Golf “
These young people spend a month at the Nature Guide Ranger School learning about the flora and fauna, then they are taught the rules of golf and golf etiquette from scratch
Indigenous youngsters act as both caddies and guides
will propel the ball closer to, or even onto, the green. To keep it competitive, there will be a US$1 million prize for the first hole in one when the course officially opens this year! Trevor Immelman, Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose, Luke Donald and Padraig Harrington are just some of top tour professionals that have experienced the Extreme 19th. When Sergio Garcia visited Legends, he made par with one of his six balls, but his competition ball missed the green and he bogeyed the hole. However, Harrington made a return visit, took four practice balls and then hit his competition ball into the huge bunker surrounding the green. He splashed out, landing eighteen inches from the pin, and sunk the tricky putt to become the first professional to register par. After hovering above the tee for what
Padraig Harrington, the first golf pro to score a competition par at the Extreme 19th
The Extreme 19th is the longest par 3 in the world, has received worldwide publicity and is worthy of that overused word ‘unique’, because there is just no other golf hole like it
”
The Extreme 19th is outside the confines of the Legends course - construction work was halted by lions
42 I PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016
seemed like an eternity, Julian swept down to the green and out over the course for the return trip to the hangar, demonstrating along the way his flying expertise nurtured in the South African Army. From the helicopter, it is possible to really
appreciate the layout of the course and the vastness of the setting. The Kikuyu grass fairways criss-cross this huge area of rolling plain and dense bushveld, with the massive bunkers and several lakes adding definition. My next stop was to visit David Riddle, the
resort’s Golf Director and one of the co- designers of Legend’s 18-hole championship course. He was one of Cilliers’ first hirings and laid out the basic design of the course before handing it over to the eighteen leading professionals from sixteen countries, who then added their own individual touches. “I’ve been here for four years, in fact, since
the very beginning of the project,” he said, “and it’s been an extraordinary experience. There aren’t many courses where construction has been stopped due to lions roaming in the vicinity; but that’s what happened when we were building the Extreme 19th green. They took up residence for a couple of days and we had to wait until they moved on.” “The 19th is outside the confines of the Legends course, which we have fenced off to
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