Gary Player Country Club - Sun City, by Pierre Lucat 

That's it, pilgrim: You are there! This is what you came for, from far away. This is why you journeyed through hardships and cumbersome trials.

This is the reason why you sat in your car and drove through the searing heat of the wasteland formerly known as Bophutatswana, towards the soaring peaks of the faraway Pilanesberg mountain range.

No, you idiot, I don't mean the slot machines, the one-armed bandits and gambling tables of Sun City.

I'm not referring to that grotesquely bewitching edifice called the 'Lost City' or to the dangling boobs at one of the dance shows in one of the many night clubs.

No, pilgrim, you came for the pure, South African flavour of golf.

And here you found your temple, at the Gary Player Country Club. It doesn't get better than this: Crisp, lightning-fast greens; emerald fairways in mint condition; punishing bush veldt all around you, with thick, thorny vegetation always too near for comfort and that unique, reddish earth to please your eye and fill your heart with fear; a bumpy, up and down-sort of layout; untouched wildlife in chipping distance.

Don't fret if on any given moment a baboon might show up and crouch down near you to watch your next swing. You came here for this, remember?

Don't mistake the Gary Player country club with the golf course at the Lost City, by the way, which is too American and too polished for its own good, with jigsaw puzzle-shaped sand hazards and other shapes and outlines you'll never see in untouched nature. Go there for your holiday golf, as millions of other hackers do.

Still, since they opened the new course, the demographic dynamics did the old course a lot of good, the majority of morons favouring the new one.

But the old course of Gary Player is the one you really want: A true and formidable championship course, hosting the annual "Million Dollar" tournament, perfectly maintained in all regulation areas, but wild and fuzzy around its edges: Don't dare to go too far astray!

The course featuring quite a lot of blind shots and the greens being on the mean side, you might want to employ a caddie for your first round.

At this golf course, all caddies are being thoroughly vetted, and a 1st class caddie will not only carry your bag during a rather long and accidental walk, but also recommend the right clubs and - most important of all - show you the proper line on the sometimes deceiving putting surfaces.

Take a deep breath. Exhale and say 'Aaah!'. Listen to the birds sing. You are standing on the first tee, a straightforward par 4, you think (wait until you see the bumpy green), and the fairway stretches below and in front of you.

This is it! Ahead of you, some 4 hours of hard work, many frustrations and very few gratification’s, provided you manage to get a par or better on this golf course.

One last word of counsel, before you drive off: Always play within your faculties. No heroics, you hear, or you'll get hurt really badly. If you're in the thick stuff, chop it out sideways.

Of course, that goes for all the golf courses you play, but this one here is especially unforgiving.

The fairways are rather large, mostly, but that is all the generosity you can expect: The greens are severely protected and all of them very threeputable.

The par 3's are all a bit on the long side, and the 3rd, playing downhill and its green protected by a pond is asking for pure and uncompromising accuracy.

The first seven holes are quite normal, considering that they are quite long and ruggedly tough, but the fun really starts at the 8th: A long par 4 asking you to hit a blind drive into a downhill landing area, leaving you with a long, uphill second shot across a brook and onto a rather small plateau green.

Survive this one to reach the signature par 5 9th with its island green perched in a small lake near the club house.

Even after laying up and leaving yourself with a comfy little wedge, the water will still be foremost on your mind, thanks to the gushing and gurgling of the artificial waterfalls around the green. The pros can easily reach this green in two. I hate them for this!

The 10th, also a par 5, offers a little reprieve.  You won't see any fairway standing on the tee of the 11th, long par 4: You have to drive your ball over the trees and a deep ditch into the middle of nowhere.

If you haven't got a caddy with you and this is your first round, you're in trouble. Miss hit your drive and don't bother to go looking for your ball. Find the fairway, though, and you're going to feel really good about yourself!

After trodding through the wilderness for a few more holes, first uphill into the Pilanesberg wilderness, then downhill for the last of the par 5's with another island green, this time surrounded by a huge sea of sand, not by water, and finally playing side hill on the par 4 15th, where even a perfect drive along the left edge of the fairway might roll all the way down into the right-hand rough, water will be the main feature of the last three holes.

The par 3 16th has water in front and down the left - and a green like an elephants graveyard. For high-handicappers it's the last decent chance to play a par on this round.

To find the fairway of the par 4 17th, you'll have to carry some 150m of water. Miss it left and your ball is wet; miss it to the right and it's gobbled up by deep sand pits. Find the green somehow, pray for a decent line, but don't be surprised if it's indecent.

The 17 green is quite typical for most of the cloverleaf-shaped greens on this course: It looks quite large, but features many peninsula-like tentacles surrounded by severe slopes. If your approach ends up on the wrong peninsula, you can start to hum the theme from 'Mission Impossible': No straight puts to be had from there.

And so to the long par 4 18th: The drive looks rather straightforward, as long as you manage to keep it out of the marshland on the left-hand side of the fairway.

Walk forward and size up your second shot: You will need a long iron, at least, and will be asked to carry over 120 meters of beautiful lake with a huge water fountain in its middle, to somehow end up on a horseshoe-shaped green guarded by a deep sand hazard, staring at you from afar like an evil eye.

Oh gosh, you'd love to hit that hazard - let alone that green.

Hit the green and listen to your heart sing! It's the end of a wicked, cruel and truly enjoyable round of golf. And just to annoy you one last time: It's a long par 4's walking distance back to the club house and the well deserved refreshments at the 19th hole.

That's it: 4 hours of abuse, trodding through the searing heat of a warm day, kicking up clouds of red dust whenever you walk off the grass, your throat feeling dry and scratchy, fighting every inch of the way - but if you love the game, you'll love every minute of it.

That's what golf is about. That's why you started playing it.

You've asked for it - now you've got it.

Of course, if you're a wimp, rent a caddie car and miss out on the complete experience.

Any drawbacks? Well, this is Sun City, after all. During holidays, the place is packed and they unleash a fourball every 7 minutes, starting at 6:30 A.M. or so, until 6 P.M.

Try and play there outside the holiday season, on a week day, if you don't want to end up playing with a 50 year-old pain-in-the-neck called Bob, wearing silly polka-dot shorts, using stupid special clubs like an Anvil, a 9 wood or a chipper, and constantly telling dirty jokes about his mother-in-law.

Nevertheless, the Gary Player Country Club is what golf in South Africa is all about: Demanding shotmaking in a rugged and enchanting Safari environment.

Both thumbs way up: If you get a chance to play the Gary Player country course, don't let it slip away.