The Golf Club

The Empangeni Country Club was formed in the early 1900's and photographs of the first Club president and honours board indicate that record keeping was initiated in 1921. The Club consisted of a tennis section (subsequently demolished), 3 squash courts, two bowling greens and a 18 hole Golf Course. The original course was laid out and maintained by predominately farmer members.

In the late 1980's, Peter Matkovich was commissioned to inspect and suggest changes (if any) to the course. Apart from minor changes suggested by him, the course itself has remained very similar to the original layout. The Golf Committee have a 'Matkovich Plan' which they intend implementing when the financial resources are available.

The fairways consist mainly of the local indiginous Nkwaleni grass with the greens having a mixture of Country Club and Cynoden grasses. Water for the course comes mainly from a storage dam (situated between the 2nd and 3rd fairways) and a borehole. The tee boxes and greens receive most of this water and the fairways rely on natural rainfall.

The 'Colonial' clubhouse was destroyed by a fire in 2002 and the current clubhouse was opened in 2003.

There are currently 350 Golf members.

The course record is held jointly by Gary Mathews (who currently caddies for Sergio Garcia) and Obed Sithole (who was the local professional and Caddy Master).

The town

Empangeni, 160 km north of Durban, is the commercial, industrial and communications centre of an area that produces large quantities of sugarcane and, especially, timber in the valley of the Mhlatuze River. The name of this river means 'forceful' and probably refers to the havoc wreaked when it floods.

Empangeni history begins in 1851 when the Norwegian Missionary Society established a mission station in the valley of a small stream, a tributary of the Mhlatuze, named Mpangeni for the mpange trees that grew along the banks. Others claim that the name Empangeni is derived from the Zulu word empanga ('to grab'), which reputedly refers to soil so extraordinarily fertile that it compelled people to peg ('grab') their land to avoid disputes about ownership. Or perhaps to the fact that the river, when in flood, 'grabs' the crops of the people and washes them out to sea.

The mission station was later moved to Eshowe, but a new magistracy was opened on the same spot in 1894. The north coast railway reached Empangeni in 1903 and the town is now a junction for branch railway lines to Richards Bay, the bulk-freight port in the east, and to Nkwalini in the west. The first timber plantations were established by the state in 1905, and the first sugar mill in 1913.

Iscor's smelting plant, which processes the heavy-metal concentrates that are produced at the company's mining operations situated near Richard's Bay and Gravelotte, is located at Hill View. When it is in full production, the processing plant is said to be able to deliver an annual 220 000 tons of titanium slag, some 130 000 tons of sponge iron with a low manganese content, about 35 000 tons of zirconium and 15 000 tons of rutile.

Empangeni Tourism

The Nseleni Nature Reserve, covering some 295 ha, lies approximately 14 km northeast of the town. The Zulu word enseleni means 'the place of the badger'. Among the fauna to be found here are several antelope species, while the flora includes mangroves, papyrus as well as wild fig trees.

The lower gate of the Umfolozi - Hluluwe Game reserve is 67 km's to the north of the town.

The campus of the University of Zululand, which was established in 1959, is about 12 km southwest of Empangeni.

Felixton, 10 km south of Empangeni, owes its existence to KwaZulu-Natal's sugar industry. The first white settlers moved into this region in 1907 and the sugar mill, one of the largest in the country, was built in 1911. The mill and the village that developed around it were probably named for Viscount Herbert (nicknamed Felix) Gladstone, the first governor-general of the Union of South Africa (1910). Others claim, however, that it was named for a pioneer sugar planter, Felix Piccione.

Heatonville, about 20 km to the northwest of Empangeni, was named for Natal politician George Heaton Nicholls, who served as member of parliament for Zululand, administrator of Natal and South African high commissioner in London. The main agricultural activities here are cattle ranching and sugarcane production.