2014 – Le Tour de France

19th –22nd October 2014

This is where it all started, this year’s Le Tour de France.  Monday 20th October, Golf Des Ormes, just a few miles outside St Malo, where only a couple of hours earlier we had arrived on the overnight ferry from Portsmouth.  Eight golfers of dubious abilities, all over to enjoy three days’ of golf on a range of courses between St Malo and Caen.  Last year three of us had gone on an expedition to evaluate the viability of making this event into something other members of our Golf Society might want to join us in.  This time we had our new recruits, and we had loads of golf gear as well……

The weather was overcast, and became a little drizzly as we started the round, but there was no wind at all.  Des Ormes is a beautiful golf course, in a beautiful setting, and an ideal starting point for a golf tour.  It really sets the standard for the week in terms of quality and condition of the courses.  Sadly our golf didn’t quite live up to the same standard, and perhaps promised that “it can only get better”.  Perhaps.  For Dan Elliott it started lucky, “Barnes Wallis-ing” his way across the pond in front of the first tee.  Apparently the second group saw a coypu coming out of that pond as they walked by.  The rest of us had to make do with red squirrels and a variety of woodland or water birds as we trampled the cobnuts, chestnuts and beechnuts underfoot.

No-one broke par, with Mark Davies’ 33 points being the best round of the day.  We had so many competitions running it gets complicated to say who was winning what, but it went something like this after day one:

Individual Stableford:  Mark Davies. Pairs Combined Stableford: Mark Davies and Rod Smith.  Pairs Betterball League: Tim Pascoe & Dan Elliott. King of the Mountains (Par 5s): Tim Pascoe. Sprint Champion (Par 3s): Mark Davies.  I think.

Afterwards we drove to our hotel, the Ibis at Port-en-Bessin, which was absolutely fine.  They managed to book us into a local restaurant for an 8.00pm meal, and we had a very good meal at reasonable prices there.  Sadly we couldn’t return there as they weren’t open on Tuesday evenings.  Happily the hotel promised to book us a table at another restaurant for the Tuesday evening.

Mark Davies and Stewart Russell were put in Room 101.

As we had sat in the bar at the hotel for a nightcap, the television on the wall was showing the French Meteo forecast for tomorrow.  The Cotentin Peninsula was being promised 80kph winds (which equates to 50mph) banging in from the west, the relic of the massive Hurricane Gonzalo that had battered Bermuda a few days earlier.  And we were due to be playing at Coutainville, right on the exposed west coast of said peninsula!

Ah well, it was booked and paid for, we may as well give  it a go!

Coutainville is a low-lying links type course, and I would imagine the locals are well used to coping with windy conditions.  However today there were precious few locals on the course, just a few hardy souls.  Our start was delayed, as the wind was bringing with it deluges of severely driven rain that left us pinned in the clubhouse.  There was no rush though, as the lack of demand meant that we could tee off pretty well whenever we wanted to!

So the first person teed off to a shortish par 3, with the wind wafting left to right.  He aimed a bit left.  Not enough!!!!  Missed by a mile. Blown away to the right.  And so it continued, with so many assessments of the wind proving to be far from accurate throughout our rounds.  Water on the right, so aim way left…. oops, splash.  One of those days.  For Rod Smith it was deja vu time, as on Day Two last year he had thrown his toys out of his pram, and he did it again this year.  Whereas last year he had had his driver slip from his grasp and hurled it after his ball at the 18th, this time he did it at the 7th; to be fair, his ball went a lot further last year.

If yesterday’s scoring had been low, this time it was almost painful.  Eleven points covered Tuesday’s field, from a battling 19 through to Stewart Russell finishing first on the day with a paltry 30 points, but the winner on the day was of course the mighty Gonzalo.  So to the competitions, and our latest standings after day two:

Individual Stableford:  Stewart Russell. Pairs Combined Stableford: Mark Davies and Rod Smith.  Pairs Betterball League: Tim Pascoe & Dan Elliott. King of the Mountains (Par 5s): Tim Pascoe. Sprint Champion (Par 3s): Stewart Russell.  I think.

On our way back to the hotel, a small amount of shopping was done, a few bottles of wine and beer being bought for taking home.  Mr Lucking also bought some Camembert, as did Tracey Elliott.  Thanks.  That was a good idea.  Let’s keep them in the car overnight shall we?  “Quelle fromage!“ as Del Boy would say. That evening we took our battered golfing egos to a restaurant as booked by the hotel, which in all honesty wasn’t as warm and welcoming as the previous evening’s one.  It could have been better if it had offered carafes of house wine instead of insisting on selling you wine by the bottle starting at over €21; no chance, and I think the service we got suffered for that reluctance to spend that much on wine.  A few beers were had, not a lot else.  The food was good though.

Mark Lucking Elliotts Tim Pascoe

Wednesday morning wasn’t too rushed, as we were playing at Omaha Beach (Mer), which was literally a few minutes drive away.  In fact we got there so early the pro shop wasn’t even open.  But we got away on time, and set off on one of the classic courses of northern France.  At first it was still very heavily influenced by Gonzalo, but he eventually gave up on us and just left his little brother Gonzo to annoy us.  When we got out to the the signature hole that is the 6th, the wind was still giving us some trouble.  You’d imagine that we’d be quite respectful of the signature hole overlooking the D-Day Landing Beaches, and by and large we were.  Except for Mark Lucking, who broke the hole.  Literally, he broke the signature hole at Omaha Beach (Mer).  The wind had jammed the flagstick so firmly in the hole that as he yanked it out he took the whole of the hole with it!  Photos were taken, views admired, and a German bunker explored.

Although the course is called “Mer”, and you would imagine it to be very much a seaside course, actually very few of the holes are in any way “seaside”. You can see the sea over the bumps and hollows of several of the first nine holes.  There was a lot of walking involved for those not in buggies, some walkers arriving on the next tee several minutes after the buggies – if we play here again we’d all be better off with buggies, even if the routes they are required to take can be a little bizarre:

Wendy Booth parking her buggy in a bunker!

The course made its way inland and many of the last few holes had fruit trees lining the fairways.  There were several types of apple, and also some quite hefty pears, that were scattered across the ground, Gonzalo’s windfalls.  Tracey picked up some pears for Dan, as apparently he likes a pear crumble:

Tracey Elliott showing off her windfalls

The front nine had taken us some 3 hours, mainly due to spending a lot of time repairing the sixth hole and taking in the views.  Overall it was a five-hour round which meant that we had to leave pretty promptly in order to get to the ferry on time.  Once on board, there was a chance for us to collate the final scores for the day, gather together the competition results, and to present the prizes.  On the day, in another low-scoring performance, Tim had managed the best score, with 29 points, Dan had done best on the Par 5s, and Wendy had scored best on the Par 3s.  The final standings turned out to be:

Individual Stableford:  Tim Pascoe. Pairs Combined Stableford: Mark Davies and Rod Smith.  Pairs Betterball League: Mark Davies and Rod Smith. King of the Mountains (Par 5s): Tim Pascoe. Sprint Champion (Par 3s): Wendy Booth.

Many expressions of interest were gathered on the boat on the way home in response to the question “shall we do this again next year?”

Seems like a plan.