Hans Merensky Hotel & Estate

Few golf courses in the world can claim what Hans Merensky can: elephants, hippos, and crocodiles are legitimate on-course hazards. Set within the Hans Merensky Estate on the banks of the Selati River, just outside the Phalaborwa Gate of Kruger National Park, this is a course where the wildlife waybeyond the fence — it shares its boundary with one of Africa's great wilderness areas, and animals routinely wander onto the fairways. Caddies here earn their keep partly as wildlife spotters.

The parkland-style layout winds through riverine bush and mature indigenous trees, and the combination of lush turf — fed by the estate's water access — and the raw African thornveld beyond gives the course a genuinely dramatic visual contrast. The course has long been considered one of South Africa's most distinctive golfing destinations, attracting visitors who combine a round with a Kruger safari.

Phalaborwa itself is a mining and safari town in the far northeast of Limpopo, with a hot, low-altitude climate that keeps the course playing firm and fast through much of the dry winter season — the region's peak time for both golf and game viewing.