Well over par in Paris
Minty Clinch visits the home of the next Ryder Cup – and finds the stars are in for a serious test
EXCITEMENT mounts among our group of golfers as we gather in the dining room of the overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Caen. Suitably refreshed after a decent night’s sleep, we roll off the ship the next morning for the drive east to the Hotel de Versailles, a tee shot from the Hall of Mirrors in Louis XIV’s glitzy palace on the outskirts of Paris.
Not my tee shot, nor necessarily yours, but close enough for the world’s longest hitters when they line up here for the Ryder Cup in September 2018 – the first time the sport’s showpiece event has been held on French soil.
Versailles will be seen in all its pomp for the biennial competition, with the opening and closing ceremonies taking place in the palace and the Grand Trianon, the pink marble baroque love-nest that Louis shared with his mistresses.
The action between the European team and their rivals from the United States will take place at the Paris National course, which is just a ten-minute drive from Versailles.
The course was built by the French Golf Federation on a former rubbish dump.
It took three years to clear the site and turn it into the elegantly landscaped fairways and sculptured greens of the Albatros championship course in time for its unveiling in 1990.
The two teams will face a daunting challenge. There are a seemingly endless number of lakes around the course, ready to punish any wayward shots.
For amateurs like me, the sight of so much water is enough to shred your nerves.
The course throws everything at the players – streams, marshland, impenetrable rough and domed greens. You may well be feeling battered and bruised as your round progresses, but there is no respite thanks to a closing stretch of holes which features narrow fairways among more great lakes. The layout should ensure a riveting competition next year.
After our round we headed to the on-site hotel – the rather bleak Soviet-style Novotel St Quentin – for dinner and a stiff drink.
The bedrooms are named after previous winners of the French Open, which is also played at Paris National, including Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell.
Ryder Cup officials will stay here during the tournament, while the players will return to the more luxurious surroundings of the Waldorf Astoria Trianon Palace in Versailles. Early risers might want to take a tour of the palace, with its magnificently ornate rooms and manicured formal gardens.
During our trip, we also had the chance to play at two other courses. Faux classical statues guard the Chateau de Rochefort-en-Yvelines, a grandiose 19th Century edifice overlooking the Golf de Rochefort course in the Chevreuse Valley. The holes wind through the former royal hunting ground, the fairways shaded by ancient oaks and sweet chestnuts. The second course, Golf Parc Robert Hersant, was formerly the private domain of the press magnate whose portfolio included Le Figaro and France Soir. If Hersant was a good golfer, he tested himself to the maximum on this American-designed course – several of the greens are located on islands in the middle of lakes. But if he was a duffer, he probably got more pleasure from the 15,000 exotic trees he planted across the hillsides. In autumn, Hersant’s personal arboretum – sequoia, Douglas fir and ginkgo – burns scarlet and gold. It’s a little slice of New England in remotest Normandy.