European geography questions for the locals

[Tom_Doak]

Hi all:


I am starting to try to piece together the chapters and maps for the last volume of The Confidential Guide, which will review courses in continental Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.  The book is likely still two years away, but I am going to get the maps started this winter, so it would help to decide what courses go where.


I see the big sections of the book as being:


Scandanavia
Northern Europe
The Alps
Southern Europe
Middle East
Africa


The basis being to review those courses you would most likely visit in summer, first, and then the ones you would most likely visit in [northern] winter.


So, my question is, where would you draw the line between northern Europe and southern?  Putting the courses in the Alps together is cool, but it makes a big break somewhere in Spain or Portugal.


Clearly, Paris and the northern half of France are on one side of the divide, and the Algarve / Costa del Sol / Riviera / Mediterranean are on the other. 


To me, it makes sense to group the Biarritz courses together with the Basque country, but on which side of the line?


What about Madrid?  And the northern half of Portugal?


Thank you for any and all advice.

[Pete_Pittock]

I'd Brexit up Europe:
Scandanavia
Northern Europe
Alps
France/Portugal/Spain
Southeast Europe

[David_Tepper]

Quite a few golf courses in Italy. 265 if this website is to be believed:

https://en.leadingcourses.com/europe+italy/

[Ally Mcintosh]

Tom,


Just as you are separating North & South Europe by the Alps, France and Spain are separated by the Pyrenees so it is the most logical to call them North & South respectively.


If you are dead set on keeping Biarritz with the Basque region, then it should be South (roughly translated as sunny holiday destinations)... But then what about Bordeaux? To me, it makes just as much sense / more sense grouping Biarritz with Bordeaux...


Of course, you could be looking at predominantly warm season versus cool season grasses but that’s not an obvious split in Europe.

[Sean_A]

It makes more sense to me to create Mediterranean section encompassing the areas around the rim of the sea.

This makes sense for the split of France with Bordeaux and Biaritz in the central Europe.

Although, to be honest, I would stick more with the water theme with an Atlantic /Channel section which takes in the entire seaboard west of Europe up to Scandinavia.

The idea of north/south just doesn't work cleanly in Europe.

Happy Hockey

[Thomas Dai]

I'm not convinced the weather related summer-winter break is as necessary for Europe as elsewhere. Bit like having monsoon or non-monsoon categories in parts of Asia.
The Alps and the Pyrenees seem to be the historical and anecdotal dividing line and if a course just happens to be slightly on one side or the other, well so be it.
There's also further east to consider, the Alps having petered out by then, assuming you have some courses in the book located in the likes of the Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria with the first three probably being North and the other four South.
Curious why a big section on the Alps is needed, but then it's your book!
Iceland (and Denmark) within Scandinavia or Northern Europe?
Southern Europe including the Mediterranean (and Atlantic) Islands?
atb

[Enno Gerdes]

There's clearly no perfect way of doing this. I would suggest:

Scandinavia (incl. Iceland)
BeNeLux plus France north of Paris
Germany, Switzerland, Austria
Eastern Europe (i.e. Poland, CZ, Hungary, Baltics, etc.)
Southeastern Europe (Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Greece, etc.)
Southern Europe (France south of Paris, Portugal, Spain, Italy)
Middle East
Africa


Not perfect, obviously. You could add Italy north-of-Milan to the Germany, Switzerland, Austria section. Makes sense geographically, but not culturally. Or you could add Greece to the Southern Europe section. Makes sense historically, but not geographically.


Nothing works really cleanly, so I would split as few countries as possible into multiple chapters. France being the obvious exception.

[Peter Pallotta]

T - you might consider arranging it not by geography but by geology / topography instead -- maybe fitting given how important the site & the soil is to a golf course. 

So you could have the plains, the highlands-uplands, the lowlands, the Baltic shield, the 'forests', and the mountains (the Alps and the Apennines and the Pyrenees etc).

In total, 6 sections, as you have in the OP -- but ones that cut across all national/political boundaries and historical ties and emphasize instead the ground/earth itself as the 'organizing principle'.
P

   

[Ian Galbraith]

Maybe unimportant but Scandinavia, to the Scandinavians is only Norway Sweden and Denmark. Scandinavia plus Iceland and Finland are collectively known as the Nordic Countries.


English speakers usually don't make this distinction but the Nordic peoples do.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Drive south through France in summer and as you get near Bordeaux you start to see red tiled houses and fields of Sunflowers.  In the north the grass was thick and green and Cows are everywhere. Hence northern European Cuisine leans heavily on Cream whilst Southern tends to based around Olive oil. But where can you draw the line?


Then again Northern European countries are more likely to be Protestant and Southern, Catholic. (well once upon a time).


Eastern nations have Slavic traditions and western Celtic....




Good luck finding dividing lines. Country by Country worked fine for GB&I, just stick with that.

