Grand Saint Emillionais Golf Club, France (Photo Tour)

[Ruediger Meyer]

As there are a lot of "Tom-boys" in this forum and since I might be one the first GCAlers besides Mr. Doak himself to have played his new design near Bordeaux, I thought I'd share the pictures I took with you.
I played the course in the beginning of November with the last batch of holes only open for about a month. The weather was perfect for this time of year, sun all the way through and over 20° Celsius on the thermometer. It was great to play golf but unfortunately not as great to take pictures as you can see. The conditioning was, as it is so often with brand new courses, not perfect. The club put a lot of sand on the fairways and around the greens to help the growing-in-process. But despite the conditioning problems one can already see the potential of this course. I found it very natural, challenging and most of all fun to play.


Hole 1 (Par 4, 385 Meters):
Tee Shot from an elevated tee right next to the clubhouse



The easy start to the round should leave you with an mid-iron from the fairway



The main defense of the green is this bunker to the left



Hole 2 (Par 4, 313 Meters)
This shorter Par 4 gives longer hitters the option to hit less than driver because they could run out of fairway on the left side very easy.



The preferred position in the fairway is to the right as there is some nasty rough in the hollow left to the green. There is also a small stream in front of the green, so you don't want to be short with the shot into the green



Hole 3 (Par 3, 154 Meters):
The stream from the second green continues here in front of the first one-shotter of the course. This might tempt you to hit your ball safely to the back of the green, but it is three-tiered from back to front, so you will face a tough two putt if the pin is in the front of the green.



...as it was on this day.

 

[Ruediger Meyer]

Hole 4 (Par 4, 384 Meters):
The fourth hole is the first one which is all the way uphill, making it a very difficult test.




The course compensates for that with a big landing zone to the left of the green where you have much room. This is clearly the safe side for misses, as there are trees to the right of the green.



Hole 5 (Par 5, 460 Meters):
The first Par 5 of the course might be reachable for longer hitters. But it doesn't come without risks. You hit from an elevated tee into the valley and have to hit back up to an elevated green. Though the view from the tee makes the fairway seem smaller than it actually is, you have OOB on the left side...



...which comes mainly in play if you try to attack the green with the second shot. The elevated greens also messes with your depth perception as it is much deeper than you might think from below and one probably will leave the third shot into the green short if you play the course for the first time.



Hole 6 (Par 4, 400 Meters):
The sixth hole has another elevated tee shot and you have to hit it over a ridge in the fairway, otherwise...



...you are left with a totally blind approach.



If you hit it far enough though, you can attack the pin with a short iron.



You have to precise though, especially with a pin placement in the front

[Ruediger Meyer]

Hole 7 (Par 4, 328 Meters)

The 7th hole runs parallel to the sixth, so you once again have to cross the ridge in the fairway. Though this time it shouldn't be that big of a problem since the hole is 70 meters shorter.



The safe side of the fairway is left where you have more room, but you get a reward if you attack the right side since it gives you a much better angle into the green, which is protected by a bunker on the left side


Hole 8 (Par 4, 288 Meters)
The shortest Par 4 of the course is pretty straight forward, though you should avoid the deep fairway bunker to the right by all means.



The left side is the place to be on this hole as it also gives you the best angle into the green, but it is not easy to get the ball there since the fairway is tilted to the right.



On this hole you live and die with the pitch into the green. It is very wide and you could easily have a 30+ Meters putt here if you mishit your pitch, like this guy did.



Hole 9 (Par 3, 194 Meters)
This Par 3 has a forced carry over this water basin that feeds into the huge rainwater storage reservoir further to the left, though there are still probably 50 meters between water and green making this a very manageable carry.



The green has plenty of ondulation. Hopefully the water puddles all around the green were only there by accident, otherwise you will have some nasty lies here if you miss the green.

[jeffwarne]

Very interesting.
the terrain and vegetation look a lot like inland/upland Georgia or the Carolinas

[Ruediger Meyer]

Hole 10 (Par 5, 479 Meter)
The second Par 5 is a dogleg to the right. it is probably a three shotter for most players, so it doesn't pay to try to play close to the corner. A drive to the middle of the fairway followed by a hybrid or a mid-iron leaves you a short iron into the green.






The bunker in the middle of the picture plays a little trick on the eyes. It seems the green is right behind it, but there are still 40 meters or so left.



Hole 11 (Par 4, 362 Meter)
This is a slight dogleg to the left where, similar to the 6th hole, you need a really good tee shot to hit over the ridge and avoid a blind shot into the green



This would be the view you prefer after your drive, otherwise you'd have big problems to get the distance into the green right.



The two places to avoid are short and right in the bunker and behind the green where a drop-off awaits you.



Hole 12 (Par 3, 228 Meter)
The longest Par 3 of the course is quite a test, especially if the flag is left and long. If you are not able to reach, you should try to lay up to the right



The green itself is huge but relatively flat compared to others on the property. The length of the hole should be enough to make you sweat.

