Sablé-Solesmes (La Forêt & La Rivière)

Michel Gayon established his design company in 1983 and he’s had a hand in over fifty golf projects since then, with most of his architectural effort carried out in his native France, though his work on the Old and New courses at Gloria in Turkey certainly helped to raise his international profile around the start of the new millennium.

The 27-hole development at Sablé-Solesmes was unveiled in 1991 and it arrived at a time when Gayon was at his most productive, having just completed courses in different parts of the country at L’Ailette (near Reims), La Domangere (close to Nantes) and at Esery, located less than ten miles from the city centre of Geneva in Switzerland.

The brief at Sablé-Solesmes was to create a golf course “of the very highest quality, carefully planned down to the smallest detail, where excellence and a strong golfing challenge would go hand in hand with pleasure and serenity” and there can be little doubt that the architect satisfied this demanding mandate with some distinction.

The nines of La Forêt and La Rivière combine to form the championship course at Sablé-Solesmes. Not that the third nine, La Cascade (which is named after the small stream that tumbles over a waterfall on its way to the nearby River Sarthe) should be easily dismissed as it complements the other two circuits rather well.

La Forêt borders the Forêt de Pincé and its fairways wend their way round a flattish landscape, routed around stands of birch, elm and ash trees. The par five 3rd is a particularly strong hole, with a long, narrow fairway that doglegs slightly right to a large, well-protected green.

La Rivière nine is shorter and a little more undulating, with water coming into play at five of the holes. The 174-metre par three 3rd is the feature hole on this circuit, played from an elevated tee position to a peninsula green that’s also surrounded by a long, narrow sand trap.