[Mark Chaplin]

Peter I’d have no idea where the Lowlands and Uplands-Highlands are. Assume Lowland is Denmark, Holland, Belgium and a bit of France. Uplands-Highlands Spain, Portugal, Italy and a bit of France??

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark -
I don't know/remember either -- years ago I 'covered' Europe for our version of the state department, and for some tangential aspect of an extensive background/briefing note I was writing I looked up its 'geology'...but I remember now only those broad categories, and not what countries/parts of countries fit into them. Looking back, I think I was probably trying to paint some 'big picture' of the agricultural-industrial-mineral etc breakdowns, i.e. those fertile warmer lowland areas where they grew food/grapes/olives, and the higher-up and cooler rocky areas etc. But I honestly can't remember a darn thing. I just wanted to give Tom a possible way or organizing it -- and leave the rest up to him! 
 

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Maybe you can get some ideas from how travel guides make the split,


I think a section on Scandinavia would be fairly light in comparison to the other proposed sections. As Ian wrote, maybe you should go with Nordic instead of Scandinavia and also include the Baltic region. There are very strong historical, cultural and geographical connections between the Nordic countries and the Baltic countries.


Then perhaps a Western & Central Europe which includes the Alps. I suppose this section could be split, as it would be quite large, especially when you consider the great courses in the Benelux region.


I'd have a section called Southern Europe (Italy, the Balkans, Greece) and Turkey.


Since Portugal and Spain are close to Morocco, why not combine the Iberian peninsula with Northern Africa section. There are also historical and cultural connections in putting these three countries together. They also have a nice climate. I'm making the assumption that there are some courses of note in Morocco. It would seem strange (to me) to put Morocco in the same section as South Africa.


Be careful using the term Eastern Europe. I once had a conversation with someone from Croatia that was quite annoyed that we still refer to Croatia as being in Eastern Europe, but not Greece.

[Tom_Doak]

Maybe unimportant but Scandinavia, to the Scandinavians is only Norway Sweden and Denmark. Scandinavia plus Iceland and Finland are collectively known as the Nordic Countries.


English speakers usually don't make this distinction but the Nordic peoples do.

Thank you for that tidbit, I will be sure to get the nomenclature right.


I once used the phrase "British Isles" while in Ireland, and got the frostiest look from an old woman that you can possibly imagine.

[Tom_Doak]

Thanks for all of the advice so far.  I am not surprised to have gotten six different answers!


What I'm trying to do is keep together the courses you might play on the same trip.  For example, you might play Evian alongside some courses in Switzerland and maybe even Biella in Italy -- but probably not on the same trip as Morfontaine or the Golf Club of Monaco.  So putting "France" all together doesn't make much sense to me.


Unless I'm going to give the Basque courses their own page, they certainly make more sense to be paired with Biarritz than with the courses around Madrid or the Costa del Sol.  Then, I've just got to decide whether to put Bordeaux and Pau with those, or with the rest of France.

[Sean_A]

Well, it isn't tidy, but I suggest you keep the Basque separate from France. It might be different if there were some sort of strong golfing ties between Basque and Biaritz. In the end it makes sense for culture and geography to play deciding factors and the Pyrenees makes this case. I mean, who does a golf trip which in includes all three areas?  I would wager box tickers rather than real target of the book.

The other issue I can see is if you keep Paris, Normandy and Pays de Calais as an area or allow Pays de Calais to form with a larger cross section to also include Belgium and Nederland. There are strong architectural and coastal ties to link these areas. If it weren't for Normandy, which is really just an add on for Paris, it makes sense to add Pay de Calais to its northern neighbours.

Happy Hockey

[Adrian_Stiff]

Do it by countries. You can't go wrong.


Any other way there will be mistakes in some peoples eyes.

[Michael Wolf]

I'm in agreement with your thinking Tom - grouping by clusters of courses likely played on the same trip is most useful for the reader. And winter/summer would be helpful for the non-Europeans who may not have thought of weather ranges.


I bet I've shown the map on page 44 of volume 1 to 50 different guys starting their Scotland planning.


The only other consideration I'd request besides geography when deciding how to group courses would be to maybe keep in mind where the major international airport hubs are in Europe and especially Africa. That would have been helpful in the South American section when trying to figure out potential trip itineraries.


Similarly - when you get into some of the descriptions for courses in Africa and eastern Europe, perhaps expounding a bit on the value of seeing vs effort to get there equation. "in the vicinity" for 5's, "definitely worth a game if you are in town" 6's and "worth checking out if you are within 100 miles" 7's may hold different meanings for this last volume


Can't wait to read it!


Michael

[Tom_Doak]

Do it by countries. You can't go wrong.

Any other way there will be mistakes in some peoples eyes.

Luckily, I do not worry so much about making mistakes in some people's eyes, if I am doing what I think is right.

