Latest News - October 2025

Jason Syme  GENERAL MANAGER

Dear Members,

It’s hard to believe how yet another year is shooting by and we are already into October. It seems as we get older time just speeds up and before we know it we will be in 2026.

On the club front though, it has been a successful year so far with many rounds being played and we are encouraged by the compliments received from not only our members, but particularly from the visitors who come to play our great golf course. These are for the golf course itself, our great facilities of which our Lapa Bar is always mentioned as well as the Hole in One.

I would like to welcome Rusty van der Walt as our new Food and Beverage Manager, and we all look forward to a successful journey ahead. Please note that the Lapa Bar is still run by the Krugersdorp Golf Club, so nothing changes, but we want to offer the members and visitors the best experience through optimised offerings for all to enjoy. Please keep your eye open for some great specials at the bar as well as our new extensive wine offerings.

The Lapa Bar itself has been very busy lately which is great for the club, not mention the great vibe. The introduction of background music has been very much supported by the vast majority of members who commented on how they are enjoying it, specifically on Saturdays and Sundays.

We have done many repairs in and around the club house which is not always visible to everyone but is an ongoing project. We have fixed the roofs outside the hall downstairs and by the balcony in the top bar which had fallen. We have varnished all the paving / bricks outside the offices and along the front of the Hole in One and all is looking like new again. We are always repairing and looking at purchasing a few more wooden benches for the Lapa Bar.

We are in the process of renewing the contract for all the equipment in the bathrooms and changerooms so very soon we will have brand new equipment installed. We have already replaced all the toilet seats in the men’s changerooms and toilets as well as the necessary repairs in the ladies.

On the course I would like to thank Johan our greenkeeper and his staff for all the hard work on a week-to-week basis and with all the new projects we have taken on. We have recently done new paving on the 1^st, 6^th and the 18^th by the green. This helps protect the carts as well as just looks much better on the eye instead of sand and dead grass. We also have cemented and put a secure fence around the electrical substation behind the pump house. Recently the area was all dug up in an attempt to steal cables which will now be very difficult to achieve.

I would like to remind all members that we do still have opportunities for sponsorship on our advertising boards, on the course and on golf carts. It is a great way to get your business known and visible so please give us a call if you are interested in any of these spots.

Personally I would like to thank the members that always raise their hands to help with things around the club to make it a better place. Without you and your contributions, all would be much more difficult to achieve.

I look forward to seeing you all soon under the Lapa and enjoying a cold beverage of your choice.

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Calvin Caldiera  GOLF DIRECTOR

Wow, what a busy period we have had the past few months! Golf Day Season is in full swing and we have had a tremendous amount of bookings through August and September, doing over 7200 rounds in just 2 months. Although is great for turnover, it does require some serious juggling to still ensure we are offering times during the week to you, our members. We had the Bushveld Tour visiting us from 6-8 October and the Big Easy Tour will return on 10-13 November, so still a busy push until the beginning of December when social golf takes over again. I would like to thank our members for their patience and understanding during this period, I know it is not easy sharing our course with all of these days, but it is a crucial time of the year for us to maximize income and ensure we remain financially where we need to be, in order for us to present the best course to you for the rest of the year.

CALVIN'S TEE

THE COURSE

Not only has the course been busy with players, but we have been in full action mode making numerous changes before the rains arrive to help these recover as quickly as possible. We decided to put together an extensive watering program throughout the Winter for the first time ever, just to help us recover quicker to avoid having the same dry conditions we had last year. I believe this has made a huge impact and we are already looking much greener and healthier than we did at the same time last year, so we should hopefully stay green throughout the Summer months and not see too much burning happening. I hope you all like what you see so far in terms of all the new additions, and I am sure in a few months we will be seeing some amazing changes when all of these start growing.

• Greens - At this time of the year coming out of winter we always see quite a lot of poa annua grass coming through, as the seed heads are produced once temperatures increase, which does affect the smoothness of the surface, but as temperatures further increase to more than 28 degrees this grass becomes dormant and will disappear. We are however spraying a chemical to stop it from spreading and plan to do a light verti-cutting and dusting treatment in the coming weeks. We would however like to get a bit more moisture into the ground first as to not stress our grass, and that is why we have really been putting a lot of water down of late to get us ready for this process to happen. It is crucial to do this at the right time as our green base is still quite dry and adding sand unfortunately traps heat, so doing so before rain can result in burning spots which take months to recover. We do however know that the greens have been slower and bumpier than usual, but can assure you that this will improve once the treatment is done.

