golf, France, where to play, what to see, where to stay, information

Les Bordes in Sologne,
best course in France ?

Where to play ?
What to see ?
Where to stay ?
Informations

Les Bordes May 2001
In 1999, GOLF WORLD, the great American magazine, ranked the Golf des Bordes as the only French course to find place in the hundred best courses in the world. In 2001, the Golf des Bordes was awarded the prestigious "Travel Oscar 2001" at the International Trade Show in Berlin (Germany)… OK! les Bordes is a course a golfer has to play at least once in his life.

Located at about 150 kilometre south-west of Paris, between Orleans and Blois, nearby the Loire river, in the famous Sologne forest, the Golf des Bordes is alike the stags one can see at very early bird along the forest edges. It's a wonderful animal, wild, purebred, unforeseeable which, you need to approach with intelligence, humility and simplicity if you wann't be outclassed.

But no anxiety, the course designed by Robert Van Hagghe is not a "monster" (even if the record is just one under par). It's a course where every golfer can have fun under the following condition : to stay humble and limit one's ambitions to one's abilities.

It's not a "long shots course" but a real "target course" where precision is more effective than length to avoid or get round obstacles, like the water hazards along which hole-7 par-5 or hole-11 par-4 are laying around like a croissant between water and grooms. Rash or bold shots are immediately penalised.

Three strong men have brought together their talent to realise this jewel. First of all, the Baron Bich, owner of a huge private hunting estate in the Sologne region where moor and forest share a poor flat soil of sand and clay, dug by pools and streams. It is the realm of deer families and all a wild fauna, which found here board and lodging. The second is his Japanese partner, Mr Sakuraï, who was as golf impassioned as the Baron became at 60. Both decided to entrust the golf architect Robert Van Hagghe to implement their idea: build an exceptional golf course in full respect of the nature. Van Hagghe did it perfectly carving literally the holes through moor and trees, over and around pools and streams.

And it is not a hazard if the wild fauna shows up to whom opens one's eyes and… steps at early morning (at least for the deer). Besides it is one of the recommendation to the golfers to stay in the 40 rooms scattered around in small local Sologne cottages along the hole-18 across the forest. The place is completely out of any kind of civilised noises. Mocking blackbirds are the only who can disturb your concentration.

And if you want to rest on a easier course, play one or two of the four nine-holes of the nearby Club de Ganay where the nature has been drastically respected: fairways have been drawn trough moor and forest without any preparation at the least expenses. Genuine golf.

Club House

Green 14

Hole 7 : reality

Hole 7 : design