Golf de Cheverny
I never did find out if the Count de Cheverny was responsible for the golf addition to his estate but it’s a well-warranted one. French architect Olivier Van der Vynckt, (he doesn’t sound very French) routed the 6272 meter long, Par 71 through fairly flat but well-defined forest with one or two notable stretches of water. I wouldn’t say this was my favourite course of the trip but it was certainly challenging with interesting problems, the long Par 4, 2nd for instance fronted by a reedy pond and forcing a lay-up. Or the leap across the lake at the 10th, actually far less daunting than it looks. But you don’t know that first time out and it does look intimidating.
What I will wax on about at Golf de Cheverny was the clubhouse lunch. This was clubhouse fare I would put on a par with some of the best AA-Rosette or Michlin starred restaurant in the UK. Restaurant La Rousselière supplied one of the finest meals of our trip – and that was just a clubhouse lunch. I could get very used to this…
Now I’m going to square with you here. Loire golf is nothing to really get the die-hard top course aficionados excited. There’s one course I would really love to play. Les Bordes is meant to be one of the finest heathland courses in Europe – and we drove right past it. We could see tees and greens over the fence and through the VW window and they looked superb. Isn’t it frustrating when you can see one of the finest courses in Europe and don’t get to play it? Les Bordes, built by the Bich family makers of Bic pens is now an exclusive members club and they only have 300 members! Wow! That must be nice for them - but if any of you members are reading this please feel free to invite me along for a round any time.
There was one final course that did inspire me though and therein lies a tale. We had a minor hiccup on our amble through the area. As a group, we were scheduled to pick up the TVR fast train service from Tours back to Paris then the Eurostar to London. You might recall late last year, there was a Channel Tunnel fire that halted the Eurostar services for a couple of weeks. The fire happened while we were in France and once hearing of this mishap my little golfing band of journalists made hasty plans to fly back to London. I decided to stay for another couple of days, hire a car do some more exploring, gastronomic adventuring and maybe fit in another round of golf.
I never did find out if the Count de Cheverny was responsible for the golf addition to his estate but it’s a well-warranted one. French architect Olivier Van der Vynckt, (he doesn’t sound very French) routed the 6272 meter long, Par 71 through fairly flat but well-defined forest with one or two notable stretches of water. I wouldn’t say this was my favourite course of the trip but it was certainly challenging with interesting problems, the long Par 4, 2nd for instance fronted by a reedy pond and forcing a lay-up. Or the leap across the lake at the 10th, actually far less daunting than it looks. But you don’t know that first time out and it does look intimidating.
What I will wax on about at Golf de Cheverny was the clubhouse lunch. This was clubhouse fare I would put on a par with some of the best AA-Rosette or Michlin starred restaurant in the UK. Restaurant La Rousselière supplied one of the finest meals of our trip – and that was just a clubhouse lunch. I could get very used to this…
Now I’m going to square with you here. Loire golf is nothing to really get the die-hard top course aficionados excited. There’s one course I would really love to play. Les Bordes is meant to be one of the finest heathland courses in Europe – and we drove right past it. We could see tees and greens over the fence and through the VW window and they looked superb. Isn’t it frustrating when you can see one of the finest courses in Europe and don’t get to play it? Les Bordes, built by the Bich family makers of Bic pens is now an exclusive members club and they only have 300 members! Wow! That must be nice for them - but if any of you members are reading this please feel free to invite me along for a round any time.
There was one final course that did inspire me though and therein lies a tale. We had a minor hiccup on our amble through the area. As a group, we were scheduled to pick up the TVR fast train service from Tours back to Paris then the Eurostar to London. You might recall late last year, there was a Channel Tunnel fire that halted the Eurostar services for a couple of weeks. The fire happened while we were in France and once hearing of this mishap my little golfing band of journalists made hasty plans to fly back to London. I decided to stay for another couple of days, hire a car do some more exploring, gastronomic adventuring and maybe fit in another round of golf.
