In the early years of golf course design, architects treated the environment as if it were something to be respected. They incorporated what was already there and tried to keep the links as close to their natural state as possible.

Fortunately, there is such a thing as evolution and it wasn’t long before designers were tearing down trees, gouging huge holes out of the earth and bulldozing dunes from one end of the course to the other. 

Becoming a designer of golf courses is no easy matter. For a start, you need quite a big sheet of paper. Then you need a large table to spread it out on. But that’s not all. You will also need a sharp pencil and two crayons – a blue one for the water hazards and a green one for the grass.

You can draw the trees with the pencil or, if you have some money left over, you can always buy a dark green one. Don’t make the same mistake I did and buy a white crayon for the bunkers. Unless, of course, you bought paper that is a colour other than white.

As you see, things can get a bit complicated, but if you keep a clear head and a sense of perspective, you will have an award-winning course down in no time. 

Once you have designed your course, the next step is to go to the bank and withdraw about R40 million. You may need help carrying it. This should not be a problem because there are plenty of strong young lads standing around on street corners who will be more than willing to lend a hand.

Next, get in your car and drive down the coast. Don’t forget the money, or what is left of it. Soon, you will be out of the squatter camps and in the countryside. Keep your eyes open. You will be looking for around 7 000 yards of pristine unobstructed coastline. And I mean unobstructed. You will have trouble with even a smallish village if it obstructs the 14th hole. These are not the good old days where you could get people to move through a low-intensity mortar attack followed by mopping-up operations in a bakkie with roof-mounted searchlights and your cousin manning a light machinegun on the back.

These days, you will have to buy them out. If they still refuse to move, you could perhaps incorporate them into the course as some sort of human hazard. Maybe they could even be encouraged to make a few ethnic trinkets to sell to visiting golfers, or possibly open up their village to visitors so that people like Tiger Woods can see how real black people live. 

Right. Now that you have identified your piece of land, the next thing you need to do is start the process of acquiring the rights to develop it. Find out whose responsibility this is at the local municipality and make an appointment to see him. At your first meeting, introduce yourself and tell him exactly what it is you want. He will laugh and either pat you condescendingly on the back or call security.

Before you go to your second meeting, shrink-wrap R75 000 in R200 notes and tuck it inside a copy of the local newspaper. The council official will greet you as if this was your first meeting. He will then ask you if there’s anything in the paper today. This is your cue to say: “The governor of the Reserve Bank is all over the inside section.”

The official will stand up and shake your hand. He might even offer you a shot of cheap whisky from his bottom drawer. It is considered good form to accept it.

From there, it’s just a matter of how soon you can round up a couple of bulldozers and a hundred or so non-unionised natives with their own pangas and a willingness to work long hours for very little money.

You may have to divert water away from the nearby township so that your fairways will grow in time for the next holiday season. However, the locals won’t mind because you will have promised to build them a community hall where they can gather on weekends to drink heavily and smoke marijuana in a convivial atmosphere. 

The other scenario, of course, is that you do not have R40 million in the bank. Should this be the case, you will need to roll up your plans, put them on top of your cupboard and go back to bed.