Vidauban - 17 points
Many of the best golf courses in Continental Europe are still pretty unknown to the wider golf world. Plenty of golfers will have some experience of the resort courses of Portugal and Spain but going beyond them, you will often draw blank looks.
France can reasonably claim to be the epicentre of high quality European golf. Morfontaine is the undisputed number one course on the continent (excluding the courses of GB & I). Fontainebleau, Chantilly and the two courses at Les Bordes are all worth of high positions on any ranking.
There is another course that deserves recognition as one of the very best, however few golfers have ever seen it. Planet Golf describes Vidauban as one of the most exclusive golf courses in the world and it’s hard to argue with that description. The membership consists of eighteen families and beyond that, play is incredibly difficult.
The course is located in the South of France, an hour to the west of Nice, north of Saint Tropez. The history is fascinating. Robert Trent Jones fell in love with the land in the 1970s and spent the next twenty years trying to get the project off the ground, investing his own money in the incredibly ambitious project.
In his autobiography of Trent Jones, A Difficult Par, James R Hansen says, ‘Jones’s grandiose master plan for the Vidauban property called for three golf courses, at least two clubhouses, three thousand condominiums and the large hotels’. The marketing material to help with the fundraising claims ‘In the fall or spring each year a major tournament will be held (perhaps called the International Open)…in time it is intended that the tournament will rival the Master and the US and British Opens.’
The first golf course and a handful of show houses were built, with a grand opening in 1991. Then disaster hit. Planning permission for the project hadn’t been granted and things, quite literally, ground to a halt. There were to be no more golf courses and no hotels. In fact for some years it looked like a ball might never be struck on this land.
The legal wrangles went on. Robert Trent Jones put everything he had into appealing the local authority’s decision. But it wasn’t enough. He sold his dream to a consortium of Norwegian businessmen before it bankrupted him. For Trent Jones, the dream was over.
A change of ownership led to a change in approach. One of the main issues was that the golf course had been built on a site of scientific interest and further work was deemed to risk causing more damage to the environment. The new owners established a very carefully constructed environmental plan which ensured the course enhanced the natural surroundings rather than further impact them. This was to be a golf course that worked with its neighbours rather than fight them.
It took many years for Vidauban’s future to be assured, and the scale of the project was fundamentally changed, meaning Vidauban is a unique property in European golf. Plans for more golf courses, housing and hotels were all canned. Those show homes which had been built in the early days - in the style of a Provencal village – would become the clubhouse, changing rooms and provide limited on-site accommodation.
Many will be familiar with impressive new courses on the Continent which have been built on idyllic terrain just for housing to encroach, and swimming pools in gardens become hazards. You will have no such worry at Vidauban. When you are on the property it feels like you are in the middle of nowhere - you will hear no traffic, see no people.
This truly is millionaire’s golf, in fact I suspect it is more like billionaire’s golf. There are roughly 2,000 rounds of golf on the course every year. Even allowing for some closure for maintenance and the winter lull, that still comes in at just a couple of fourballs a day. If you belong to one of the eighteen families you won’t be worried about getting a tee time.
All of which is well and good, but it doesn’t count for much if the golf course doesn’t hit the heights.
The practice facilities at Vidauban are tremendous - its high quality is in keeping with the whole property
Trent Jones is most famous in Europe for building Valderrama. I have played there at least half a dozen times but have never been able to fall in love with it. Many are too focussed on the conditioning of Valderrama but the trees and heavy rough can lead to a claustrophobic feeling. There are no such worries about Vidauban. It’s a really enjoyable golf course to play.
It’s built amongst magnificent canopy pines, on fairly rocky ground, with some undulation. All of those features have been sympathetically included in the routing and architecture of the course – but it doesn’t feel like any compromises have been made. A lot of thought clearly went into creating the best holes possible and the land covers a really significant area.
As always, the choice of tees is important to anyone’s enjoyment of the course. There is a good selection here. The black tees reach to 7,000 yards but there are other options too. The whites are 6,700 yards and the yellows 6,100 with two more sets in front of that.
When we played there were a couple of tees down but we were encouraged to just play from any box we fancied. As we were there for a couple of days we played off a variety of tees which was great fun. We played the 13th from the yellow tees on the first round and were hitting eight and nine irons in, off the blacks the second time round a three wood was just about enough to get there.
Vidauban is fairly intimidating from the tee box. The fairway bunkering is very strong and virtually every tee shot asks a question. Trees are an important factor off several tees. However, more often that not it is the canopy from one or two trees that you need to take into account. If you end up on the wrong side of the fairway from your tee shot you will find the ball no problem, but will need to manufacture a shot to get close to the green.
I am generally not a fan of too many trees on a golf course, but I had no arguments here at all. More often than not they are well set back from the playing area and serve to frame the holes rather than come into play. It would have been perverse to build a golf course on this landscape and get rid of all the trees.
It really does feel like the course has been built into its surroundings. There was little water on the property when it was built and as a result it doesn’t have the contrived lakes of so many modern golf courses on the continent. The 18ths at Evian and Crans Montana and the 17th at Valderrama are all almost comical in their construction. No such nonsense here!