[Ruediger Meyer]

Hole 13 (Par 4, 359 Meter)
If I hadn't played with a member, I would have completely misplayed this hole. Standing on the tee, I was assuming this hole is a dogleg to the left (especially since you see a flag there when you come from the 12th green). However this is a dogleg to the right. The flag is behind those trees on the right side of the picture.




You can either lay up in front of the bunker and face a very long and demanding shot into the green...



...or you try an aggressive drive over the bunker to a small target to have an easier shot into the green. This is the preferable route if the pin is in the back...



..since the green itself is 40-50 Meters long and probably out of reach if you lay up. This is a really tough hole because the green is a small target compared to the distance from where you have to try to reach it.



Hole 14 (Par 3, 135 Meter)


According to the scorecard this is the shortest hole of the course, but more than on any other hole this one completely depends on pin position.



The green is humongous as you can see from this zoomed in shot (though the area in front is not green, but a run-off area)



Still, I needed the panoramic option on my camera to capture most of the green in one shot. This is just a marvellous Par 3.



Hole 15 (Par 5, 561 Meter)
Although I completely butchered the hole this was one of my absolute favorites. It is a Par 5 which slightly doglegs to the left and goes downhill from there.



The green is hidden away in between mounds. You success on this hole hinges mainly on the placement of your second shot.



If you put it too far left, you might not even see the flag and have to fly one of the mounds.




The further you place the ball to the right the more the green opens up for you. This is especially important since the green is running away from you. So the ideal shot into the green is short of the flag which is tough to judge when you have to fly a mound.



This is how the green looks from behind

[Adam Lawrence]

When I first visited in autumn 2014 the thing that struck me most were the mounds around the green on 15, which are really something. Tom, what was the thinking there? A little bit of Augusta 8?

[Ruediger Meyer]

Hole 16 (Par 5, 440 Meter)
Unfortunately I cannot say how this hole plays since the tees were moved up 100 Metres on this day. It didn't help since I ran out of fairway and landed in the trees. From the correct tees this should be a relatively easy Par 5, reachable for many players.



There is a bunker to the right but other than that there are not many defenses on this hole. This should be a good opportunity to make up lost ground.



Hole 17 (Par 4, 347 Meter)
This medium length, downhill Par 4 is another breather after the difficult stretch from 11 to 15. One should be able to drive over the stream here and even if you aren't, I verified that it is possible to let your ball hop over it.



The main difficulty here is to judge the distance to the pin correctly since it is further behind than it looks. Alas, in the age of rangefinders, almost no one will fall to this optical illusion.



Hole 18 (Par 4, 369 Meter)
The home hole is really good test for the end of the round. My playing partner told me that usually it is playing into the prevailing wind, so you need two good shots to reach. The drive is downhill and - if one doesn't have to hit into the wind - you have to avoid running your ball through the fairway.



From here you have a mid to long iron into an elevated green...



...which is very ondulated and has the beautiful backdrop of the winefields

[Tom_Doak]

When I first visited in autumn 2014 the thing that struck me most were the mounds around the green on 15, which are really something. Tom, what was the thinking there? A little bit of Augusta 8?

Adam:


There were many such "mound" features sprinkled around the course dating back to the original clearing 20 years ago ... you can see them on the right side of #4, right of #5, #6, and a couple of other holes.  To me it made sense to keep them, as the soil is very heavy clay and bunkers are likely to become contaminated.  I think we wound up with 35 bunkers total on the finished course.


In particular, it made more sense to me to have mounds around the green on a long par-5 ... I figured they would provide more interest for someone missing the green than another bunker would.  However, they're pretty steep and uneven, so it's hard to mow them at the same height as Augusta [if that had been my intent].


That and #13 are my two favorite holes.  Ruediger's description of #13 is a bit off, as the fairway bunker is +/- 200 yards from the back tee and 150 from the middle tee, I don't think too many people will lay up ... but you do have to choose between playing a fade around it, or hugging the tree line on the right to go straight over.  That was a hole where we decided to play diagonally between two old clearings for fairways.

[Ruediger Meyer]

That and #13 are my two favorite holes.  Ruediger's description of #13 is a bit off, as the fairway bunker is +/- 200 yards from the back tee and 150 from the middle tee, I don't think too many people will lay up ... but you do have to choose between playing a fade around it, or hugging the tree line on the right to go straight over.  That was a hole where we decided to play diagonally between two old clearings for fairways.

Oh, alright. Then I remembered the distances wrong. I loved the hole once I understood it :-)

[Daryl David]

Thanks for posting the tour.  Very cool. I am looking forward to visiting next September after another summer of growing in.

[Ryan Coles]

Interesting course and I suspect a few other guys in the premier league would have turned down the job due to the obvious constraints: budget, soil, trees etc.

How many arm chair architects on here would take the minimalist approach and spend loads of time and money removing the trees? Or having a 100 ragged edge bunkers?

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks for posting these.

Ryan, I was thinking something similar.

Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems to me that Tom used "angles" in a very interesting way to work off of/leverage those potential constraints and turn them into positives. 

