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Golf Business News – Letters from Africa January 2025 – ‘Renovations’, Slots, Dongas and Crocodiles!

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January 16, 2025 5:47 pm – Opinion – This story was updated on Friday, January 17, 2025

In a recent Letter from Africa (written by John Cockayne), I wrote about the greatest races on the continent, including (in no particular order) the Ducey Canoe Marathon, the Comrades Marathon, the Durban July Race and Sardine Run.

I also recently wrote about how the interior of South Africa is almost deserted throughout December as South Africans go “home” for the year-end holidays, or to the beach!

Of course, despite the heroic efforts of all South Africa's traffic enforcement agencies, this migration may well be seen as the fifth “greatest race”, with its main routes being Gauteng and Zimbabwe, Queensland and the Western Cape between.

The influx of people into coastal areas is a major boost to the economy – although many people who live in these areas year-round – residents of destinations such as Bournemouth, and those who live along much of England's southwest coastline will exactly Know what I'm talking about!

It’s fair to say that without this regular influx (the “king” in southern Africa is December) many destinations would become economically unviable.

Of course, everything will be packed – including the golf courses, which get a literal “bump” from early December to the end of the first week of January.

The coast can be very busy at times, and a friend of mine recalled one time when they were waiting to cross the road to go to the Shelly Center in Shelly Beach (a small coastal village on South Africa's Indian Ocean coastline) because they had a parking lot due to the shopping center being full. , so he was forced to park his car in the “suburbs”. After waiting quite a while for a break in traffic, my friend's father-in-law said, “The only way you can be on that side of the road in December is if you were born there!”

They say it's truest to say it in jest, so after halfway through the South Coast in mid-2024, we reversed the natural flow and order of things and drove back to Gauteng for Christmas and New Year.

As well as trading a month's worth of queuing around the shopping center for parking as you wish, with 15 cars an hour on the inland lanes instead of 1,500 cars an hour along the coast, there were several other factors that prompted the decision.

December – Migrate east from Johannesburg to the coast
IOL – Connecting South Africa’s News/ www.iol.co.za

The first was my recent visit to the Beverly Hills, the grand dame hotel of the Southern Sun Hotel Group.

As a family, our personal connection to this hotel (the first hotel of the late, great Sol Kerzner – who was also the visionary behind Suncity) dates back to that first visit in 1969, and in the following We have returned on many local occasions over the years.

The hotel must continue to evolve, but must also balance the need for change with the need to retain the traditional features and services that have become loved and familiar to regular guests, a process that has been under the guidance of the hotel's newest general manager. The hands are still full of life and vitality.

Beverly Hills Guest Lounge

The trip to Beverly Hills was a very pleasant prelude to a stay at the Thornton Sun Tower Hotel and I was looking forward to seeing the newly renovated Thornton Tower Hotel which has received significant upgrades during the year.

The reinvestment has cost tens of millions of rand, and Jacques Heath, the hotel's resident manager, briefs me on key aspects of the refurbishment. This included a complete reconfiguration of the “backend” of sprinkler systems and pipes, areas that, when working properly, make managers' eyes brighten and bring smiles to employees' faces. !

Thornton Tower reception area

The public areas and rooms have been refurbished, which is your first impression as a guest – smart, modern (but not so modern that it becomes dated in 10 minutes!) and functional. In terms of the latter, a perfect example is the greatly extended comfortable seating area, especially in front of the reception desk, where international crew members mingle and exchange news as they switch and swap duties, and where hotel guests can wait for their taxis Relax or have your guests arrive.

New bedrooms at Thornton Towers

All in all, the money is well spent and the results are obvious.

Oddly enough, what caught my attention the most was the recycling of old boilers deep within the hotel, especially in an age of over-consumption. After being cleaned and resurfaced with ceramics, these old servants of the hotel now hold 38,000 liters of reserve water – ideal for Johannesburg, which, like many cities around the world, faces rapidly increasing pressure to 'water' its growing population .

By the way, for those of you who haven't been to our “south”, Johannesburg is the largest non-riverside city in the world. In fact, maybe that's not entirely true, because there is a river that, although not of water, is made of gold!

The first part of the trip was spent at the Sandton Sun Hotel, which reminded me that the city of Sandton is perfectly situated for golfers to access the area's superb golf courses – thanks in no small part to the fact that the golf courses are in excellent condition The climate (this is in no way to diminish the excellent efforts of the area's course management teams!), and from a course maintenance perspective, it's simply fantastic.

That said, non-golfers at home can explore the delights of Sandton City and Sandton Square, both of which are accessible by simply rolling out of bed in Sandton Sun or Sandton Towers!

Plus, it's not far from Cité del Sol where golf and gaming can be combined, although not in the way an unsuspecting American tourist might expect.

A few years ago, the aforementioned American hit his golf ball into a water hazard (the front and left side of the putting surface) and he happily crawled into the water hazard to retrieve his golf ball, which was lying On the dirt a few meters away.

The 13th hole at Lost City Golf Course in Sun City (Getty Images)

It was only the group behind that alerted him to the danger, their voices finally carried from the tee to down the hill, shouting something that sounded very similar to them – “Get out, those alligators are real!”

Of course it is, but in this case, when there was a fancy-dressed golf tourist in their “space”, they were acting obtuse and uninterested because they had just fed about 500kg of chickens and were basking in the sun. Acting very sluggish.

After sharing this story with a friend's parents (who are from Ireland) we continued on to the 14th.

After seeing the alligator firsthand, they asked if there were any “hidden” challenges to the tee shot on this hole, and I replied – no, other than a few alligators running through the fairway.

The eyes of those Irishmen were not smiling now, but filled with a slight fear, which prompted them to ask what “dongas” were. At this point our Number Four stepped in to calm their nerves, announcing with that intention – “Ah, don't worry, John was just referring to the slot machines!”

Order was finally restored after we explained that these were local terms for canyons and dry waterways (my partner has since become known as “sloot Jordan” in a golfing setting) and we finally teed off.

However, I had the feeling that our guests were still not quite comfortable during the remaining 9 holes – no doubt wondering how big the slot machines and/or dongas actually were and whether they were capable of exceeding full speed golf cart!

Well, golf in Africa is not for the faint of heart, as this video shot on the terrace of Skukuza Golf Club in Kruger National Park will show:

John Cockayne

Executive Editor of Golf Business – Africa's top golf business publication. www.thebusinessofgolf.com

Email: cathco@mweb.co.za

Mobile: 0027 73 8967931

Skukuza Golf Club in Kruger Park, South Africa – has hazards you won’t see on any of Surrey’s darkest courses, as shown in the clip at the end of this column!


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