a golfing week end at deauville

BERNARD DARWIN

an ardent follower of the game describes the newest of the fashionable european courses

There are some places which I, as a humble and tranquil citizen, rather like to read about but which I have never in my wildest dreams expected to visit. I picture them to myself as I sit in my own workaday home, as wonderful, gilded paradises fitted with resplendent creatures who fling gold pieces about with airy gestures, turn day into night and live in a whirl of dancing or sun-bathing and casinos. My pictures of them are probably quite unlike the real thing but they amuse me, partly because I feel a certain reflected splendour from them, and partly because I am rather glad that I shall never have to go there.

Of such places are Palm Beach in winter and Antibes and Deauville in the summer. And yet by one of life's little ironies I have just been to Deauville. More than that, I was not stricken blind by the sparkle and the gorgeousness. I survived the shock and enjoyed myself very much. As this is a golfing article and I went to Deauville purposely to play golf I must try to tell something about it. I went there as one of a team of eight to play in a match against the amateurs of all France. No selective committee chose us; we were entirely unofficial; we were chosen by a kind friend. Some of us were not so young as we should like to be, but we had four players who played in a Walker Cup match, with Wethered as our leader. We were not such a bad team and, in fact, we beat our adversaries with something to spare. Victory or defeat, however, were small matters compared with friendliness, and no team ever met more friendly enemies or were received with more overwhelming kindness than we were. The great M. Andre who is the uncrowned King of Deauville and of half a dozen other French resorts, made us his guests, and that was to be royally treated indeed.

Deauville is only some two hours by train from Paris. If you go there from London you take a boat from Southampton to Havre, a crossing of some six or seven hours. You then get on to a much smaller steamer which takes you around the mouth of the Seine, in about three-quarters of an hour in fine weather, to land at the pier at Trouville. Then you cross the bridge that divides the older Trouville from the newer and more chic Deauville and there you are. When I and two others—an advance guard—got to Deauville, we were not allowed on to that small boat. Our thoughtful hosts had feared lest we might arrive in a limp and storm-tossed condition, as we did,—so there awaited us a vast golden motor omnibus attended by gorgeous minions bearing on their brand new uniforms the legend "New-Golf". They had expected "Douze personnes" and we could hardly persuade them that we insignificant three were all the party for that gigantic chariot. Then we rolled away kilometres upon kilometres through lovely Normandy country with a range of high chalk cliffs above us. We got, in course of time, to a spot opposite a charming little blue and white, spick and span town where we were to take a ferry boat across the Seine. We had just missed the ferry and it would take "une demi-heure—à peu près" before it came back. So we had a subsidiary breakfast at a tiny roadside inn, drinking our coffee at a long wooden table in the sunshine, and listening, not without apprehension, to our driver's story of a lad that had skidded down the slippery slope to the river's edge and made a culbute into the water. There were moments when we wished that, like humble folk, we had crossed to Deauville by the little puffing packet but all was well in the end, we got to Deauville and had a lunch—I shall still remember its fragrance when I lie dying—in a delightful flowery countryside, and shelter from the sun under striped umbrellas.

After that we drove a little drowsily and reluctantly to the brand new golf course— which was to be opened by our match— perched on the top of a hill above the town with one fine view out to sea and another over a rolling and wooded landscape. Next door to it there looms up the big hotel "New-Golf". It was to have been ready by the time of the match, but even M. Andre is not quite omnipotent; he cannot defeat the weather, and the cold winter had thrown the building back. Still, we had one example of his genius for hustling. We were told confidentially, that the great restaurant where we were to lunch on the match day was still full of loose bricks and we saw with our own eyes an old house which blocked the view from the windows. Next day when we arrived the old house had vanished as if it had never been. Our view was unimpeded, and we ate our lunch, with some hundreds of other people, in a restaurant so perfectly carpeted and curtained and generally made beautiful for us, that it might have been there from time immemorial.

Deauville has always had a golf course, and I think the illustrious Arnaud Massy was for a while the professional there. The original course was made out of excellent seaside material, but it was altogether too small, and so this new one has been made on inland soil. Mr. Simpson, who has made, and is making many French courses, was the architect. If I had been in his shoes I should have been a little discouraged, for he had to begin with nothing to help him in the way of natural advantages save some helpful slopes and undulations, and he had serious artificial obstacles in the remains of a big British camp which had been there in the war time. Nevertheless, out of this apparent sow's ear he has made something very like a silk purse. He has not made any overwhelming number of bunkers, but those which he has made are of a dominating character and utterly refuse to be disregarded. Every natural slope has been used to throw the imperfectly struck ball off the line and to help the well played shot. In short, he has made a thoroughly good course full of entertaining shots. At the moment, it certainly does not err on the side of shortness; the two-shot holes are emphatically worthy of their name but that will soon be set to rights, for there is a wonderful virtue in the trampling of the human foot. The same remark applies to the greens, which, being new, are as yet rather slow but should soon be excellent. One remarkable thing about the course was that in a hot, dry summer when our courses in England were as hard as stone and as yellow as quinea, the Deauville grass wasof a luxuriant greenness. That was a good augury for a course that will have to withstand much sunshine. I am not going to describe the holes in detail. I have often read other peoples' description of holes, and they have never conveyed any real picture or impression to my mind, and I am not vain enough to think that I can do better. I will only say in general terms that the course is full of interest and amusement and wants playing. In yards it is about 6,300 and the par is, I suppose, as low as 70. It has five one-shot holes, which always help towards a low par, and that 70 will take a deal of getting.

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Our small caddies were for the most part quite new to their job, which they probably thought a very singular one. Our conversation with them was chiefly confined to the reiterated command "Ne bougez pas", which gradually had its effect, so that they stood statuesquely still.

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Some of us played mildly and lost a little money at the Casino; some of us, with greater caution, only looked on, watching players from all the nations of the earth, with infinitely different features and colouring, but all wearing the same strange impresI sive mask of the gambler, who is such an unintelligible creature to those of us who have neither his courage nor his folly. The really high play had not yet begun. That would come soon, we were told, with the races and the full glory of the season. There were one or two tables where the minimum stake was quite high enough to take my pusillanimous breath away, but at most of the tables ordinary mortals could play if they had a mind to.

Nobody seems to dine at Deauville until half past nine at the very earliest and when they go to bed I am not prepared to say. Most of the golf to be played there will be after luncheon.

Wisely no doubt, the course has been made in two circuits of nine holes apiece, both beginning and ending at the club house, which is in the hotel. The course is, however, too interesting to be played in any such idle spirit, even though the lunch is so good as to induce a lotus-eating frame of mind.

We left Deauville on the Sunday night, rather jaded and faded after three friendly, delightful, amusing, hectic days. Each of us took away a charming little silver cup as a souvenir of our visit, and mine now reposes by the side of another cup full of pleasant memories which was given to me at another friendly and delightful place, the National Golf Links at Southampton, Long Island, in 1922.