Gary Player - The Legend

Gary Player Country Club Is Still a “Green Monster”

Nov 9, 2011 | Filed Under: General NewsGolf Course DesignEvents & Tournaments   

As the 31st edition of the Nedbank Challenge looms, the Gary Player CC layout hasn’t lost any of it’s it’s sparkle.

The Gary Player Country Club layout at Sun City won’t feature any significant changes for this year’s Nedbank Challenge between December 1 and 4 and is now closed for the final stages of preparation for ‘Africa’s Major”.

The course itself, bereft of some much-needed rain of late, remains unchanged, barring a few minor chinks in the set-up to accomodate the Seniors Challenge.

Last year the Seniors Challenge was played as an exhibition event alongside the main tournament, but this year the high-profile golfing “pensioners” will have their own full course set-up, with specific tees allocated to them on holes 2, 5, 8, 9, 11 and 17.

The Seniors Challenge has also been extended to a 54-hole tournament, with a mammoth purse of 880 000 US Dollars.

Director of Golf at Sun City, Antonie Els, also went to great lengths to explain that the 30-year-old irrigation system around the picturesque layout has also been upgraded, a project which featured the installation of 810 new sprinklers and the relocating of the main irrigation lines from the centre of the fairways to the sides.

With lower than average rainfall in the region for this time of year, Els expects the rough to be alot less severe, but as in previous years, the greens are expected to be fast and consistent.

Article courtesy of Trevor Cramer, Jacaranda 94.2 FM, South Africa

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