Golf in France - Aquitaine

Above: Golf de Moliets

The region of Aquitaine extends along the Atlantic down the southwest corner of France, bordering Spain to the south. The city of Bordeaux, center of the country’s most famous wine-producing region, was long regarded as a dull industry town; start-ing in the early 2000s, mayor Alain Juppé started a makeover: building a tram, washing buildings of centuries of black soot, and razing the old warehouses and rusting cranes along the Garonne River to clear the views. The rediscovered vitality of Aquitaine’s capital, now a bustling hub for tourism, is embodied in its brand-new multimedia museum of wine, La Cité du Vin (“Wine City”), an informative and engaging shrine to oenology and viticulture, with genuinely innovative interactive presentations – a bank of scents for you to nose, clever 3-D video depictions of the history of wine in religion and politics, even a playful tribute to the hangover.

Above: Chateau Monbadon in Aquitaine

Several magnificent 18th- and 19th-cen-tury residences have been converted to luxury hotels: smack in the middle of town across a busy plaza from the Opera House is the grand InterContinental Bordeaux, a palatial hostelry with two floors of a spa, a rooftop bar and sun deck, a Gordon Ramsay restaurant on the main floor. Wander a few blocks off the touristy avenues and you will find clusters of cheery bistros and taverns offering excellent local cuisine at reasonable prices.
To the north of Bordeaux is Saint-Émilion, with a winemaking tradition dating back to Roman times – and a brand-new Tom Doak-designed course at Grand Saint-Emilion-nais Golf Club. This idyllic, engaging walk in the woods combines forgiving fairways and approaches demanding careful strategic decisions. Don’t expect fast greens here; these small putting surfaces are slow, but pitched as steeply as the Pyrenees.

Golf du Médoc, 90 minutes away, has two 18s: the Châteaux course, built in 1989, one of Bill Coore’s early efforts, and the 1991 Vignes, designed by Rod Whitman of Cabot Links fame. Laid out over a scrubby, relatively flat heathland, Médoc provides an amiable resort course experience, with generous fairways and receptive greens; when the Atlantic sea breeze picks up, your shotmaking skills need to kick up a notch. Its beaches have made the swank resort city of Biarritz, lying on the Atlantic coast in Basque country, a popular resort desti-nation – “the surfing capital of Europe,” thanks to big swells and mild temperatures – and the sandy soil helped germinate a handful of remarkable golf courses.

Above: Golf du Médoc

Willie Park would probably not recognize what’s left of the course he built at Golf de Biarritz-Le Phare in 1888; Park’s original par-3 “Chasm” hole, featuring a green scored with a deep, traversing channel that lent the name “Biarritz” to its many descendants, was rerouted out of existence in the early 20th century. (Architecture fans will be glad to hear plans are underway to restore it.) Compact but not cramped, superbly conditioned, with fluffy bunkers and post-card views of the Pyrenees, the club has a friendly, easygoing membership –Biarritz is an old-fashioned club in the best sense. The recently-renovated Maria Regina hotel nearby has one of the greatest lobbies you’ll ever find, resembling the interior of a grand opera house.

That evening, I made my way to Magescq for a gastronomic dinner at the Relais de la Poste, a two-star Michelin restaurant in this small town northwest of Biarritz. Afterward I got to enjoy a drink of local armagnac with Chef Jean Coussau and his wife Annick, who runs the business end of the restaurant along with the chef’s brother, Jacques. Chef Jean is an ardent golfer – his wary expression turns warm at the mention of the game. With Annick kindly translating, he chatted about the annual late-autumn golf vacation they take a few hours down the road in Bilbao, Spain.

Chef Jean is a member of the unpreten-tious Golf de Moliets, an excellent modern golf course that can stand with all but a few American semi-private courses of the last thirty years. Built by Robert Trent Jones in the mid-1980s, Moliets offers a pleasing rhythm and scenic variety, highlighted by a glorious linksy stretch along the beach, where the smooth inviting undulations go well with the surf – which wasn’t up on the day of my visit, maybe why board legend Kelly Slater showed up to play 18 late in the afternoon. I missed seeing him, since I had to drive back to Bordeaux to make the train to Paris the next morning.
I wasn’t too disappointed about depart-ing, though; I know I’ll return to France. So will you. 

Above: Golf de Moliets

Extracted from the April/May 2017 Met Golfer Article "Vive Le Golf!" by Ray Tennenbaum