I won't spill the beans just yet; not until the video footage is ready for YouTube, at any rate. If you're mates with Paul Snodgrass on Facebook (and eight percent of the planet appears to be), then you'll already know what happened, but if not, you'll have to wait a little longer for what is quite simply the funniest thing I've seen this year. Cruel, certainly, but genuinely side-splitting. I promise to let you know the moment the video footage is ready to air...

Snoddy and I were up in the Waterberg with the rest of the Golf Punk team to run rule over what is a quite extraordinary project. You might've heard a little about it, but until now, Legend has kept below the radar, certainly in the context of what it encompasses. Don't expect that to last much longer: there's something very special simmering in the Entabeni Conservancy.

From a sports perspective, the big story is the golf course. Player, Nicklaus, Els, Norman, Sorenstam, Westwood — big name designers are creating new estates all over the country at the moment, and there's a creeping sense of ubiquity to many of them. Peet Cillier, the man behind Legend, decided he'd do something rather different, and approached IMG with his idea. Initially they thought he was completely mad, but Peet's a quietly persuasive man, and wasn't prepared to give up — and is now just months away from officially opening a course designed by 18 of the world's top golfers, each given a hole with which to work some magic.

Trevor Immelman's designed the first, a sprawling par-five that offers a splendid vista of the Waterberg; Retief Goosen has put his name to 18, for a South African start and finish. In between, Colin Montgomerie, David Furyk, Padraig Harrington, KJ Choi, Justin Rose, Vijay Singh, Mike Weir, Camillo Villegas and Bernard Langer are amongst the stellar designers who've combined for a course that might sound a little gimmicky on paper, but has a majestic feel to once you're on the ground.

Or in the air, as first sight of it was by chopper, a sweeping tour with a lunatic pilot who went into a deliberate nose dive when we left the other high-profile golf attraction at Legend. The 19th hole sits on top of the Hanglip Mountain that overlooks the course and estate; it's an 830-metre par-three, with a drop to the Africa-shaped green (complete with Rift Valley and Kilimanjaro contours) of 430 metres. You need a fair thump of your driver to get to the green (pin positioned in northern Nigeria for our visit); I put several into Madagascar, a couple just shy of Windhoek, and one not far short of the Sri Lankan coast.

Quirky attraction in itself, then; throw in the US$1-million prize for a hole-in-one (and you only get one crack at it per visit), and the world of golf's set to have a definitive new par-three. Someone will do it eventually, but it's going to take a hell of a shot, and a hefty slice of luck.

Easier on the par-three front will be the 10-hole par-three course that's also under construction, each hole an exact replica of the best short holes around the planet. Postage Stamp and the 12th at Augusta are among the ten selected; you're going to have a lot of fun playing golf at Legend when it's up and running next year.

It's the safari context that got me, though. The conservancy has a pride of eight lion, which we spent half an hour with just after sunrise on Sunday morning, as well as elephant, rhino and giraffe amongst a full complement of game. There's also a breeding program for buffalo and sable; and most magical of all, a lion project that includes irresistible (and very rare) white lions, and a three-month-old cub I got to play with. What did I do on Saturday, then? Flew helicopters, hit golf balls of a mountain, and got bitten by a lion. Seriously cool day.

Competing with the course, the 19th, the safaris and the lions (I've fallen hopelessly in love with the cub, even if it did try and remove my leg), though, was the moment YouTube will devour when it's ready to hit the web. Paul Snodgrass has had putting practice in the shark tank at the aquarium, played out of the crocodile pit at Lost City, and lined up on the range while we've hit balls at him, but none of his Extreme Golf assignments have produced anything quite this memorable. Hold out a little longer; and take the first opportunity you get to visit Legend. It really is a quite remarkable project.

  • Contact Dan at dan@metropolis.co.za

    Print this page
    Send this article to a friend
    RSS
       Digg
    de.li.cious
    facebook