Palms Golf Club

Mafikeng — now officially Mahikeng, capital of South Africa's North West Province — sits on the edge of the Kalahari, a dry, flat, wide-open landscape that feels a world away from the lush, well-watered layouts that dominate golf marketing. The Palms Golf Club takes its name and some of its shade from the palms that punctuate this semi-arid setting, offering one of the few golf experiences in a town better known historically for the Siege of Mafeking during the Anglo-Boer War than for its fairways.

North West Province is not South Africa's most celebrated golf destination — Sun City and the Gary Player Country Club sit roughly 60 kilometres to the southeast and command the region's reputation — but local clubs like The Palms serve a genuine community of members for whom the game is a weekly ritual rather than a bucket-list event. That everyday, members-first character shapes how a course like this plays and feels: familiar, unpretentious, and rooted in its community.

Expect firm, sun-baked turf for much of the year, sparse rough that rewards wayward hitters, and an atmosphere where the 19th hole conversation matters as much as the round itself.