was picturesque. I drove the half-hour to the course not knowing what to expect, but interested to see it.
Three hours later, I was stunned by what a fun set of greens the course had - making approach shots, greenside recoveries and putting a real highlight. Smart contouring that tied in with the design of the hole at large made placement crucial and there was immense variety from hole to hole.
Though the course is set within a residential development, the routing was for the most part extremely walkable - the only exceptions coming from the 2nd green to 3rd tee and 3rd green to 4th tee, both of which involved trekking along residential streets, through a cookie-cutter neighbourhood that looked like The Truman Show could have been filmed there.
Accepting that those sorts of compromises are part and parcel of this kind of golf course, it was good at least to get that out of the way early in the round.
The front nine offers some early highlights - a drop shot par three at the 3rd with a wild "speedbump" green, the uphill approach to the 4th green with its false-front staring back at you and the par five, three, four stretch of the 7th, 8th and 9th each using some dramatic land in different ways: a Biarritz inspired green, a tough benched one-shotter and a rollicking fairway.
The back starts and finishes strong with the linksy par four 10th and exposed ridge-top par three 11th, intimidating long par three 17th and par five finishing hole that makes great use of a creek beginning in the fairway before wrapping around the green.
Width is generous throughout - a must for such a windy site - which ensured even when the breeze reached three clubs in strength late in the round every hole was comfortably playable.
