Le Touquet (La Mer) - course review

[Scottt]

Just 45 miles from Rye, where he started his design career, Harry Colt designed La Mer (The Sea) course on the other side of the English Channel at Le Touquet in 1931 to complement Horace Hutchinson's 1907 course, La Foret (The Forest) in the French resort town.

It's remarkable that the course sits so close to the likes of Rye, Littlestone, Deal and Sandwich, with thick saltscrub vegetation lining the playing corridors completely unlike the English seaside courses, though the terrain is very similar. Just a few miles north, a pine forst abuts the seaside, again completely at odds with the vegetation across the Channel.

As with everything else I have seen by Colt, the par threes are an obvious thing to note first up. Four very good one shotters, and all different from one another. The long 2nd threads between two dunes, the 7th plays slightly uphill to an angled dune, bunkered at the front, the 10th is a mid iron from one dune to another over a valley much like the 5th at Rye and the final short hole, the 15th, is a more subtle hole like Colt's 8th up the coast at Royal Zoute, but calling here for precise play late in the round.

The par fives are relentlessly competant without blowing you away - interesting doglegs and well-defended greens for the most part, with the possible exception the 17th, which stands above the others in the memory by climbing spectacularly over the last 150 yards to a blind green.

Of the par fours, the most notable are the 11th, playing from an elevated tee to a green obscured behind a well-bunkered cross dune, 12th with its bunkerless green slipping off a dune and short 14th, flanked left by a creek before bending to the same side with the green fronted by cross bunkers.

Not surprisingly, many of these better holes named above occupy the most undulating land closest to the seaside, while the likes of the 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th are furthest inland where the terrain flattens.

Sections of the course were lost during World War 2, with an imposing machine gun placement next to the 13th offering a reminder of that time, though the club says Colt's original layout was reinstated during the 1990s.

At times the course becomes too narrow for the style of golf it is and the impenitrable vegetation, but largely this is very good coastal golf, particularly the final 10 holes.

1st - a par five doglegging left on the drive, with a heroic option to carry the dune, before swinging back to the right towards the green.



2nd - a long iron par three, bunkered short of the green where the terrain tends to kick the ball left.


3rd - a drive over dead ground into a saddle, before the hole opens up nearer to the green.



4th - a par five that's main attraction is at the green.



5th - a ho-hum par four that with the 4th and 6th forms the flat point of the course - both literally and figuratively - though the green holds some interest.




6th - a straight shortish par four from an elevated tee to a featureless green.



7th - par three calling for a mid iron up onto the dune.


8th - a moderate length par four with water left on the drive and the green up high above the fairway on a steep-fronted dune.



9th - a blind, downhill drive before the hole swings left to a green that slopes gentle from front to back and many small undulation short to make a running approach a bit of a lottery.



10th - a mid to short-iron par three with nowhere to miss, though the green is larger than it appears.


11th, a long, majestic par four with a wonderful greensite that's all the more difficult to hit with the longer iron you're likely to be approaching with.




12th - a par four of about 350m with a simple but effective green that slides off the dune with a subtle false front/side.




13th - a par five that narrows through the driving done before darting right to a tough green. To its left stands an imposing WW2 machine gun placement, which thanks to a glacial pace of play and no one behind us we were able to go up into the dunes and inspect.




14th - a fun short par four that invites you to carry the creek for a shorter approach to the difficult green.



15th - a long iron of about 160m, perhaps the weakest par three, but still enough to recommend it.


16th - a par four, one of the narrower holes on the course, but the green is a very good one.



17th - the best of the par fives for mine, reachable in two, but that second shot will need to be one of the best fairway woods you've ever hit, with two large bunkers set into the hill waiting to make your third shot a tough one.




18th - from a massively elevated tee that is the only point on the coursse with ocean views, the hole swings left to a slightly disappointing green.

[SkankyShanky]

Is it sandy ground? Looks nothing like a UK seaside course. You can't spell impenetrable btw

[3 Putts + A Snap Hook]

Is it sandy ground? Looks nothing like a UK seaside course. You can't spell impenetrable btw

Yes, it is sandy ground but it's not a true seaside course really. It's some way inland. More like a Surrey course minus the heather.

[Scottt]

It's about 400yds inland at the nearest point, and 10-17 basically run in two rows parallel to the beach.

Vegetation aside, the terrain is very much as you find on the GB&I links. The turf is not quite so crisp and firm, but similar enough.

I don't necessarily agree with it being like a Surrey course. The land heaves more dramatically and the vegetation is that saltscrub, low growing stuff.