Saint Germain Golf Club (Grand Parcours)

Measuring 6,734 yards from the championship tees, Golf de Saint Germain is located to the west of Paris in the forest of Saint Germain. The club was originally founded in 1902 as Golf de l’Ermitage and their course was situated on the banks of the river Seine but in 1920 they moved to their present location when members grew tired of the river flooding their 18-hole layout.

St Germain is one of several French golf projects that Harry Colt was involved with in the early part of the 20th century, the others being Cannes Mandelieu, Chantaco, Saint Cloud, Granville and Le Touquet (with Charles Alison).

The club has hosted the French Open nine times and it has been won at St Germain by golfers from eight different nations (with only Scotland providing multiple champions in the shape of George Duncan in 1927 and Sandy Lyle in 1981). The last winner here was Seve Ballesteros when he shot a course record 62 on his way to capturing the 1985 Open de France.

The first world amateur team championship for women was held over the course in 1964, when the ladies from the home nation lifted the prestigious Espirito Santo Trophy.

A delightful parkland course that flows through avenues of majestic trees, St Germain is a thinking golfer’s course where one must plot their way round the property, avoiding the strategically placed bunkers and steering clear of the trees that line every fairway and shelter every green.

Following a meeting of the Colt Association at Stoke Park and visits to Swinley Forest and Sunningdale at the end of the 1990s, the club assembled a small team to oversee the restoration of the course to its original design.

Superfluous trees and bushes were removed and putting surfaces reshaped and resized, with Colt’s trademark false fronts restored at many of the greens. Selective bunker removal was undertaken and over fifty greenside traps were renovated, returning green surrounds to their original appearance.

As Philippe Delaune, the St Germain President says, “If our club is lucky enough to possess a renowned architectural heritage, it is our duty to preserve its authenticity… The course can evolve but it must retain its original character”.

The book 500 world’s greatest golf holes by author George Peper and the editors of GOLF magazine features the 444-yard par four 14th at Saint Germain: “Like many of the 1920s-era courses around Paris, Saint Germain’s character reflects the many stages of its life. At this hole, despite decades of tree growth that now leave the hole a private wooded enclave, vestiges of a more open, linkslike design remain. Mounded, closely sculpted fairway bunkers that pinch the tee shot landing area are covered with fescue-like long grass, while the crowned green is bunkerless in front and therefore receptive to a variety of mid-trajectory approaches.”