Rating: 70
Holes : 9/18
Par: 72
Length : 5895 m

The Met has a unique and unusual layout. With only nine fairways it would give the uninitiated the impression that the course is a 9 Hole Course, but with 15 greens and 18 tee boxes the course plays very differently from the front nine to the back nine. Of the fifteen greens two are shared and one is a double green (á la St. Andrews). Red Flags are for the front nine and yellow flags for the back.

History

107 years ago Green Point Common was wonderful open parkland with an extensive vlei (lake) dominating one end. Activities on the common included General Volunteer Manoeuvres, cricket, boating, horseracing and train rides to the beaches. In 1895 a group of local golf enthusiasts led by Mr. A.A. Persse built a 9-hole course adjacent to the racecourse.

The design included the railway line flanking the first two holes, the vleis were incorporated in holes three, four, six & seven and the 9th was `a very long hole to the home green`. The course had eight gravel greens, one grass green and was named Green & Sea Point Golf Club. The common was very basic in those days and a golfer had to contend with hoof marks, stray rocks, long grass and people perambulating the common!

This arrangement only lasted four years before the onset of the Boer War and the Military took over the whole common for training and stabling of horses (and men) which ultimately caused the Green & Sea Point Golf Club disband.

After the war in 1902, the golf club rose from the ashes ‘Phoenix-like’ and was re-constituted as `The Metropolitan Golf Club`. A house near the Flashing Light (Green Point Lighthouse) was acquired as a clubhouse but the previously built course proved unsatisfactory due to the damage caused by the army and Vlei Road construction.

Repairs to the course were undertaken but proved less than acceptable. The next event entailed the leasing of land that the course now resides, from the City Council in 1906. Over the next nine years the new course was constructed and improvements made too much the same lines as seen today. Around the same time the old racecourse grandstand known then as ‘The White House’ or more recently ‘Seagulls’ became the clubhouse. The clubhouse arrangements lasted 53 years until the current clubhouse was built in 1959.

The course is overlooked by Signal Hill which derives its name from the station at its summit whence the arrival and movements of mail and other steamships in the bay are first observed and transmitted by a flag code of signals to the G.P.O. Today the only function of the station is to fire the Mid-Day Gun for ships and towns people to synchronise their Chronometers.

The longest serving resident at The Met is the `Old Canon`, which faces up the 1st fairway. The canon was discovered during the construction of a new bunker some years ago and now takes pride of place on the midweek 1st tee. Research has reviled the date and place of manufacture as 1782 at Stafsjo in Sweden for Dutch clients (possibly VOC) who brought it here in 1784. It was then mounted at either the Mouille or Three Anchor batteries. It is believed that the British Military removed it from the battery to decorate their regimental headquarters and during the Boer War it was possibly buried for recovery later.