[Alfonso Erhardt]

I think that the approach related to areas and not countries is correct. This is especially so in the Benelux-North of France, where travel times are quite short. Or Paris + Pas de Calais, although probably Paris deserves its own place due to the great golf in the area.


In the case of Southern Europe, it makes complete sense to group the Basque courses with the Biarritz area. They are all part of the same trip, the Biarritz area is the French Basque country and there are many ties among clubs (most of them have reciprocal arrangements across Spain and France). I would probably stretch this from Santander all the way to Bordeaux.

How I would group other areas around here (obviously depending on the number of courses you are profiling):
 - Madrid
 - Cataluña
 - Mediterranean around Valencia (all the way down to Alicante-Murcia) and maybe include Balearic Islands
 - Algarve - Costa del Sol
 - Lisbon/Porto
 - Northwest Spain (not sure you are profiling any courses in that area...).
 - Morocco
 - Canary Islands / Madeira


Not sure how many courses being profiled in each of the areas so maybe so much detail doesn’t make sense....

[Ruediger Meyer]

If you want to divide it into North and South, the 45th parallel might be a good spot to start. It's close to being the midpoint between equator and North Pole. It would divide France just north of Bordeaux and South of Grenoble and continues through Turin. You would have more countries in the North, but that probably would be made up by the amount of Gold Courses in Spain and Portugal.

[Cristian]

Hi all:


I am starting to try to piece together the chapters and maps for the last volume of The Confidential Guide, which will review courses in continental Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.  The book is likely still two years away, but I am going to get the maps started this winter, so it would help to decide what courses go where.


I see the big sections of the book as being:


Scandanavia
Northern Europe
The Alps
Southern Europe
Middle East
Africa


The basis being to review those courses you would most likely visit in summer, first, and then the ones you would most likely visit in [northern] winter.


So, my question is, where would you draw the line between northern Europe and southern?  Putting the courses in the Alps together is cool, but it makes a big break somewhere in Spain or Portugal.


Clearly, Paris and the northern half of France are on one side of the divide, and the Algarve / Costa del Sol / Riviera / Mediterranean are on the other. 


To me, it makes sense to group the Biarritz courses together with the Basque country, but on which side of the line?


What about Madrid?  And the northern half of Portugal?


Thank you for any and all advice.

Like the idea of dividing by trip:


Most logical to me if you don’t want too many sections:


Nordic Countries


Northern Atlantic:
Benelux Pas de Calais Normandy Bretagne Northern France (incl Paris to Group the Simpson and Colt courses in this area)


Southern Atlantic: (Nantes -Gibraltar coast and hinterland, southwest France, Portugal,western Spain incl Madrid. (Also Grouping most of the Classic golf in this area)


Western Mediterreanean: Gibraltar-Eastern Spain coast and hinterland, Rivièra-southeast France, Italy.


Eastern Mediterranean Croatia-Greece, Turkey


Central and eastern europe (rest of europe)
(Big section but with limited nr of courses)


Alps could be seperated but frankly few people would plan cross countries golf trips to this area, save perhaps Geneva-Evian Combo.


M East And Northern Africa (Arab countries, culturally and geographically close)


Rest of Africa


This system would only divide France and Spain into multiple sections leaving other countries intact and also take into account number of courses per section and cultural divides, as well as golf course styles.

[Ulrich Mayring]

What is my benefit as a reader to have an arbitrary North/South line drawn through Europe?

There is enough political strife over richer Northern countries vs poorer Southern countries in Europe. If there isn't a clear benefit for the golfer, then I'd be wary to introduce such artificial and potentially inflammatory divisions. Especially if I were a non European myself

Ulrich

[Duncan Cheslett]

This Golf World map of the "best" courses in Continental Europe shows how to split the continent neatly into N&S from a golfing perspective.


https://www.golfworldtop100.com/best-golf-courses/europe/map


Draw a line from the coast above Bordeaux running across France to the Swiss border near Geneva. Then follow the national borders with Germany, Czech Republic and Poland to the north and with Switzerland, Austria, and Slovakia to the south.

Roughly half the courses on the Golf World map are on each side of the line.

Europe - Google Maps by Duncan Cheslett, on Flickr

[Angela Moser]

Tom,


I kinda like how you group the regions into golf trips. Everything is so close to each other here in Europe. So if there is a course across the border, you would definitely go and play it. There is no hard borders in Europe, no one is stopping you (besides crossing the border from the Netherlands with a lot of weed in the back of your car). So you wouldn't even notice that you cross...  and are able to play wherever you want to thanks to Schengen. So I would forget the countries...


You divided the US into regions that are playable in the summer vs winter.
Well, I like this idea, but Europe can be a bit complicated in that way too.... You will have the Netherlands, Northern Germany being absolutely playable in the winters (like London - a bit chilly but still great), while Southern Germany will be absolutely buried in snow. Again... forget the countries... I like the Alps section, because that is basically the summer destinations (otherwise buried in snow).


Good luck!