Maison Blanche (Les Sources)

Lake Geneva is a beautiful body of water shared by Switzerland and France, with the Alps on the eastern and southern shores and the Jura on the western and northern ones. It is also surrounded by many golf courses. There are no less than four top-tier private clubs on the Swiss side and another five on the French side, including Maison Blanche, which opened in 1993.

Located about a15-minute drive from the Geneva international airport, in the foothills of the Jura, Golf & Country Club de Maison Blanche is a very private club which does not seek publicity. There is no information about the club online other than basic, practical data, and the club likes it that way. The club boasts 750+ members, all shareholders of the operating entity. It can therefore afford to limit the number of times a non-member can play the 18-hole course to just five times a year, to ensure that members can always find a suitable tee time.

Given its location in France, only a few kilometres from the Swiss border, the club’s membership is mixed to the point where, like other French clubs in the area (Esery and Bossey), Maison Blanche is registered with both the French and Swiss national golf bodies, and welcomes inter-club competitions from both sides.

The Maison Blanche Golf & Country Club offers an 18-hole championship course (Les Sources) and a 9-hole facility (L'Allondon), which is in fact maintained with the same attention to quality and detail as the main course. The 18-hole Les Sources was designed as a championship course from the beginning, and in fact it has hosted the Swiss Ladies Open back in 1996 and 1997 (won by Sweden’s Sophie Gustafson and France’s Marie-Laure de Lorenzi respectively). Its trademark is large, fast greens and the course is far from flat but there are a number of buggies for hire.

Peter Harradine wrote about Maison Blanche as follows: “Rolling hills, a fantastic scenery, a wonderful landscape, an interesting topography and a remarkable environment created an ideal site for a great golf course.”

“Our main concern was to provide a good golf course without ruining the natural environment, so we took full advantage of the topography and natural attributes to produce a course that is interesting, challenging, aesthetic and a worthy enhancement to this wonderful location.”

“The creation of artificial lakes and limited earth-movements have allowed the formation of some superb holes. Four to five sets of tees have been constructed to accommodate all standards of golfers and most holes offer a variety of shot values and give the more proficient player a more difficult or heroic carry where the design demands it. The greens have been designed to allow a diversity of different pin positions which can constantly alter the difficulty of the approach shot.”