Nairobi sits at roughly 1,800 metres — a mile high — and Johannesburg's highveld about the same. Thinner air means less drag and less lift: the ball flies flatter and farther, typically a full club, sometimes more with driver. Your 150-metre club is suddenly your 165-metre club, and your wedges stop spinning back the way they do at sea level.
The adjustment is simpler than the physics: take one club less, trust it, and watch the first few approaches finish over the flag until you believe it. Caddies at Muthaiga, Karen and Royal Harare have corrected ten thousand visitors before you — this is the single best reason to take one.
Where it matters on our journeys: all of Nairobi's courses, the Rift escarpment at Naivasha, Johannesburg's BlairAtholl, Royal Harare, and Kigali's hills. Where it doesn't: the coast — Vipingo, Durban, the Cape — where the sea air gives you your old yardages back, usually just as you'd stopped trusting them.
Play Muthaiga or Karen on day one to find your altitude legs. By the Mara, you'll be bombing it and pretending you always did.
— Graeme Harker