To the long list of hardships endured by inhabitants of the African continent, you can now add the difficulty of finding errant tee shots off of the 1,400 foot high tee box at Legend Golf & Safari Resort in South Africa.  That’s right, it’s about a quarter mile of vertical drop and over 600 yards to the green, which is guarded by a thin ring of sand (and miles of desert bush).  The hole is an add-on to the already dramatic 18-hole course at the new resort, outside of Pretoria.  The course claims to be the longest in South Africa with each hole designed by a different touring pro (Langer, Furyk, Monty, Villegas, Harrington, Woozy, Vijay, Sergio to name a few), and a round goes for about US$400.  There’s also a “tribute” course that recreates ten par 3s from around the world, a golf academy, and of course plenty of real estate for sale.  I have a hard time imagining that this type of over-the-top golf/safari/resort offering is well-positioned for the post-meltdown global economy (see indoor skiing in Dubai), but there are probably still enough Goldman Sachs executives out there to prove me wrong.

In any event, it’s impossible to fully appreciate the drama and sheer ridiculousness of the Xtreme 19th hole without seeing this clip:

Hang time from tee to green is rumored to be 20-25 seconds, which is about as long as most professional golfers hold their follow-through to watch their pretty drives.  Access to the tee box (and back down) is via helicopter only, which brings me to question the resorts unequivocal statement on its website that the grounds and operation are in complete harmony with the environment.  I’m not sure choppers get the green seal of approval, but the Xtreme 19th is pretty wild nonetheless.

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Legend Golf & Safari: http://www.legendgolfsafari.com/