The golf course that survives against all odds (Sept 2009)

What golf course hasn’t had its fair share of trouble? Red imported fire ants continue to chomp into Texan greens, while Thai golf courses battle with termite invasions. A crocodile at the 13th hole of the Lost City Golf Course in South Africa once scared a few punters away. Down Under’s solution to a freshwater version wallowing in a lake at the 14th hole on a course in Townsville, Australia, was to tell players that it was posing “no significant threat” and to resume play.

Following the reptilian thread, the one about the crocodile that ate a golfer on The Breakers Hotel golf course in Palm Beach, Florida, is a complete hoax (but it makes a great story).

Every African golf course has its uninvited visitors, including the unfenced Skukuza Golf Course in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, where the signature 9th hole is played across Lake Panic, aptly named as there are quite a few hippopotami, impalas, warthogs, baboons and giraffes down by the lake side as well.

But a golf course that I feel deserves special praise is one in Zimbabwe, which has survived human rather than nature’s mismanagement.

Leopard Rock, a chateau-style 58- room hotel complete with turrets opened in 1946 in the country’s undulating Eastern Highlands hills, was badly damaged by rocket fire in the 1970s,
closed in 1980 due to fuel shortages, then finally reopened in 1993. At the same time a magnificent PGA 18-hole championship golf course was built here to United States Golf Association specifications.

It has since then impressed the golfing world with many accolades including being awarded the Hertz International Travel Award for the Best Golf Course in Africa and Middle East in 2000. This year it joined the Prestige Collection, a group of the world’s best golf resorts. Gary Player, Nick Price, Ian Botham, Mark MacNulty and others of note have all played here.

All well and good, but it is the toil behind the scenes that makes this place special. For the last 10 years the country’s internal strife – ranging from mismanaged elections, stealth of third-generation- owned farm land, the highest inflation rate in the world, plus serious health issues – has obviously affected the golf course too.

A countrywide lack of infrastructure means shortages of essential commodities like water for the grass, power for the mowers and fuel for just about everything else. For almost a year the resort has not had a landline telephone, and the nearest hilltop to get a mobile phone signal is nine miles away. Power remains intermittent, and when there is a fault rather than a scheduled load-shedding from the local power authority, the club professional – who also multi-tasks as the resort’s driver – personally fetches the power supply company employees in the nearest town some 30 km away as they do not have transport (let alone fuel) to fix the problem. The resort has a generator but this too needs fuel. In recent years visitors merely trickled in, so the spotlight was on golfers from within the country.

Last year when inflation was particularly bad, you could buy a Rolls Royce with a certain amount of Zimbabwean dollars one week and the next week all the same amount could buy was a cup of coffee! Local punters therefore offered to pay their greens fee using rice, maize meal, tins of baked beans or petrol coupons.

Baked beans?

“It’s a more stable commodity,” the club pro said at the time. Playing golf with pockets full to the brim of worthless currency notes had its logistical problems too.

This barter trade was, before the Zimbabwe dollar was banished in February in favour of the US dollar, the only way to beat inflation. Other local golf enthusiasts fixed the resort vehicles in exchange for greens fees. When the greenskeeper, a displaced farmer and now also a jack-of-alltrades, was asked how he had managed to maintained the greens so well over the years with sporadic fuel supplies, problems sourcing pesticides and an erratic supply of water his reply was brief.

“We make a plan. Zimbabweans always make a plan.”

Having a skeleton greens keeping staff of 11 has its disadvantages, but all are multi-taskers. Caddies double up as toilet cleaners and hotel waiters improvise if there isn’t a beer in sight (sometimes by sending a runner to Mozambique).

The staff have remained loyal, and are still smiling. They will be smiling even more once the refurbishment plans of the new owners, LonZim are completed. Once visited by the Queen Mother of Great Britain and later on by princess Diana, by May next year Leopard Rock Hotel and its golf course may well host others of their ilk or even more PGA celebrities, for David Lenigas, LonZim executive chairman was intent on holding a PGA golf tournament here “as soon as the refurbishment is completed to relaunch this very special hotel”.

Let’s hope the new unity government has some new infrastructure plans too.

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