Fish River Sun Country Club

Overview: Fish River Sun Country Club has an 18-hole Gary Player design near Port Alfred, where parkland fairways run through coastal vegetation and the Old Women’s River becomes a recurring strategic feature. The course plays to par 72 and is commonly described at about 6,300 metres from its championship markers. Indigenous bush, dune-like ground and glimpses toward the Indian Ocean give the round a coastal atmosphere, but the course is a parkland layout rather than a true links.

History: Fish River Sun was developed as the golf centre of a resort on the Eastern Cape coast. Gary Player’s design was intended to use the site’s natural river, vegetation and coastal topography while keeping the course playable for a broad range of golfers. Its resort setting has made it part of the wider Port Alfred and Sunshine Coast travel circuit, alongside beaches, river activities and the rural landscape between East London and Port Alfred.

Did You Know? The Old Women’s River comes into especially memorable play on the par-five 12th, where the hole follows the riverbank and asks for more than a purely aerial strategy. The water must also be crossed elsewhere on the course, so the river is a genuine routing theme rather than a single signature-hole prop.