Going for Golf

Provence - The Côte of many Colours

Four Seasons Resort at Terre Blanche

In Victorian times, wealthy Englishmen would winter in Nice and Cannes, but the early 20th century saw smart summer visitors invading picturesque fishing villages like Saint Tropez and Saint Raphael. Later they spread into the medieval fortified towns in the foothills behind the coast. In line with their ingrained colonial habit, they travelled with mashies and niblicks. The rest is golfing history.

Cannes Mandelieu, designed by Harry Colt in 1891 and barely changed since, was surpassed in 1923 by Cannes Mougins, a course that retains a certain cachet following a Peter Alliss redesign in 1978. In the 1980s, the French took their destiny into the own hands. Ignoring their citizens’ apathy towards a game that is still widely seen as snobbish, the government covered the country with courses, many of them rewardingly underused despite green fees well below the going rate on the Costa del Sol and the Algarve. In Provence Côte d’Azur development over the next quarter century provided the wherewithal to win the 2010 European golfing destination award, the first French region to claim the coveted prize offered annually by IAGTO (International Association of Golf Tour Operators). This is a tribute both to the courses and the accommodation that goes with them, tempting combinations of convenience and comfort to suit all pockets.

As the imposing iron gates of the Domaine de Terre Blanche close silently behind you, you’re in a parallel universe you may never want to leave. It is a Four Seasons Resort with two classy golf layouts and a world-class spa. Recently it’s been extended further with the addition of the Albatros Golf Performance Center, a world-class training facility for all standards of players, which includes state-of-the-art technology throughout. It features 65 practice mats – half of which are indoors and lit on the ground floor – various practice areas and a David Leadbetter Academy.

The courses were built in tandem, but with very different objectives. The Chateau, the first to open in 2004, is long, tough and fairly flat, while the Riou is technical and hilly. Set on slopes overlooking the Southern Alps, its sloping fairways, lined with pine and oak, put a premium on tactics and club selection rather than raw power.

As the Riou is reserved for golf club members and guests at the Four Seasons, tee times are hard to come by, but passing strangers should take heed before they part with £138 for the Chateau. At 7,235 yards off the back tees – length that is also reflected in those further forward – this is a golf course that requires management combined with nerves of steel to hit confidently over large stretches of water. The lakes are as picturesque as they are intrusive, integral elements in a game plan that includes strategically placed bunkers, trees and streams. Play well and you can call yourself a golfer. Play badly? Fine, if you’re not easily discouraged.

If you are, you can seek solace in the rest of the resort. Beds with crisp white linen and goose-down comforters are hard to leave, as is the huge infinity pool, though only waifs could plunder the two Michelin star menus in Faventia for more than a couple of days without the weight gain to turn swimwear into a nightmare. The resort has even released a number of plots of land for development to allow those of us so smitten, but not encumbered by a lack of wealth, to build our own property in this relaxing idyll.