ABOUT THE COURSE
THE CLUB AT STEYN CITY
Midrand/Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
PAR
71
YARDAGE
7,557
METERS
6,909
Steyn City, which will host the first LIV Golf tournament held on the African continent, is one of the largest golf complexes in South Africa, stretching over 2,000 acres in the outskirts of Johannesburg in the elevated Highveld region
The complex is the creation of the late South African insurance magnate Douw Steyn and includes an array of amenities from lagoons to indigenous parkland
A number of wild species roam the property along the Jukskei River, including impala, antelope and springbok
Jack Nicklaus Design planned the championship course in collaboration with South Africa Golf Data architects Gary Waage and Robbie Marshall
The course opened in April 2015 and is ranked in the top 50 on the continent of Africa and top 25 in South Africa by top100golfcourses.com.
The club has hosted DP World Tour and Sunshine Tour events, with a handful of current LIV Golf players among the entrants, including Dean Burmester, Laurie Canter and Tom McKibbin
Burmester finished runner-up in the 2022 Steyn City Championship
LIV Golf South Africa will have a routing identity different than what Steyn City members play; tournament holes 1-12 are the members’ 7-18, and the tournament’s 13-18 are the members’ 1-6
In addition, one of the members’ par-5 holes has been converted to a par 4
GUARD-ING THE COURSE
The four members of Southern Guards GC provided help with preparing the Steyn City course for its LIV Golf debut. Dean Burmester and Charl Schwartzel played the course, while Branden Grace and Louis Oosthuizen drove the course with tournament and local officials during site visits the last few months.
Oosthuizen, the Southern Guards captain, said the biggest adjustment involved the width of the fairways.
“We brought some of them in by 4-5 yards,” he said. “We don’t want guys to just hit driver everywhere. The ball’s going to go far anyway. Definitely narrowed a lot of fairways and grew the rough quite a bit. But there’s still going to be lots of birdies out there. We just tried to make it a little bit tougher.”