Wimereux - North East France - France

The narrative for this course at the top of the page states “the layout has been changed many times” since the Great War, when Guy Campbell and C.K. Hutchison redesigned the layout. Well, that’s exactly the feeling I got when visiting here last week.

On returning home to examine the club’s excellent history section on its website, it mentions a “Mr. Lévrier chosen as architect for the design of a new course which has 9 holes on the sea side and 9 holes on the countryside” in 1957.

Additional land was acquired in 1990 to lay out holes 1, 5, 17 and 18 and they now sit between a loop (2nd to 4th) at the north end of the course so I imagine these three holes are even newer.

Unfortunately, these four 1990s holes are set out on the same northeast-southwest orientation as most of the others on the main part of the property (holes 6 to 16) so there really is a feeling of going back and forth across the same landscape.

I rarely criticize course conditioning but many of the fairways were in really poor shape (presumably through lack of fairway irrigation) and if Wimereux is regarded by some publications as a links then it certainly didn’t play like one, with scant regard to the grasses required for such a classification (to say nothing about the pond to the front right of the home green).

The Biarritz green for the 175-metre 6th was one of the best I saw on my trip, and placing the tee for the par three 12th on top of an old concrete defence position built by the occupying German army in World War II is certainly a talking point but the overall playing experience at Wimereux left my sadly underwhelmed.

Jim McCann

Wimereux in a slightly underrated course. Links golf with the white cliffs of Dover on the horizon!

Compact lay-out, good green complexes, well maintained. Sometimes a bit rough on the edged maybe, but never to much.

Nice little clubhouse for drinks and snacks.

When combined with Hardelot, Touquet & Belle Dune you have a 5 star golf experience!

A strong 4-ball review for this very good links layout, one of the only two real ones in France with Granville. Despite poor fairway conditions, greens and their surroundings were really excellent, running fast and true

A few holes reminding me the New Course in St Andrews, strategy first !

Nice views on the Channel Sea and Dover cliffs

Highly recommend !

This was a great fun links (sort of) course with some stunning views across the Channel.

I played in a strong wind and the greens were quick which made scoring here very difficult. Nevertheless, this was a true and honest test of golf.

The first hole is a tough, blind and uphill par 5. You quickly realise how undulating this piece of land is and how difficult this is going to be! 2 is one of the best holes here - a long downhill par 3 with trouble all around.

3 and 4 are both strong par 4s coming back up the hill.

The rest of the course is now laid out ahead of you and you don’t have the blind shots that you had on the other holes. However, these are mostly good links-like holes - my favourites being 13, 14 and 17. These are the toughest holes in this bunch (2 long par 4s and an uphill par 5) and you don’t get much respite in between.

Definitely recommend coming to this course. The views are stunning and the golf is pretty good too!

We played Wimereux on a lovely warm day in June and the course was in great condition. The stand out part of the course were the greens which were quick without being lightening fast and ran very true. I thought as a rule the par 3s were great with the 2nd being my favourite.

There were two points however that stop me rating this a five 1. the bunkers have far too much sand in, it is like playing out of a kids sand pit and 2. The semi rough needs to be slightly wider and slightly longer. The course is a true links and therefore there are bounces on the mounds in the fairway that send the ball left and right, however the ball always then seems to go straight through the semi rough and into the really long stuff. If they sorted these two pieces then it is a bang on 5.

I did thoroughly enjoy the round though and would recommend it to any links lovers out there.

In the early 90s, the club had no irrigation, so playing it during a dry summer felt like going back to the early days of the game of golf. It is also a treasured personal memory, because it was here, at Wimereux, I got to appreciate the value of the ground game, of using the contours of the land to bring the ball close to the flag rather than artillery practice with short irons.

These days Route d’Ambleteuse has become Avenue Francois Mitterrand and the club has also moved with the times. What you still get is undiluted, fun links golf with no fuss whatsoever. Therefore, you could do a lot worse than putting Wimereux and Le Touquet La Mer at the top of the list for your next golf week-end. Could easily have given it 5 balls for sentimental reasons, but I feel that a strong 4-ball rating is definitely motivated.

First things first. Wimereux is the only real links course in that part of France and probably only 2 others in the country can qualify as such, Granville in Normandie and Chiberta near Biarritz (none of those 2 I’ve played though). Le Touquet has often been referred to one, but is not really. For a links lover like me, this is the closest destination if I don’t want to cross the Channel. I had played there 4 or 5 years ago and wasn’t really impressed. It looked scruffy in places, greens were slow, and I just didn’t feel like it was anything special. The clubhouse looked a bit outdated (still does) and practice range really basic. I gave it another chance this summer when I played at their Grand Prix, and this is the most fun I have had in a long time during a competition round, despite the very strong winds on the first day. The greens were really fast, the ball taking absolutely all the breaks, especially those you can’t see! It was real links golf, competition links golf should I say. Not overly long but tough in the prevailing winds, as all tough holes are in the wind, almost with no exception, and the easier ones down wind. 4th to 7th are especially tough, as well as 10th to 13th. It is not the manicured of courses, but when prepared for competition standards, it is great fun. I guess it can be a little hit and miss as I doubt they have this quality of greens all year long, as my previous visit tends to prove. Give it a try and find out for yourself. But Wimereux clearly is a nice addition to the more famous courses in the area. Cédric