The missing Links

The Cricket World Cup is going to be the biggest event in South Africa in 2003 but there is a good case to be made that golf’s Presidents Cup will be the most important.

The biennial match between the best golfers from the United States and the Rest of the World (ie. excluding players from Europe) will provide powerplay as never seen before… and that’s before any one of the competitors sets foot on the golf course.

Held under the patronage of the presidents of the most powerful nation in the world the Presidents Cup will be a gathering of enormously influential people, with or without Tiger Woods, that for one week will make Fancourt near George an important place to be.

A long-range prediction is that former US president George Bush snr will definitely attend while there is also a good chance that Bill Clinton will put in an appearance.

The guest list will thus be a combination of American power brokers, our own president, South African government and business leaders as well as very important personages from Europe, Asia and Australasia.

It would therefore not be too far-fetched to predict that behind the scenes the golf match will be almost incidental to the cut-and-thrust taking place off it.

The Presidents Cup is due to be played over The Links course at Fancourt from November 18 to 23 and, because of the postponement of the Ryder Cup because of the events of 9 September 2001, will have been three years in the making by the time the first tee-shot is struck.

George airport will provide sanctuary for more private jets than ever before assembled on the continent of Africa; the Fancourt estate will be enveloped in a cocoon of security and private accommodation in the immediate area is by all accounts already non-existent.

As a sporting contest the key to the success of the match centres on the participation of Tiger Woods, but as an occasion with far-reaching consequences the Presidents Cup may well be one of the most important events yet staged in South Africa.

Not that one will be too aware of the machinations of course. Lush fairways, rather than plush corridors, will be to the fore and one of the big talking points is likely to be the course itself.

When Hasso Plattner, the German software magnate who has created this golfing Mecca in the Southern Cape, commissioned Gary Player to craft The Links course over which the Presidents Cup will be contested one of the stated intentions was that the course should find a place among the world’s top 100.

And if that was not a tough enough objective to tie to a new project, financier and architect also committed themselves to a name, The Links, and a specific style of course.

What was wanted was a lay-out in the mould of Scottish seaside links – humps and swales, hard-running fairways amidst stark dune-scapes and slippy-slidy slopes on the greens.

According to accepted definition a “links” is land from which the sea has receded and probably derived from the old English “hlinc”, meaning a ridge. It applies to certain types of seaside terrain – such as St Andrews - and therefore cannot be used to describe parkland and heathland courses.

Thus strictly speaking The Links is not a links. It is inland and has been fashioned on a flat piece of land which used to be in service as George’s airport.

What Player and his team have achieved is nothing short of astounding. They have created dunes where there were none and by covering these with tussock-grass have produced a look and feel that is unique – especially against the backdrop of the beautiful Outeniquas and with reflecting, dark ponds of water that don’t occur on classical links.

It is these deviations from the norm of what constitutes a links course that are going to baffle all the Presidents men – other than Ernie Els, the only man in the two teams who will have had the benefit of playing the course a number of times.

Player has tweaked his original design to “soften” some of the more harsh features – such as lowering the mound to the right of the 10th green that caused the hole to be named Kilimanjaro – but 10½ months out I predict there are going to be complaints that his creation is unfairly penal.

Having had the chance to play The Links – in the company of a good many aficionados -during the Ernie Els Invitational one need not be too prescient to forecast that the grumbles will focus on the fact that The Links does not play like a links in that on many holes the running shot is precluded while the thick collar of fine grass around the fairways is unnecessary.

On holes such as the third, fifth and 17th water in front of the green requires elevation on one’s approach shot while virtually all the other greens are raised. This, in itself, is not a problem but unlike on classical links courses, as we know them, where the golfer can “run and bump” the ball onto the green the fairways of The Links tend to be damp and holding which means that a ball pitching short does not skip forward.

Players are thus compelled to seek out the putting surfaces only to discover that these are quite hard and provide no purchase; causing approach shots to hop and scurry away on sharp slopes and end up in virtually unplayable fluffy lies.

The decision to allow the fairway grass to become quite deep around the edges is also unlikely to meet with favour as it introduces too great an element of luck as a perfectly struck drive can end up being deflected into an impossible lie while a less well-struck shot can be more favourably treated.

As one of my playing partners – an American – remarked: “I don’t know if the players are going to enjoy US Open rough on a windy, links-type course.” You can be sure they won’t!

One however raises qualms about The Links with some misgiving for what Player has achieved from unlikely raw material is truly amazing and has to be seen, and experienced, to be believed. In setting out to re-create something ancient he has fashioned a course like no other.