After having played here about 5 years ago, I revisited Langebaan Country Estate. The course is located on the Atlantic Ocean, around 2 hours North of Capetown. The most obvious change is the number of houses on the estate being up now. Architecturally most of them are not very appealing though. Also most houses are situated very close to each other. The golf course is a Gary Player (The Black Knight) design.

There are plenty of parking spots and after a short walk you arrive at the clubhouse, with beautiful views of the ocean and lagoon, the water features of holes 9 and 18 and the putting green. Checking in went very smooth and friendly and I was able to get a twilight special rate. That included 18 holes and a complimentary drink after the round. I had a quick lunch at the downstairs cafe. The upstairs members lounge offers more luxury and stunning views of the surrounds. The downstairs changing room is a modern facility with about 8 showers and plenty of lockers.

I did not use the driving range but quickly warmed up on the putting green in front of the clubhouse. "No chipping on the putting green" does apply, as it should be, even though at the end of the round there was someone putting on slippers / slops.

The course is flat and very walkable, but buggies are available. There are black and white tees for the gentleman, blue tees for gentleman seniors and red tees for the ladies. The tee boxes, fairways, fringes and even the rough generally seemed very well maintained. As a result of the recent drought the greens were a tad battered, almost as new grass is coming up to replace the old. That made the roll of the ball not very true. The greens also were quite slow. What struck me as well is that most of the times you think you see a break, it is better to sort of ignore it. To me it seemed the tee boxes were not all completely level, so you get a free draw or fade if you are not careful. Also the grass on the tee box was too high. There is no hole outlay at the tee boxes, so from time to time you can be puzzled what shot to play from the tee box. This would be a massive improvement for the course. I have not checked with the pro-shop if stroke savers are available. Another minus is the quality of the scorecard that is made of too thin a paper type. So with a few tiny low cost adjustments the course should be able to improve itself.

Typically, most of the par 4's are quite long. So hitting the green in regulation (I played from the white tees) was quite a challenge from time to time. Especially since the first and second cut just off the fairways have pretty high grass of a rather rough and sticky nature. I played on a calm wind day, but I can assure you that when the typical storms blaze over the course you have an extra factor to consider. I would not say you would loose many balls on Langebaan, but be careful on holes 9 and 18 where large lakes come into play. Bunkers are placed at their normal strategic position. I can't comment on the quality on the bunkers since it was pretty wet due to the rain and I never hit the ball in any of them.

A feature of GP's design are the boulders or rocks placed in waste areas made from sea shells. The course offers a wide variety of bok / antilopes, primarily the stunning Bontebok, Springbok and Duikers. The course is like a public toilet for the Egyptian Geese, that freely leave their droppings all over the place as a natural manure. An high pressure air-blower at he clubhouse would be very much appreciated for shoes and trolleys.

As there only are a few doglegs and most of the holes are pretty straight, coupled with a limited number of water features, I was not really challenged by the course. Just the length of the par 4's and the wind factor can make it hard from time to time. Other then that the course plays very nice and friendly.

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