Below is a re-print from Larry Olmsted's "The Great Life" article on FORBES website... (re-printed here without permission- sorry Mr. Olmsted!)
It's just great! At least, I think it's great. He doesn't pull any punches, telling an informed story about the Ryder Cup. Okay, I don't fully subcribe to the comment, "Le Golf National is not remotely in the same league as Royal Melbourne,..." but my objection is based from paternal pride rather than an objective perspective. (Also, I don't subscribe to making this kind of judgement/statement - without even playing a course - even if most course ratings suggest Le Golf National is not comparable to Royal Melbourne.)
I particularly appreciated the last paragraph; funny and perahaps more accurate than Mr. Olmsted may even realize.
I particularly appreciated the last paragraph; funny and perahaps more accurate than Mr. Olmsted may even realize.
By LARRY OLMSTED
Sexual assault allegations and IMF woes aside, there is some good news for France this week.
Yesterday the PGA of America announced that the 2018 Ryder Cup will be held at Le Golf National, a course just outside Versailles near Paris. The Ryder Cup is the world’s preeminent international golf competition, though that may change if golf catches on as an Olympic Sport after returning at the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The event began in 1926 or 1927 and pits a team of US golfers against a team from European nations. It is unique in that it feature stop professionals who (mostly) do not get paid (they get donations to their respective charities), which has in recent years caused grumblings, and the event has greatly increased in popularity since the 1970s and 1980 when few viewers cared. Some of this attention is for the wrong reasons, such as jingoistic bad behavior, incredibly ugly national uniforms, and last year, leaky rain suits. The cultural divide of the teams is a bit anachronistic and hearkens back to the days when golf was mainly an Anglo pursuit, and the Ryder Cup would probably be better if it were expanded to US vs. the World, but that would put the Presidents Cup, a growing but less high profile alternative that pits US golfers against non-European other nations (most of which do not actually have Presidents), out of business. The Presidents Cup is played in alternating years with the bi-annual Ryder Cup, and will make a big splash this fall when it returns to Australia’s Royal Melbourne, the first non-US course to ever host the event twice, and one of the most highly regarded golf courses on earth.
Le Golf National is not remotely in the same league as Royal Melbourne, yet it makes golf history as the first time the Ryder Cup tournament visits France, and only the second time it is being played at any venue outside the British Isles (Irish independence fans need not complain, I am using the term geographically, which includes all of the island of Ireland). The only time the Cup previously ventured across the Channel to Continental Europe it was played at Spain’s Valderrama, and immediately elevated that course onto the world stage, making it a must-play for the avid golf traveler. Valderrama is frequently rated as the single best course in Continental Europe, and the stature of having hosted the Ryder Cup is part of its allure, though having played it, I can vouch for its excellent quality, and Cup or no Cup, Valderrama, often called “The Augusta of Europe,” is well worth a visit.
Le Golf National on the other hand, I have not played, mainly because it is not an especially prominent course or one I would have sought out. Its main claim to fame and Ryder Cup contention is that it is owned by the French Golf Federation. The nation’s best known tournament course in France is Royal Evian, home of an LPGA Major, while the nation’s best course in almost any ranking list is Les Bordes, usually followed by Chantilly Old. Le National usually putters around the top ten, and in the most recent edition of the Rolex World’s Top 1000 Golf Courses (full disclosure: I contributed to the US section of this book), which I view as the most useful ratings book or printed resource for travel outside the US and Great Britain, it gets an 85, to the 95 of Les Bordes and Chantilly, and there are three more courses at 90, putting the new Ryder Cup venue in a 7-way tie for the sixth best course in France, not exactly something to brag about. Then again, a big part of tournament golf decisions these days has to do with parking and space for corporate tents, and I am sure the very accessible location, fed by both highway and rail, just outside of Paris, not to mention the ownership, helped sway the decision.
In any case, it cannot be any worse a choice than the past several Ryder Cup venues. For reasons strictly financial and sponsorship related, the Europeans have abandoned any pretense of playing the event on their marquee courses, and turned their back on the region’s greatest golf asset, a wealth of oceanfront links courses, the most desirable venues in the game. Picking venues for the Ryder Cup in Europe has become a political game of pin the tail on the donkey, and the course selected is often quite the ass.
When the Ryder Cup last ventured to Ireland, it was not played at epic Ballybunion, truly one of the world’s greatest layouts by any standards, or another historic and acclaimed links like Lahinch, but rather at the K Club on a course designed by American Arnold Palmer, seemingly imported whole from Florida, where it would be in good company among a thousand other virtually identical and characterless designs. At least the K Club is a wonderful luxury resort with first class food and accommodations. When the Cup visited Wales, it skipped the most acclaimed links, Royal Porthcawl, or any of its many lesser known hidden gem links, and played the event on what is surely one of the worst courses in the British Isles, and among the least British, the Robert Trent Jones design at Celtic Manor (which had to be substantially redone for the event). It did not help that the resort itself is a convention-centric golf factory.
But in the worst example of all, when the Ryder Cup next returns to Europe in 2014, to the very birthplace of the game, Scotland, it will not be played on the vaunted Old Course at St. Andrews, or any course at St. Andrews. It will not be played at Muirfield or Carnoustie or my favorite historic gem, Prestwick, the birthplace of the British Open. It will not be played on the most magnificent of the seaside links, the Ailsa course at Turnberry. It is headed to Gleneagles, a magnificent 5-star luxury resort that I love as a hotel, home to two exceptional classic courses by James Braid, the Kings and Queens, the best examples you will find of the “inland links” school (if you believe such a school of design exists, but I won’t argue that here).
The shocker is that the Ryder Cup is being played on neither of these. It is being played on something called the PGA Centennary course, a modern routing by Jack Nicklaus. Now while Nicklaus gets a bad rap among some architecture aficionados for the sheer amount of his work worldwide, I like his best work a lot, and several of his courses are among my personal favorites. This is not one of them. It is trash, and like Celtic Manor, needed extensive work just to be rendered playable (I still have doubts). I have played a lot of golf in Scotland and would be hard pressed to think of a worse venue for the Ryder Cup. By comparison, when the 2012 Ryder Cup visits this country, it will be played at Medinah, a classic US Open venue routinely ranked in the World Top100 courses. In 2008 it was played at another Major venue, Valhalla, which hosted the PGA Championship. In 2004 it was held at another Major spot, US Open course Oakland Hills, And so on, all the way back to the legendary Pinehurst Number Two (click here to see my recent Forbes.com post on the renovated Number Two). The last time the Europeans picked a good Ryder Cup venue was, ironically, Spain’s Valderrama in 1997 (also designed by an American, Robert Trent Jones, Sr.).
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| Robert von Hagge (L) and Hubert Chesneau during construction of Le Golf National |
So seen in these terms, we can consider Le Golf National a major victory for the game and for European golf, if only because it is the only Ryder Cup venue is recent history actually designed by a native countryman. Sort of. The name designer on the 1990 layout was Hubert Chesneau, but the consultant was US architect Robert von Hagge, and more often than not, when a consulting architect is brought in, he does the heavy lifting. Oh well, at least von Hagge knows what he’s doing, even if the European PGA isn’t so sure.
* Photos were added and not in the original article.
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