By angles I mean the relationships between teeing grounds and fairways, and/or between fairways and greens, which to my eye are oblique in a way that results in the trees/forests serving as backdrops and not framing devices (an approach I've not seen/noticed before in photos of his other courses and where it was not required). 

The approach also seems to allow for expanses of rough/unkempt ground to "cross-over" various holes to give the impression of a bigger and more open space than there actually is -- while at the same time not requiring any special "care" to make up for the less than ideal soils, since golfers will accept unkempt when it is used in its "unkemptness". 

Peter   

[Adam Lawrence]

Interesting course and I suspect a few other guys in the premier league would have turned down the job due to the obvious constraints: budget, soil, trees etc.

How many arm chair architects on here would take the minimalist approach and spend loads of time and money removing the trees? Or having a 100 ragged edge bunkers?

On that soil, lots of big, complex bunkers would be asking for trouble. It really is very, very heavy

[BCrosby]

Thanks for the tour of GSE. Well done.


As Jeff Warne notes above, GSE looks like it is set in the Georgia Piedmont, also an area of heavy clay soils. Which is also where ANGC is situated. Which is also, I'd guess, why some of the mounding, lack of bunkers and and woodsy backdrops bring to mind aspects of ANGC.


Terrain is fate.....?


Bob     

[Tom_Doak]

How many arm chair architects on here would take the minimalist approach and spend loads of time and money removing the trees? Or having a 100 ragged edge bunkers?

I don't know how many guys would answer your questions in the affirmative, but I doubt many practicing architects would have done so.


For one thing, we had strict limits on tree clearing prescribed by the government.  It's possible that we will remove some more in the years ahead; however by the same token, the trees are one of the most attractive features of the site.  I haven't had many chances to work among hardwoods of that size and scale, and I wanted to use them to advantage.


As for 100 bunkers, I'm sure you could have built that many, but "ragged edged" bunkers are not going to work well in clay soils, because the sand would inevitably become contaminated -- probably even before opening day.  Even with 35, we had a few that got messy.

[Niall C]

Ruediger


Well done and many thanks for the tour.


Reading folks comments about the terrain/landscape and where it reminded them off was interesting. Personally many of the photos reminded me of courses over here. Not only the trees etc but also that the course looks as though it was largely laid over the existing landscape with a minimum of muck shifting. Whether that is true or not I'd be interested to know.


What tells you that it isn't deepest darkest Lanarkshire is the hint of sunshine, the french looking buildings in some of the shots, and what looks like a slightly larger scale than say old courses over here. Not that the course looks super(silly)wide. It doesn't, but there seems ample room so as not to feel hemmed in but at the same time fairways that suggest a certain shape of shot.


All in all it looks like a winner.


Niall

[Sean_A]

RM

Its hard to see the detail in a lot of pix, but I get the sense this is a no nonsense design with very little wow factor.  It kind of reminds me of a lesser Colt course which gets little fanfare.  In one way its impressive that Renaissance stuck to their guns and created what was reasonable given the land.  I kinda like what I see (actually reminds me a lot of Michigan golf), but it doesn't blow me away like I have come to expect from Doak designs.  Regardless, playing Renaissance in Scotland has given me the firm conviction that Doak will build something worthwhile so if I ever make it to St Emillion I will bring my rusty spanners and try to give it a go. 

How far is this course from C&C's course?

Thanks for the tour!

Ciao

[Adam Lawrence]

Golf du Medoc (which has a Coore course and a Whitman one, Ben didn't work there) is northwest of Bordeaux, about twenty minutes drive from the airport. St Emilion is east of the city, and it's probably an hour to the airport, depending on traffic on the Bordeaux ring road. I guess an hour and a bit between the two.

[Joey Chase]

I just returned from 36 at Golf du Medoc.  I would highly recommend a visit there if going to see the new course at St. Emilion.  For a flat property, Mr. Coore sure got a lot out of that site.

[Adam Lawrence]

Yes, I like both courses at Medoc. Both Bill and Rod did a strong job. The hotel is nice too

[Kevin_D]

Very nice looking course! I especially like how it seems rather simple and understated, as though the round is meant to be enjoyed, as opposed to striving too hard to wow you. (I mean that as a compliment)


Some holes actually remind me a bit of Stonewall


Guess I have a new golf trip I need to take

[Ruediger Meyer]

Golf du Medoc (which has a Coore course and a Whitman one, Ben didn't work there) is northwest of Bordeaux, about twenty minutes drive from the airport. St Emilion is east of the city, and it's probably an hour to the airport, depending on traffic on the Bordeaux ring road. I guess an hour and a bit between the two.

Roughly an hour is about right. You don't have to drive through Bordeaux so the traffic is relatively light. If one is going there I highly recommend staying a day or two in Bordeaux, it is a beautiful city. Also, the huge Dune du Pilat is worth a visit.

[Jason Hines]

 Ruediger, thanks very much for the tour.  The flow of the par 5s is mesmerizing, especially on #5 and #15.