Peter Matkovich, 1993. Par 71 over 6,164 metres. Bent-grass greens, kikuyu tees and fairways, and the escarpment falling away below the ninth.
↓CNN Travel named it one of the ten best golf courses in Africa in July 2013. Golf Digest has called it the best in Zimbabwe.
The course opened in 1993 on the site of the hotel's original nine holes, laid out by Peter Matkovich as a parkland course through indigenous forest at 1,450 metres. It hosted the Zone VI Amateur Championship in 2000 and hosts the Manicaland Open, and the greens were sown with Penncross bent grass from the start, still rare in the region.
Four holes carry the course's reputation. Sunbird, the second, is a 311-metre par four driveable from an elevated tee over a ravine. The Leopard Rock, the ninth, is 173 metres and almost all carry over water. The Matkovich, the fourteenth, drops thirty metres to a green guarded by two dams. Tony Taberer, the eighteenth, is a 465-metre par five with a view to Lake Chikamba and water and sand waiting at the green.
Pay and play. Residents and non-residents welcome, nine or eighteen holes, carts, a driving range, pro shop and a resident professional. Green fees and cart hire are quoted on booking. The clubhouse serves from nine until four with a bar until ten.
An aerial tour of the Matkovich course, 2018. Watch on YouTube
| Hole | Name | Par | Metres | Stroke |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Killcullen | 4 | 413 | 2 |
| 2 | Sunbird | 4 | 311 | 14 |
| 3 | Chikamba Lake | 4 | 396 | 6 |
| 4 | Traicos Test | 5 | 521 | 16 |
| 5 | Burma Valley | 3 | 187 | 8 |
| 6 | Samango | 5 | 505 | 10 |
| 7 | Silvery-cheeked Hornbill | 4 | 306 | 18 |
| 8 | Sanbines Folly | 4 | 354 | 12 |
| 9 | The Leopard Rock | 3 | 173 | 4 |
| 10 | The Queen Elizabeth | 5 | 503 | 5 |
| 11 | Bunga Forest | 4 | 373 | 9 |
| 12 | Chinyakwaremba | 3 | 145 | 15 |
| 13 | Vumba | 4 | 412 | 1 |
| 14 | The Matkovich | 3 | 199 | 7 |
| 15 | St Andrews | 4 | 425 | 3 |
| 16 | Paxtons Path | 4 | 302 | 11 |
| 17 | World's View | 3 | 174 | 13 |
| 18 | Tony Taberer | 5 | 465 | 17 |
| Out 36 / In 35 | 71 | 6,164 |
From the club's scorecard: gold tees, men's stroke index. White tees play 5,934 m and red 5,636 m; the ladies' card is 4,792 m, par 71.
Dillan Prinsloo's 2018 flyover follows the course hole by hole from the first tee to the eighteenth green. Three minutes, best watched full screen.
The whole course can be closed for a society day or a wedding party for a daily fee, with no green fees applied.
Leopard Rock Golf Club welcomes new members. Handicaps are administered through the club office.
Playable year round. Rains from mid-November to mid-April, mornings often in cloud that clears by midday. Sweater weather from May to August.
The driving range is the helipad: seventy minutes from central Harare, with room for three aircraft.