• Paving - We extended the paving at #1 to the Red/Blue tees, we joined the paving at #6 to create a non-stop pathway tee to green, and we extended the paving right of the 18^th Green creating a ramp up to the main pathway. All of these were done to areas that experienced high traffic and because of that had such bad wear creating horrible dry patches that not only look horrible but are also not good for our carts.

• Tee Boxes -  We have built new slightly raised platforms at holes 1, 3, 5, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17 & 18 which will be mainly for the Green Tee markers, but will also give us additional options for the Red Tees from time to time. We are also building a new Tee Box on hole 18 -  This tee which is situated far left, about 270m from the green, gives us a great option for our Blue/Red Tees as an additional tee box, but will also create a great chance at a drivable risk & reward par 4 for the White Tees on the odd occasion. We have planted some beautiful Leopard Trees around this to create an amphitheatre in years to come.

• Bunkers – We have built two new bunkers on holes 13 & 14 which serve two completely different functions. The one on 13 is more of a visual aid when driving the ball, to help see where the left edge of the fairway is. Once completed it should really frame this fairway’s left to right shape. I tried to place it in such an area that it wouldn’t punish a good drive down the middle, and also wouldn’t be in play for 90% of players especially during the summer months, but the main line did force us to bring it about 10m closer to the tee than we initially planned. The one on #14 is actually there to catch and assist any balls hit long and left, stopping them from running off into that bare and bushy area on the far left. By adding some trees behind that to hide the bush, planting a few indigenous Willows left of the green and completing this bunker I think we will have restored a beautiful part of the course that took a massive knock when we lost the original willow a few years ago.

• Trees – This is a signature characteristic of our course that requires constant work. We have added over 150 trees and shrubs around the course to help us maintain our tree-lined holes. We carefully selected many different kinds of trees to complement each hole, including White Karee, Liquid Ambers, Sneezewood, Populus Simonii (Simons Poplar), Leopard Trees, Conifers and Indiginous Willows and a few variations of Acacia to name just a few. Some were planted in areas that were open after losing trees in the past, but we also planted conifers at the 10^th Tee to hide the staff area as well as the car park, and at the 18^th Tee to hide the wall creating a lovely green backdrop. Behind the 4^th Green we planted a row of Simons Poplars to also create a green wall hiding the dumping area in the future. We have also planted some Star Jasmine along the 2^nd Tee box, this will hide the wall itself but will also create a wonderful hedge that smells amazing.

• Gardens – Johan has done an amazing job restoring the gardens over the past few years, this time he tackled the garden right of the 4^th green, the entrance gardens, as well as building a new garden to the right of the 18^th tee. All of these we have decided to include as many succulents and aloes as possible and have also put a few Alaskan Tree Ferns at the entrance. These are not only water-wise options but will also become a beautiful array of color once all of the succulents and aloes start blooming.

THE PRO SHOP We had an amazing Footjoy fitting day early in September, putting some new shoes into the hands of many of our members, thank you to everybody who came out to support this event. I have added to our Ladies range and have put all of Footjoy’s new range into stock, so please do ensure you utilize the fitting option when looking for shoes with either Charl or Jodan. We have added a few new brands such as Black Clover and BEA Active into the shop, and will also be receiving some summer offerings in the weeks to come. COURSE ACCESSORIES Over the past few months we have added many accessories onto the course which I hope many of you have noticed. We installed new fairway distance plates, fairway distance poles on both sides of the fairways, and just recently a new set of tee markers which have all 5 tee options looking the same. A huge thank you to the members who put their hands up to sponsor some of these, I think they really add to the experience of playing at Krugersdorp. 

The golfing world is currently booming with many new players coming into the game, the amount of support the sport is receiving globally is overwhelming and should see positive growth through the festive period which is wonderful to see. A huge initiative of growing the game by introducing shorter, faster rounds to become more inclusive to the new player who might not have the time to spend an entire day at the course is well underway and hopefully this helps growing member numbers around the world. Her at Krugersdorp, we cannot be successful if not for the support of our members, annual golf days and regular groups that enjoy our course, so thank you all for your contributions over the winter period and we look forward to finishing the year on a high together.

Happy Golfing! CAPTAINS CORNER - Check out the latest from the Captain’s Corner — click the link below!