Brittany - Great golf close to home
Remember, as a kid, the excitement you felt as your annual seaside holiday loomed? How the build-up was part of the experience … getting your stuff ready, counting down the days, the journey itself, then the first glimpse of the sea shimmering in the distance? Well, I still feel the same way about my cross-Channel golf trips with the lads.
Saint Malo
Saint Malo
Telephone:
+33 (0)2 99 58 96 69
Email:
Website:
Courses:
6,672 yards, par 72
It’s one of the few times I give the clubs a good clean … I even put them back in some sort of order in the bag, from which I’ve cleared out the old chocolate bar wrappers, apple cores, banana skins, empty cans and broken tees. I neatly fold my best shirts (logos essential) and trousers, dig some decent balls out of the darkest recesses of the garage, shudder (again) at the passport photo, look under vases and in tea caddies for unused euros. On the ferry, the food tastes, well, tastier. And then, before you know it, the pristine, deserted French beaches beckon.
Sure, Portsmouth looks good from the upper deck, but there’s still something special about sailing into Saint Malo, its forbidding ramparts glistening in the early morning sun (like those long-ago holidays, it’s nearly always sunny) … and I swear I can sniff the freshly-baked baguettes beckoning me. But it’s those golf courses that keep bringing me back, temps apres temps.
And Brittany, so accessible from my south-coast home, is blessed with so many courses that are simply magnifique.
Golf de St Malo, at Le Tronchet, for example, is a short drive inland from the port and never disappoints. The first tee is sympathetically positioned away from prying eyes at the back of the clubhouse, which is just as well, because, from the whites at least, it requires quite a clout over a lake. Get the ball away, however, and it’s a fairly gentle par five to ease you in.
Bordering Mesnil Forest and lovely Lake Mirloup, Golf de Saint Malo covers 250 acres, and is reckoned to be the biggest course, by area, in Brittany. Designed by Hubert Chesnau – who also came up with the famous Golf National near Paris, chosen for the 2018 Ryder Cup – the par-72 course, at around 6,700 yards, has the feel of an old established country house set-up. The stand-out holes are six, a par three, and 16, a fiendish par four, both played across a huge watery ravine … but, in truth, there isn’t a dull moment out there.
Your round will end, as it began, with a par five, and this time you will almost certainly putt out under the watchful gaze of fellow players enjoying a tipple or two on the restaurant balcony adjoining the three-star hotel and overlooking the gigantic last green. Clear the water, avoid the bunker and then try to get that first putt close. All I can say is, bonne chance mes amis, because you’ll need it.
