Parkview 7.5/10
The problem with playing a course like Parkview is that if you are not accurate off the tee, you can pretty much kiss a low round goodbye. To say that Parkview is tree lined is an understatement, but that being said in most instances the fairways are generous and if you play to your shot shape you should be able to get round somewhere near your handicap (but don't expect to play under it) - I would suspect that the ringers get sorted out very quickly amongst this clubs members.
To my mind this course typifies great golf course architecture. Each hole has its place and is in its place, one hole seems flow to the next and is where you would logically expect it to be, first a shortish par five, followed by a long, tight low stroke par 4, a relatively easy par 3 with a generously large but subtly sloped green where the base of the pin is hidden, followed by the stroke 1, dogleg left, get it offline and you are screwed par 4 - 4 great opening holes. Other than two par 5's back to back on the back 9 Parkview has a layout that fits is location perfectly. It uses the terrain it is built within to perfection - the fairways are rolling, sloped and surrounded by trees and require you to think about your approach strategy, there are short par fours which invite you to take on the hole at your peril, bunkers which are perfectly placed and should stand up to the new advances in equipment and at least one par3 that looks like it has always been there and the course was merely built around it. Add to this the fact that the strokes on the four finishing holes are 6, 14, 4 and 8 and you have a course that will test the best and leave you with a sense of achievement even if you only get 1 par and shoot a 100.
There are one or two things that don't fit though, the sloot that runs through the course is in play on many holes and makes a great hazard, but the problem is that it is jarring on the eye and doesn't fit the classic look and feel of the course, its also on the right on pretty much every hole it comes in to play on and thats a bit unfair to the high-handicapper, most of whom (and me on a bad day) tend to slice the
ball. I am going to assume too that course takes a lot of rounds, especially from visitors because their greens are covered in un/badly repaired pitch marks and unraked bunkers - I don't know if its just bad manners on the part of the the players or that the caddies not doing their jobs properly, but it does detract from the experience.
The major gripes in our group (handicaps 6,10,15 & 24) where the inconsistency of the greens - they varied between hard and soft and slow and fast each with a combination of subtle and not so subtle breaks and this made it quite hard to figure out what type of shot to select coming into a green (I can only imagine how much more frustrating this would be if you hadn't played the course before), and the difficulty we all had in judging the distances into the pins (if we didn't have a range finder it would have been a long day), although the markers are to the middle, most of the ones on sprinkler heads, etc where damaged or missing and the poles on the fairway give no inkling of how much one should allow for the depth of a green (and some of the greens are quite a lot deeper than they look) - I also didn't see any course guides available, but I might have missed them. I also only saw a course marshall once which didn't help the slow play (we teed off at 13:15 and only finished after 18:00).
Two holes come to mind as the most memorable for me on this course, the par 4, stroke 1, 400m 4th and the par 3, stroke 6, 170m 15th - both holes are not tough because they are long, they are tough because they require a fairly accurate shot off the tee and a keen touch on the greens (the 4th only required a driver and a pitching wedge, but on both holes I was on the wrong side of the green and had knee-knockers back across slopes and elevation changes to claim a decent score), add to this the fact that they both look stunning and you have two holes you will remember for quite some time after you walk off the course.
The 4th is a dog-leg left with a massive tree from the 110m to 150m mark, on the turn, guarding half the fairway, that seems to magnetically attract every ball played anywhere near it. The green is tucked right up against the boundry wall of the course and is surrounded by deep rough and some nasty looking bunkers (and don't go right, the sloot is also in play on this hole). Once you are on the green you have to contend with a surface that has its high point 2/3rd's on and 2/3 across, if hit
your approach a little to far and pitch the green, you may still find yourself playing your next from the rough. Tough, but rewarding if you play it right.
The 15th is a longish par 3, but that is not what will have you worrying about your tee-shot - the green has a sliver of fairway front-right if you move the ball left-to-right and want to bail out, but that leaves you with a tricky pitch up a green that slopes from back to front towards the water (and a bunker) front left. The
rough slopes up around the green (with a another bunker off the right middle thrown in for good measure) ensuring that any shots that aren't on target or the correct length will be severly punished. Add the tall trees at the back left and you have a hole that is worthy of its low rating and will leave you satisfied when you walk off with a par.
As a point of interest, the course also only has 3 par 5's and 3 par 3's and the 9's are 35 & 37.
In summary, let me say that the niggling problems I described shouldn't stop you from playing the course, Parkview is a great test of golf and a beautiful example of classical golf course architecture in a aesthically pleasing and well suited setting (that reminds me, I must play Glendower again soon) and if you keep you wits about you, you should score well and enjoy the pleasant, if not so peaceful surroundings (you are after all smack in the middle of Joburg, as the electric fences and car accident holes in the fences will remind you).
It cost R200 (a little steep if you ask me) to play during the week as an affiliated visitor and the cart cost R175, the halfway house was reasonably priced (R24 for a sandwich and two still waters), clean and the service was quick and effective and the 19th (which has a great location, almost on top of the 18th green) also seemed good value for money (R65 for 1 softdrink, 2 mixers and 3 draughts).
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