Building a routing around the rocks and contours of the land has meant there are plenty of doglegs on the course and the positioning of trees and fairway bunkers has been very clever, enhancing the experience of these holes. In the last year several bunkers have been taken out, specifically those beneath trees, which is a very good idea. There is punishment enough waiting without adding insult to injury.
The drainage on the course is simply superb. When we were there 3 inches of rain fell in just twelve hours. Previously, bunkers would have taken weeks to recover, but thanks to new drainage recently put in most were still pretty much perfect and the others would be have been sorted within a day or two.
At the time of our visit, the club was introducing fescue grass on top of the bunkers. It was quite long as it was bedding in, but was due a haircut soon. It definitely adds definition to the bunkers. An unusual look, but it really worked.
There are 18 greenkeepers and a Scottish course superintendent who clearly knows his craft. The whole conditioning of the course was magnificent – on the fairways it was like hitting off of carpet. And the greens were simply sensational. SubAir is installed and, despite the most incredible rain, a few hours of sucking led to Tour standard greens.
Vidauban is visually stunning, with verdant fairways, brilliant white bunkers and only pine straw under the trees that frame the holes. If you squint a bit you could mistake it for Georgia in April.
While it may be intimidating from the tee there is quite a lot of width at Vidauban. You may not have a great line in to the green if you miss the fairways but, unless you are really wide, you will find your ball and, taking your punishment, you should still be able to still get bogey. Get too greedy though, and the canopy pines will eat your ball up or the rocky outcrops will ping you into oblivion.
Here are a few highlights:
Hole 1
The first gives you a really good taste of what is to come. It’s a sweeping par 4 round to the left. The best line is as tight as you can to the inside of the dogleg but, if you overdo it, you will find rocks. Play too safe to the right and there’s a bunker in play and a long shot in to the green with a vast bunker short. Fortune definitely favours the brave!!
The first hole at Vidauban is a sweeping dogleg to the left and gives you a good taste of what is to come.
Hole 2
The second is a lovely par 4. One of the most acute doglegs on the course, you need to hit it long and left off the tee to take the trees at the inside of the dogleg out of play. But the approach will take a lot of concentration. Short and there’s a deep bunker waiting, long and there’s another one, this time with the distinctive red rocks in it too.
An aerial view of the 2nd hole
Hole 4
The fourth is the only hole with water in play – a medium length par 4 over water to a green with a bunker long. So just make sure you hit the right club and execute it perfectly!
Hole 7
The 7th was a great hole. From the tee it was pretty intimidating but the trees are actually quite well set back. Your second is over a ravine to a narrow green and, into the wind, it was very easy to come up short!
Hole 10
Like the first, the 10th is a dogleg round to the left. This is a shorter hole though and a real birdie opportunity if you can get one down the middle as you’ll have a relatively short shot in. A good, fun start to the back 9.
Hit a big draw on the 10th and you’ll only have a wedge in
Hole 11
I really enjoyed the par 3s at Vidauban. I like that they aren’t crazy long (nothing annoys me more than four par 3s over 170 yards) but they will test you. The 11th was a four iron into the wind, but anything pushed a bit will find the ‘interesting’ bunker on the right. Left isn’t great either to be honest!
Go right on the 11th and you may be hitting off the rocks
Hole 12
Even off the yellow tees, three of the four par 5s at Vidauban are well over 500 yards long. The 12th is a dogleg to the left where, again, hugging the inside will be advantageous, but risky. Mere mortals will be hitting a long third shot into this small green and there’s a lot of sand short!
Hole 16
The sixteenth is the last par 3. If you are worried you haven’t got enough club then you need to make sure you are right of the pin as a deep bunker is waiting for anything short and left.
Hole 17
17 proved to be a great matchplay hole for us. Once again you’re going in with a mid to long iron and need to get over the bunkers to the green, but there’s danger long.
Hole 18
Positioning off the tee is everything at Vidauban and never more so than on the 18th. You need to be on the left hand side of the fairway or the canopied pines come into play. There are plenty of trees in the course but they make you think about strategy and focus the mind.
Hopefully I have given you a good idea of what to expect at Vidauban. It really will challenge you and you will have a lot of fun. I have no doubt that Vidauban belongs in the top 10 in Europe.
TOUR TIPS
Vidauban is one of the most exclusive courses in the world so getting a game is very difficult. Very occasionally a place comes up through a charity auction so if you really want to play the course my advice would be to set a google alert for ‘Vidauban golf auction’ and wait for one to come around.
We stayed on the property in one of the lovely apartments. The clubhouse is modest in size but the hospitality and food were wonderful. The members we met were very welcoming and the whole place had a vibe of being made for people who love golf.
It’s just over an hour’s drive from Nice airport to Vidauban and there are plenty of other options for golf nearby - Taulane and Terre Blanche would be the pick of the bunch for me.
CONTACT DETAILS
Le Prince de Provence,
Route Departmentale 72,
83550 Vidauban,
France
Web: www.vidaubangolfclub.com
