75 - Paarl Golf Club (Old)

Location: Paarl, South Africa

Rating: 7.8

If youre travelling through the Cape winelands and you don’t fancy shelling out for Pearl Valley, get yourself down to Paarl Boschenmeer Golf Club. It’s a brilliant club with 3 x 9 hole courses and in great condition.

I played the Old course which are the two starting and finishing in front of the clubhouse and it’s a tough test. It’s quite long off the men’s teas at roughly 6,000 meters and the first 4 or 5 holes on each 9 are straight out into the wind. The course has an abundance of trees to get stuck behind and is generally in great condition. There are fantastic mountain backdrops all around. Think my favourite hole was the 13th, a 300 meter par 4 dog-legging to the right with a ditch before the green. Not the longest but a good challenge to hit the right spots.

I played here on a Friday in the middle of summer and the round was relatively quick. There’s a beautiful clubhouse and a very good halfway house as well as a well stocked pro shop.

Sadly there was no driving range but there is a net, a pitching area and a couple of practice putting greens.