Golf d'Hardelot is a two course golf resort on the Cote d'Opale (Opal Coast), Northern France! Near Boulogne & Le Touqet!
The Les Pins course at Hardelot golf resort is the older, ie original, of the two courses! Opened in 1931, it was designed by Tom Simpson!
A renovation was undertaken in 2016 by architects Frank Pont and Patrice Boissonas, to restore the Les Pins to the original Simpson design concept!
The course is a par 71, comprising of 5 par 3s, 9 par 4s and 4 par 5s.
There are two mens tees, white and yellow, and two ladies tees, blue and red!
Both men and ladies play off the same handicap indexes!
Each of the tees have their own SSS and Slope indexes, ie 71.5/129 white, 69.4/121 yellow, 72.7/125 blue and 70.1/118 red respectively!
I played off the yellow tees at 5,462 metres (5,975 yards)! This is pro-rata similar to the yellow tees yards at Cherry Lodge!
The course meanders among a highly mature forest of pine trees, and is bounded by an array of stunning modern and older classic houses! Heaven!
The course fairways, tee boxes and greens are fully watered and are in lush green condition! The fairways are as perfect as can be!
*****
The greens are generally large, raised, undulating multi layered, firm, well guarded by bunkers, moderately paced and very tricky to read!
I had 38 total putts for my round, including 3 x 3 putts and only one single putt! I had 3 birdie putt opportunities but couldn't convert them! This was +6 putts too many!
*****
The Par 3s: the par 3s are a beautiful mix of short and medium range challenges! The windy conditions made club selection difficult! I managed to get a nearest the pin on the 106 metre 7th!
A combined +6 for the 5 par 3s was a very disappointing outcome as it includes only 2 pars, a double bogey (14th) and triple bogey (17th)!
Given that I only have one shot on the par 3s (17th), this was +5 too many shots!
*****
The Par 4s: the par 4s are a good mix of short and longer range holes, well bunkered, elevation changes and doglegs.
The 2nd, 16th and 18th holes, are significantly longer than 400 yards and are indexes 3, 2 and 4 accordingly!
The front 9 includes 3 of the toughest par 4s, the index 2 2nd, index 7 4th and index 1 9th.
The 9th hole is visually the most intimidating off the tee, with a carry required over a range of high faced bunkers to a blind left dogleg and an uncertain landing fairway width; followed by a tight uphill approach up to an unbunkered green!
A well struck tee shot should comfortably make the carry but unfortunately, and unexpectedly for me, this was my first ball striking error and I managed to hit under the ball and sky it into the bunker! While I subsequently made an excellent exit from the bunker I failed to make the carry up to the green! The dilemma on this hole is that the safer wider line to the right of the bunkers leaves a very long and blocked path to the green! A true index 1 hole!
The back 9 also includes 3 of the toughest par 4s, the index 8 15th is a severe dogleg right with two line options around a clump of trees, the index 2 16th is a 420 metre hole with an uphill approach to the green, and the 406 metre down hill 18th to a beautiful green just in front of the clubhouse verandah!
Collectively my outturn score for the par 4s was +10! Given that I receive shots on 8 of the 9 par 4s, this seems to be a reasonable outcome. However, I parred 3 of the holes, and countered the good scores with 2 double bogeys and 1 triple bogeys, so is about +4 too many against par! An unlucky lost ball penalty situation accounted for +2 of the excess!
*****
The Par 5s: the 4 par 5s are a good mix of challenges! The opening 1st is a tight looking hole, the 6th and 13th are the more difficult at indexes 5 and 6 respectively, while the 10th, which runs parallel to the 1st, is a fairly straight index 14.
Collectively I scored +6 on the par 5s, which was +3 too many given my shots situation! Finding the first fairway bunker with a mishit tee shot on the 13th followed by a 3 putt accounted for +2 of the excess!
*****
This was only my 2nd game on the continent of Europe, after Wimereux the previous day!
What a joy to get to play Les Pins, a course rated in the top 10 courses in France, and in the top 100 on continental Europe! The revision was rated on the Top 100 Golf Courses of the World website as one of the most successful programmes ever seen on Continental Europe!
Les Pins is a regular host of the European Tour Qualifying School!
Given the expected difficulty of Les Pins, and it being a new course, I was thinking beforehand that a total score of about +17, ie +5 above my handicap, would have been an acceptable outcome! In the event my +22 outcome was disappointing. Unusually for me two double bogeys resulted from two drives into fairway bunkers, and a lost ball penalty (15th), contributed to the additional shots!
I've played less than 20 of the top 100 courses in England! Les Pins would be in my top 5 courses played! A stunner!
Normally I use an electric trolley to carry my bag of clubs but I hired a pull trolley! Big mistake! The impact of the undulating course together with the very windy conditions made my round more physically arduous than was good for achieving best results! I should have hired a buggy! Next time eh!
There is a moderately sized proshop! Prices are expensive in comparison to the UK!
The club is very much geared up to the British golf tourist and most of the proshop and bar staff spoke good English!
The clubhouse bar has a wall covered by scorecards from courses played by visitors; mostly English! Many of the scorecards were from courses I have played! Whilst I didn't have a spare Cherry Lodge scorecard with me I left a Surrey Downs scorecard as my contribution to the decor!
Fini......
Date Thursday, 15, August 2019
