Stop four: Fancourt 
After another short plane ride south, I was in George, at the western tip of the scenic stretch known as the Garden Route. Just a five-minute drive away was Fancourt, site of the 2003 Presidents Cup.

Africa’s leading golf resort, Fancourt offers four courses, including the jewel, Player’s Links course. Although well removed from the sea and hardly a true links, it has a similar look thanks to the 60,000 truckloads of dirt excavated from this former airstrip and fashioned into dozens of hummocks and swales.

I knew this would be a difficult course when I saw some hole names: Calamity, Kilimanjaro, Wee Wrecker, Prayer. It was the merciless greens that got to me. At the par-4 12th I thought I hit a perfect 5-iron approach—it settled happily, less than 10 feet from the pin. As I was walking to the green, putter in hand, the ball rolled off the false front, 30 feet back down the fairway. What had looked like a possible three quickly became an effortless six. The name for that hole was perfect: Sheer Murder.

The 2003 Presidents Cup ended in a 17–17 deadlock, forcing a sudden-death playoff between Els and Tiger Woods that was halted due to darkness, whereupon captains Player and Nicklaus
controversially decided to call it a tie.

I had no issues with time. First off at 8 a.m., I was finished two and half hours later—finished in every sense of the word. My struggle would have been even more desperate if not for Promise—not the name of a hole but my caddie. Whether it’s coincidence or canny marketing, South African caddies seem to adopt names that buoy the spirits of their golfers. In three days, I was accompanied by Promise, Valor and Fortune.