I built Pin High because I got tired of being told what the best golf courses in South Africa are by people whose list never looked anything like mine. So it would be a bit rich of me to hide behind the rankings and never put my own neck out. Here are my ten.
Fair warning before you scroll: there is no Fancourt Links here. No Leopard Creek. No Blair Atholl, no Gary Player Country Club. Of my ten, exactly one — St Francis Links — appears in Golf Digest's top ten. That is not me being contrary for the sake of it. It is just what happens when you rank the courses you actually play rather than the ones you are supposed to admire.
1. Ebotse Links, Benoni
Links golf on the East Rand sounds like a marketing department's invention until you play it. Water is in play on more holes than you would like, the conditioning is as good as anything in Gauteng, and it asks you to think off the tee in a way most parkland courses around Joburg simply do not. Home-track bias? Maybe. I'd still play it tomorrow.
2. Cotswold Downs, Hillcrest
The Upper Highway air, rolling estate ground, and greens that roll truer than they have any right to. Cotswold is the course I use as a benchmark for conditioning — when people tell me a course is "immaculate", I ask whether it's Cotswold immaculate. Usually it isn't.
3. Wild Coast Sun, Port Edward
Robert Trent Jones Jr routed this thing over ravines and gorges above the Indian Ocean and clearly enjoyed himself. It is not long. It does not need to be. You will hit a tee shot across a gorge that you will still be describing to people a year later, and that — for me — is worth more than another 7,400-metre championship slog.
4. Hermanus Golf Club — all of it
Twenty-seven holes of coastal fynbos under the Kleinriviersberge with Walker Bay sitting there behind you, and three different championship routings depending on which nines you draw. I am cheating slightly by counting the whole club as one entry, but I refuse to pick between them. Play the East, then come back and play the North. Whales optional but frequent.
5. East London Golf Club
The one on this list that the traditionalists will nod along to. Coastal bush, dune-top ocean views, and a routing that has been quietly testing good players for generations. It has hosted the country's best and it still holds up. If you have driven past East London on the N2 without stopping, you have made a mistake.
6. St Francis Links
The one overlap with the panels — and they are right about it. Nicklaus threaded it through enormous dunes and left the wind to do the rest, which means you can play it twice in two days and swear they moved the tees. Worth noting: as I write this it is the highest-rated course on Pin High among those with three or more golfer ratings. The people and the panel agree for once.
7. Pezula, Knysna
Ronald Fream's clifftop layout on the Knysna Heads, cut through fynbos with the Indian Ocean doing its thing below. Some golfers find it a touch severe. I find it unforgettable, which counts for more. Bring more balls than you think you need.
8. Pretoria Country Club
The capital's grande dame at Waterkloof. Proper championship parkland with a serious amateur history in its bones, mature trees that punish you for the sin of being slightly offline, and a clubhouse that feels like it has seen things. Old-school in the best sense.
9. Zebula, Bela-Bela
Bushveld golf in the Waterberg with game wandering the estate, which does interesting things to your concentration over a four-footer. Is it the toughest test on this list? No. Is it one of the most enjoyable weekends of golf you can have in this country? Comfortably yes. Not every round has to be an examination.
10. Umdoni Park, Pennington
Forest and sea on the KZN south coast, monkeys in the trees, and a chance of whales from the clubhouse. Umdoni is the kind of course that does not shout about itself and does not need to. If you want to understand why South Africans love their old coastal courses, start here.
Now the part that matters
This is one golfer's list. It leans coastal, it leans towards courses I can get to, and it is unquestionably shaped by who I was playing with and whether I was putting well that week. Yours will be different, and that is precisely the point — a ranking built from a few dozen panel visits can never capture that, but a ranking built from thousands of golfers' lists can get remarkably close.
So put yours on the record. Rate the ten courses you would play tomorrow — it takes about thirty seconds each — and tell me in the comments which of mine I have got badly wrong. Somebody is going to fight me about Zebula. I can feel it.
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