Long Drive On The Golf Coast

From the Channel to the Spanish border, Adam Ruck finds many opportunities to test his skills on France’s picturesque courses

- Adam Ruck

Like all true religions, golf has its holy places. The faithful arrive at St Andrews from all corners of the world, and line up for expensive humiliation at Pinehurst and Pebble Beach. Those of us who love to swing a club in France are drawn to the sunshine and sand of NouvelleAquitaine, where southern heat tempered by an Atlantic breeze promise perfect conditions for a seaside game.

Shadowing the well-trodden pilgrimage road to the Pyrénées and Santiago de Compostela, my journey through France will be punctuated by bogeys and birdie opportunities, followed by a cruise on the ferry back from Spain after the last putt has been missed.

Where to start? Every Channel port has top-notch golf on its doorstep. My landfall is Saint-Malo, where the overnight ferry docks beneath the walls of the fortress city at 8am on a brilliant June day. From here it is an easy hour’s drive along the coast to Pléneuf-Val-André, the pick of Brittany’s crop of courses.

In a new car that offers every comfort short of a massage, I arrive at the golf club with no excuses, for once, instead of staggering to the tee with joints creaking like a rusty door hinge.

Rhythm is an important element of course design, and Pléneuf starts quietly with a generous par five – unless you visit on a competition day, as I did, and they welcome you with instructions to begin at the tenth.

This is like starting Verdi’s Requiem at the Dies Irae. Down the left, a hedge marks the course boundary. A bank of dense prickly scrub, more maquis than rough, intrudes from the right. The green is out of sight and the fairway narrows to a ribbon precisely where you would like your ball to be, for a view of the flag. Never mind par: to complete this hole with the first ball that you hit off the tee is cause for rejoicing.