Hermanus is a coastal resort about 1.5 hours drive from Cape Town. I spent most childhood summer holidays here so it is a place close to my heart, not least the golf course.
In recent years the club underwent a huge renovation: in essence, the municipality allowed it a very favourable deal which allowed it to expand to 27 holes, the price of this being that the old course had to be altered in part in order to accommodate housing developments.
So what you have now is 27 holes involving a brand new 9, the old first nine substantially but not completely altered, and the old second nine largely retained, albeit modified.
Peter Matkovich was again the guiding hand behind this development. Considering the heavy holiday traffic this course takes, the extra holes has to represent progress. Having said that, I found the changes, from a golf perspective, a bit disappointing. I say this for three reasons:
- he fiddled gratuitously in some cases where he should have left well alone. There is no better example than the old short 15th - an excellent and demanding hole with a long bunker running down the right side of the hole. For little obvious reason has removed it, got rid of the sandy waste to the right etc. The hole is clearly weaker. Another example would be changes to the old eleventh green where unnecessary mounding introduced at the back of the green has made it easier.
- second, considering that he had a sand-based course close to the sea to work with, it is disappointing that he has gone for the heavily irrigated, lush style of kikuyu fairway rather than allowing some of the other native grasses to flourish, and preventing it having any sort of linksy character.
- finally, on the new nine, i found a number of the greens to be elevated, with soft kikuyu approaches, which made approaches a bit of a lottery. Not only were they a bit formulaic, but difficult to play to, yet not very interesting in the bargain.
It still remains a great place to visit, a well run and vibrant golf club, but I feel the golfing changes are not all for the better.
Hermanus, incidentally, is on Walker Bay, famous as the site where Whales come in great numbers during the calving season.
Most of these next pictures are of the old second nine, which is the least altered.
a few more to follow