Professional golfer and Founder and Managing Editor of Business of Golf Magazine, John Cockayne, provides his insights on some of the local golf resorts featured on the Top 100 Golf Resorts listing.
Fancourt, near George in the Garden Route tops the list of the Southern African and Indian Ocean Islands resorts featured in Golf World’s recently published ‘best of list’, with no fewer than seven of the region’s resorts making it into the Top 100 Global Golf Resorts listing.
The region is blessed with many golfing riches, and both its resident golfers and its many international visitors are spoiled for choice.
South Africa’s Fancourt can therefore be justifiably proud that by coming in at number 13, the resort topped the category of those of the region’s venues listed by the publication.
Golf World’s ranking included Sun City at number 15 and no fewer that five of Mauritius’s resorts (all in the top 55), which, in order, were Belle Mare Plage, Le Touessrok, Heritage Awali, Le Paradis and Anahita, while the group was completed by Lemuria in the Seychelles, which was listed at number 32.
Personal experience
I have stayed at five of the seven venues featured and can confirm, from personal experience, that Fancourt is in great company.
The achievement is all the more noteworthy, when you read through the names on the rest of the top 100 resorts’ list, which comprises a mouth-watering golfing smorgasbord of the world’s most iconic and sought-after destinations, from Pebble Beach and Kiawah Island (both in the US, with the latter recently hosting the Ryder Cup), to Turnberry (UK) and Sandals Emerald Bay in the Bahamas.
All those featured are great golf venues, but significantly double as great destinations for a family vacation. They are so good in this respect that when you are away from the family and out on the links, you might not even be missed!
In this respect, Fancourt is in this same mould; a superb resort, developed on 613 hectares of lush countryside with, as its backdrop, the Outeniqua Mountains. It is home to three Gary Player-designed courses, which are all ranked in South Africa’s top-100 courses, while the Links is also in the World Top 100.
These resorts offer fabulous accommodation, as anyone who has had breakfast on the balcony of one of Le Touessrok’s Ocean Suites will confirm.
This is no different at Fancourt as the Fancourt Hotel has 115 luxurious rooms and suites, while the Spa has an indoor heated Roman Bath and a range of wellness treatments. Its Leisure Centre, as every family would hope, offers an array of facilities, from a ‘Kidz Club’, gym and cinema, to indoor heated and outdoor swimming pools and tennis.
Every one of the resorts featured is to be congratulated on making the top 100 listing, and in helping to keep the region’s golf flag flying in front the game’s global travel audience.
