Go to Google. Type in French Military Victories. Press I'm feeling lucky. Plus ca change.....
I know a little bit about the Peugeot Guide because I was asked to do a few courses some years ago, but the fee for writing them up was some way less than the cost of the green fee. The standard pro forma was as concerned with the health spa facilities of each course (not much likelihood in Britain!) as much as the design of the course. I won't give away who looked after the British entries then other than to say she had been a very distinguished English amateur international. She got one of her equally distinguished Welsh internationals to do the Welsh entries. I would trust both of them implicitly, though I don't always agree with their verdicts. In the British entries we now have some very peculiar rankings, too, with some very average contemporary courses ranked more highly than some of the older gems that GCAers would love. I have no knowledge of who does the rest of Europe.
However, I find the tone of the write ups patronising, aimed at beginners, utterly repetitive and in some cases pretentious. Some of it is pure gobbledegook. If you know our satirical magazine, Private Eye, you'll understand what I mean by saying that it is full of candidates for Pseud's Corner. It has little bar graphs to indicate how many trees are in play, water in play and even a bar graph for 'relief'. I take it this means how hilly it is.
A few examples (from the 1993 edition): 'While you are here, make the most of your time and see the very pretty old town of Norwich.' 'Rather a long course, Punta Ala is much kinder when you tee off further forward.' 'On most holes you can play your "personal par" (with handicap strokes.' 'This comprehensive course is a tough examination to the most suitable format for amateurs, namely match-play.' '....mid- and high-handicappers should not bank too much on carding a good score. They are better off just playing for the fun of it.' 'Difficult, intelligent and well landscaped, the Duke's is a solid test of golf, best played from the front tees.' 'A great course, to be played off the front tees.' 'There are other, less fashionable and perhaps more creative architects, but the Golden bear label is a quality guarantee even if all his courses tend to follow more or less the same model....' '... fine connoisseurs of golf such as Steel and Pennink, who never care unduly about excessively sophisticated details.' 'Only one green is blind, which reflects the thinking behind the whole course, namely golf is for everyone....' 'We recommend playing here with golfers of your own level in order to better appeciate the tactical challenges....' 'This will appeal to long hitters who in every case won't think twice about playing the course from the back tees. More reasonable players will find the course long enough from the "normal" tees; after all, why suffer when you don't have to?'
What a waste of precious space!