The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
French Revolution 2018?
WHILE WE’RE rather obsessed with a certain weekend in September in Perthshire, there was more evidence of the significance of the Ryder Cup beyond Gleneagles at the WGC in Arizona.
Victor Dubuisson, the 23-year-old who will surely play at Gleneagles after finishing second in theWGC Matchplay, is the most visible product of a drive by France to become one of Europe’s golfing powers by 2018, when they host the matches between Europe and the USA near Paris.
France has a curious golfing history. Arnaud Massy was the first non-Briton to win the Open Championship in 1907, but he is also the last Frenchman to lift the Claret Jug, although Jean Van de Velde infamously got very, very close.
There have been great European Tour players, notably Thomas Levet, who apart from being possibly the nicest man on Tour, played in the record Ryder Cup win at Oakland Hills in 2004 and won the Scottish Open that same year.
There are several great courses in France, of which the Ryder Cup venue, L’Albatros at Golf National near Versailles, is one of the very best.
Yet the game’s been almost an afterthought. Pore through L’Equipe and you struggle to find European Tour scores, although the world’s greatest sports-only newspaper always finds room for even the most obscure games.
The heart of the country has almost a perfect climate and landscape for golf. Yet I well recall travelling around Lyon and St Etienne during the 2007 Rugby World Cup and barely seeing a single course.
Quietly, though, France has been laying the foundations. France’s Federation, buoyed by willing sponsors that make the Open de France one of the EuropeanTour’s most lucrative events, have been pumping money into development.
Some e2.75 million is spent on their men’s team alone. For the last five years, top amateur events throughout Europe have been swamped by outstanding young Frenchmen and women.
The number of girls playing the game dwarves figures for the UK and Ireland.
Dubuisson was a world top five amateur, won the European Individual A mateur in 2009, and is one of the very few in recent times to come through all stages on the European Tour Q School. But Julien Brun, a contemporary, was world No 1 before turning pro, while Julien Guerrer won the A mateur Championship in 2006.
It’s the depth of squad that’s the most startling. Over the past few years France have had more players in the Scottish Open A mateur Strokeplay Championship than any other nation bar the home one.
A manufacturer’s scout who follows the international amateur closer than most told me that France’s methods for coaching and development were in advance of any other nation and it’s all tied in with 2018.
Victor, to play on the US Tour as well at Gleneagles, may only be the first of many.