Akabeko Golf Course

How to play the course… a perspective/opinion of the designer/builder…

The Course layout.

No 1/10.. 380 yd par 4.

Starting off on the first, a climb up to an elevated tee with a view over the course.(looks a lot longer and the kikuyu fairways don’t run that well from that height)

Take your driver with, this 380 yd is deceiving, a wide fairway sloping left to right, with problems if you go too far right.

the second shot should be a short iron in to the green, don’t over shoot there is a lot of dam next to and behind the green, with a bunker right.

No 2 .. 390 yd. par 4. No 11 .. 425 yd. par 5.

The second hole is a par 4 first round and a par five second round.

Why the short par 5 second round? This hole has water. First time round most can carry the first dam, second time round not that many. Carry the dam .. don’t go too far there is a stream ahead. Be accurate with your tee shot, between the two big poplars is ideal, making the shot in to the green a little easier. But the green is surrounded by 3 dams, left behind and right, so it’s not an easy shot. This is stroke 1 and 2.

An ideal view for your second shot, this is the line…

No 3 ..  500 yd. par 5 .. No 12 .. 420 yd. par 4

If you can hit a long drive to clear the stream and be accurate this is not a difficult hole. if you have to lay up short of the stream it plays long.

Second time round a little easier to clear the stream.

Ones second shot is into an elevated, level green, so fire in high or face the consequences of the trees behind the green.

No 4 .. 205 yd. par 3. No 13 .. 230 yd. par 3.

If you can’t hit this very receptive green leak left rather than right… too many trees to the right.

No 5 .. 290 yd. par 4. No 14 .. 300 yd. par 4

Yep .. you can drive this green, it is up hill all the way, but this is a difficult green sloping from back to front, and I mean sloping, so play below the hole as stopping a ball from the back if you miss the cup its off the green. ‘Bunker protected to the right and a lot of trees if you leak left make the hole more difficult than it looks. (Who put that tree in the way?)

No 6 .. 320 yd. par 4. No 15 .. 290 yd. par 4.

Sounds short? There’s a catch, it’s a sharp dog leg left.

You need a 220 yd drive to reach the corner, too long and you’re either deep in trouble or behind trees. You can go for the green if you carry the corner with a slight draw, but there is then a bunker on line as well as one right. Don’t carry the corner? you’ve got a heap of problems. The green slopes slightly front to back, no longer sounds such an easy hole specially with “out of bounds” behind the green.

Ideally this should be the view for your second shot to the green.

No 7 .. 250 yd. par 4. No 16 290 yd. par 4.

This hole is uphill but many can drive the green. The green is a small two tier, bunker protected left, right and front, that looks a little like “smiley face” from the air. When the trees planted on both sides of the fairway are bigger, the slight curve to the right will make the hole a little more difficult. Risk and reward is the name of the game on this hole.

No 8 .. 350 yd. par 4. No 17 .. 450 yd. par 4.

This hole is down hill to the trout dam well hidden from view. A 300 yd. drive from the 8th tee box is required to clear the dam. A lay up leaving 120 to 160 yd. second is recommended. The green is big and receptively built. Playing short will leave a uphill short chip, long, and there’s trouble.

An ideal second shot should have a view like this….

No 9/18 .. 90 yd. par 3

This is no easy hole. A small green (with many slopes) from a high elevated tee, makes for a trick shot requirement, or the short game capabilities of a Derrick James.

There are a few movable hazards on the course..

This is a course that can be walked and most of the time we recommend it. The scenery and peacefulness makes for a relaxing game of golf. With the chance of meeting up with our impala or Sable, walking is better, but there are golf carts available for the not so fitness fanatics. The ups and downs make for wonderful exercise.

Come and play the course, all are welcome. The Owner, Mr. George Tait gave this instrinstruction,   “Those that play, must enjoy themselves, relax and have fun.”

Akabeko Golf Course

As the course continues to improve and the rains (when they come) aids the fairways growth, the golf course becomes more and more of a dream come true.

As the photo from the first tee shows the first fairway.

The course wants to welcome all the permanent new arrivals, oh how happy these animals make me…

The sable are young yet already they show the deep chested pride they’re well known for..

I am to stay on at the course and will now be in a position to blog more, to share my golf course with you all. I’m sure that you know it is not really my course and belongs in its entirety to the owner of the Akabeko Boutique Hotel, but my design and build, tweaked to his  satisfaction, still feels as though its mine…

This has been and will always be the most desired “bucket list” happening in my life.

 

 

 

Akabeko Golf Course

It’s been a long time coming.

A return in part to blogging. Why? Well we have reached that stage where not much more can be done before the rain falls.

When will it rain? Wish I knew…

The greens are so close to completion, just here and there that we need the grass to reach total coverage. Fairways have been top soiled and the grass in part is pushing through without water, strange but true…

It has been a dream designing and converting this….

 

To this

And this …

Into this….

and the real joy is having the wild life now on the course… doing their inspection…

I’m hoping to get back into blogging on a more regular basis, so look for my likes and comments on your blogs…

Hyena portraits… posed specially for us…

We came across this pack of celebrating hyena, a territorial battle had taken place next to a river and this group must have won,,, they seemed on top of the world… not the most beautiful animal, but it has its uses…

The hyena is known for its bone crushing jaw, no bone is left un-turned… (I’m getting so clever now)

It is often referred to as the laughing hyena as its chatter can be misconstrued as a laugh….

The Hyena is thought to be a scavenger, and yes it is, BUT… in a pack it is one of the most proficient hunts in the veld….

The young are known to fight in the den and often the weakest never make it to adulthood, but then nature is all about survival of the fittest and strongest…. Packs of hyenas have chased lions off their kill, even treeing the cats, but they are weary of doing that if a male lion is present… he doesn’t like it… there is a fantastic film often shown on National Geographics called “Eternal Enemies” its about lion and Hyena, watch it… absolutely brilliant…

Hyena .. strange animals actually…

The spotted hyena is one out of four in the biological group Hyaenidae. (Now I’m sounding smart!)

Although phylogenetically (evolutionary) closer to cats, hyenas are behaviourally and morphologically (structurally) similar to dogs in several ways; both hyenas and dogs are nonarboreal (don’t climb trees), cursorial (adapted for running) hunters that catch prey with their teeth rather than claws. (Shooo now the internet is making me seem very clever.)

But this I do know, in the spotted hyena, unlike the other hyenas, the female is bigger than the male… Amazonian she is… The rear hyena is a female…

Urogenital anatomy of the female spotted hyena.

In terms of their external genitalia, spotted hyenas are the most highly ‘masculinized’ extant female mammals. Female spotted hyenas display a fused scrotum, rather than the labia majora of a typical female mammal. The hypertrophied clitoris is similar in form to the male penis, and both female and male spotted hyenas display erections – often in the nonsexual context of ‘meeting ceremonies’ (from http://www.vet.cornell.edu/labs/place/docs/2006Glickmanetal.pdf just in case you want to read more)

WHAT????… it is saying that the female has a penis like protrusion so don’t go guessing the sex from that… I won’t go into the complicated description of sexual behaviour of the animals, but suffice it to say this female wears the pants and only one lucky male will get to cover her… talk about a woman on testosterone…

 

The only other time I’ve seen hyena performing like these were, was after a territorial battle… and as there were hyena running off away from this pack, I assume that was the case again…

This lot must have been victorious as such friendly play is a form of bonding and strengthening the family unit…

They ran around in all directions and one even wanted to chew on our plastic bumper of the van… but this was all victorious play and family bonding and there was even mock sexual acts… (two males..)

More hyena photos to come… just some portrait photos when they posed for me…