Day Trips

Feb. 17th: There are many world-class golf courses close by. Fancourt, in George, has 3 of the top 20 courses in South Africa. Knysna also has 2 stunning courses which Larry has played in the past. Since we hadn’t played much golf lately, we decided to start with a lesser course, Sedge Links Short Course in Sedgefield.

Calling Sedge Links a golf course may be a bit of an exaggeration as it is really a field with randomly placed pins, little ponds and moguls everywhere and thick grasses that eat your balls. It started out fine – we picked our clubs from an assortment of “well used” clubs. Larry noticed my bag was missing a putter so he found a putter in another bag and added it to mine. We purchased 6 balls (3 each) and 2 tees each which we thought would be ample for 9 holes on a short, fairly flat course. Off we headed for a leisurely 9 holes before dinner at Rosie’s Upstairs.

First hole, Larry’s ball went in a pond, and his second landed on the tee box of what we think was the 3rd hole (very narrow fairways but thank goodness only a few people on the course). My first shot only went a few yards so at least I could find it. Putting was a bit challenging as my putter (which we took from another bag) was for a leftie as were a couple of my other clubs. We managed to finish the 1st hole with 5 balls left. As we looked around for the 2nd hole, we were hopeful for better shots now that 1st hole jitters were over. Little did we know that even finding our next hole would not be easy because of a very confusing layout e.g., the 2nd hole tee box was behind the first tee box. Sadly, shots did not get better. By the 3rd tee, we are down to 3 balls between us and 1/2 a tee. A fellow, who thankfully played through, gave me a few tees, so we thought we were set; however, by the 5th hole we had only 1 ball left (but 5 tees). Luckily a couple wanting us to play through gave us a ball (that is all they could spare as they were also struggling). Larry hit ….into a hidden pond. I then hit with the only remaining ball …..yes, the grasses ate up my florescent orange ball, never to be seen again. 5th hole, no balls, but we do have tees. Only one thing to do – head back to Rosie’s for well deserved drinks. We are definitely not ready for a real course nor are the courses ready for us. Many laughs at dinner remembering a disastrous, but fun “golf game”. Rosie’s was as good as we remembered.

A few pictures from our morning beach walk, Sedge Links, Rosie’s, and sundowner at Views Bar in Wilderness.