209 - Royal Johannesburg (East)

Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

Rating: 8.0

My second stop in Johannesburg and lucky to play both courses at Royal Johannesburg on the same day. Starting on the East course in the morning I teed off at the crack of dawn having learnt my lesson from the day before and layering up slightly more. Luckily my clubs had arrived by now! It is another relatively long course at 6,400 meters but again playing at altitude it doesn’t play as long as it would seem.

The East course is another really well manicured parkland course in very good condition once again coming out of a dry Jo’burg winter. I felt that where Glendower utilized their water features really well, the East course had more changes in elevation and really harnessed the natural landscape with sloping fairways and bunkers placed strategically to catch balls filtering in their direction.

The opening hole is a relatively gentle start with a downhill par 5 measuring at 450 meters which at high altitude isn’t long at all, a very generous start to the round followed by another downhill hole, this time a long par 3 but nothing too drastic. You continue to work your way down to the end of the property but what I found better about Royal Jo’burg than the day before was the course was more protected from the outside world in terms of tree lined perimeters taking away the immediate sight of an abundance of houses, giving you the feeling of being in nature whilst in the middle of a city.

The 11th was my favourite on the course. A par 4 with a lovely view down the hill, bending to the right with water short of the green. It is also coincidentally stroke index 1. Despite being wide open off the tee you need to be far enough right but not too far but also far enough to get past the trees on the right to give yourself a shot at the green in two. A wonderfully crafted hole!

It’s the small things that set these courses apart from the other parkland course in Johannesburg like the maintenance of the plants in front of the 7th tee box and the beautiful stone bridge. I also really enjoyed the flowering on the 16th, a short par 3 directly over a pond with great shrubbery all the way around.

Another really fun course to play, tough but not too challenging! The more expensive of the two courses but R1,600 for a round by European standards is still decent value for money. I’ll continue with my review of the facilities and club in my review of the West course.