Oubaai Golf Club

Overview: Oubaai Golf Club is an 18-hole Ernie Els Signature course at Herolds Bay near George. Expansive fairways, coastal hills, water hazards, bunkers and shaped greens create a links-style route with several different scales of play. The target's back-tee figure is 6,126 yards at par 72, and the official course page also publishes a 6,446-metre scorecard measurement across its tee information. The setting is not a flat seaside links, it is a varied Garden Route landscape where the inland folds eventually open toward the Indian Ocean.

History: Oubaai was inaugurated in 2005 as an Ernie Els Signature course. The design was built around the estate's natural landforms and resort setting, with four tee options giving the same 18-hole routing different levels of reach and risk. Later course material continues to describe the layout as a classic links design, while the official scorecard retains the essential facts of par 72, 18 holes and the Els authorship.

Did You Know? The official course page singles out the par-three 17th, where the Indian Ocean forms the backdrop behind the green. That hole arrives late enough to give the closing stretch a clear visual change, after the routing has already moved through broader inland fairways, water and bunkers. It is a good example of how Oubaai uses its setting as part of the strategy rather than as scenery alone.