About Highland Gate Golf Club
Tucked into the Steenkampsberg mountains outside Dullstroom, Highland Gate opened in 2014 as one of Ernie Els’s earliest solo design projects, and it still carries the mark of a young architect determined to make a statement. Els has said the terrain reminded him of the Scottish Highlands, and it’s easy to see why: the course sits at roughly 2,000 metres above sea level, high enough that locals claim it’s the loftiest Top 100 layout in the country.
The estate stretches across 700 hectares of Mpumalanga highveld, part of South Africa’s best-known trout-fishing region, and the golf course was built to share that landscape with fly fishermen, hikers, and mountain bikers rather than dominate it. Fairways were routed around wetlands and streams instead of through them, so the course feels less like a manufactured resort and more like it simply grew out of the hillside.
Getting there is part of the appeal. It’s about two and a half hours from Johannesburg — far enough to feel like a proper escape, close enough for a weekend trip that regulars tend to repeat often.
👉 View the Highland Gate Golf Club – South Africa print at Fairway Prints — minimalist wall art from R349.
The Course Experience
Highland Gate plays a bit of a psychological game with golfers. The front nine opens with generously wide fairways that lull you into a sense of ease, then the back nine tightens noticeably, asking for more precision right when the altitude and the views have you least focused on your swing. The par-4 fourth is the hole most visitors end up photographing, with a tee shot played from high ground over a green fairway that doglegs left, the Steenkampsberg range filling the background.
Els saved some of his best work for the closing stretch. The par-5 fourteenth, his signature hole here, squeezes players between a stream on the right and thick veld grass on the left, making it the tightest drive on the course. Then the par-5 eighteenth sets up a genuine risk-reward decision: a green that’s reachable in two, but only for anyone willing to carry their second shot over water. It’s the kind of finishing hole that settles bets on the clubhouse veranda long after the round is over.
A Legacy on the Fairways
Highland Gate’s reputation has only grown since it opened. After the club installed a Better Billy Bunker system, it jumped from outside the country’s top 30 to inside the top 20 within a couple of years, and it now ranks among Mpumalanga’s best-regarded courses. The Vodacom Origins of Golf series and the Els for Autism Final have both been hosted here, bringing a level of competitive pedigree that few high-altitude courses can claim.
Off the course, the double-storey clubhouse overlooking the 18th green has become a gathering point in its own right, with the Flycatcher Restaurant serving golfers, anglers, and weekenders who’ve come simply for the mountain air.
Bring the Course Home
For golfers who’ve played Highland Gate, or simply admire courses with this kind of setting, Fairway Prints turns the layout into minimalist wall art that captures the routing and the mountains it’s carved into, without needing a single photograph.
Explore the Highland Gate Golf Club print at Fairway Prints.
