Bondues (Hawtree)

The Golf de Bondues estate and its magnificent manoir was fashioned in the late 18th century but, over time, the property fell into disrepair. In the 1960s, local businessmen came up with a plan to develop the estate for residential use, incorporating a golfing element into the design.

Fred Hawtree, who’d recently worked on a similar project at Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche outside Paris, was engaged to fashion an 18-hole course and Robert Trent Jones Sr. was also asked to plan a 9-hole layout (to which his son Robert Trent Jones Jr. added another nine holes years later, which is now called Trent Jones).

Today, the course measures 6,227 metres from the back tees, playing to a par of 73 (37 out and 36 in) with two returning nines. Highlight holes include the 387-metre 8th (stroke index 1) which doglegs left to the green, and the last of the par threes at the heavily sand-protected 183-metre 14th.

The Peugeot Golf Guide describes the course as follows in this edited extract:

“Bondues is one of the great traditional clubs from the Lille region. The Hawtree course is the oldest and was designed in pure British tradition with a lot of small water hazards but trees very much in play and bunkers that, although hardly original in shape and design, are always astutely placed.”