Voted the number two golf course in South Africa and the top golf course in the Western Cape, the Arabella Golf Club – home to the Nelson Mandela Invitational – stretches through rolling fairways, deceptive bunkers and challenging water traps.

In 2006, The Arabella Golf Course was ranked as the second best golf course in South Africa, by the Compleat Golfer Magazine's esteemed panel of judges.

THE CAPE'S NUMBER ONE COURSE

This award highlights that Arabella is deservedly regarded as the Western Cape's number one challenge. This tribute is also reflected in the panel of South Africa's other quality golf magazine, the Golf Digest, also voting Arabella the number one golf course in the Cape. The Splendour of ArabellaThe first time visitor will understand these accolades, which acknowledge the splendour of a well balanced, classical, flowing and scenically splendid layout created by famed local golf course architect Peter Matkovich.

The fame of the course has in recent years spread internationally, as the Nelson Mandela Invitational Tournament has been held here over several years. This charitable event hosted by Nelson Mandela and Gary Player draws tournament players, seniors, entertainers and businessmen to raise funds while participating in a social yet competitive event, which has a garden party atmosphere.

The course itself is situated at the heart of an award winning real estate and hotel development (The Western Cape Hotel and Spa) on the shores of South Africa's largest lagoon. This area, famous for its world heritage status, is renowned for the world class whale watching and the famous holiday town of Hermanus, only 20 kilometres from the estate.

The experience begins on both nine's with an uphill challenge (the only two holes that are markedly uphill) and the undulating character of the terrain allows for constant and breathtakingly beautiful views to be part of the whole encounter.

The focus on the holes is made memorable by the clever use of the local water features, the most invigorating of these being the closing two holes on the front nine and the finishing four on the second nine. This in no way detracts from the quite splendid variety of the other holes. Here, doglegs left, doglegs right, intersperse with quite magnificent par 3's made challenging by either downhill, length or water features. Local indigenous vegetation is very much part of the journey, while pine trees add a substantial framing to some of the holes.

Arabella is a championship layout and played from the back tees it can be a monster, especially if the sea breezes are blowing to their full potential. The member tees allow little for any loss of concentration, and targeting the right areas of the fairways and approaches to greens is occasionally made more important as the boundaries of some of the holes are a protected nature reserve and balls straying into these areas 156 are deemed lost and irretrievable.

There is much discussion among the members as to which are the best holes on this magnificent golf course. For some it is the short flat par 4, 9th that curves around the Bot River lagoon shore and allows high risk high reward off the tee. For others it is the challenge at the par 3, 17th where a choice of tees gives a differing perspective to a green set between Memorable Arabella a high grassy bank and a slope that leads towards the ever-present lagoon, with an array of very visible bunkers to add to the challenge.

Others will tell you that the par 5, 18th is a magnificent finishing hole, with its demand for accuracy off the tee, avoiding bush and fynbos left and waste bunkers and lagoon right. A gentle curve to the right two-thirds along the fairway demands continuing accuracy for the shorter hitters, while the longer player will risk all to reach a difficult target protected by waste and normal bunkers, grassy banks and the nature reserve that borders the lagoon.

For many, the most memorable holes are the par 5, 8th and the par 4, 15th. Both are spectacularly downhill (I love downhill holes!) and should be experienced for the first time as a surprise to truly observe their magnificence.