The rain is teeming down on the first tee of Hossegor Golf Club, but Diane — a local player hailing originally from Edinburgh — is showing us what locals use umbrellas for. It’s not always to shelter from the rain.
Turned upside down, they can be used for catching eels, of course. Her French husband’s family lived on a farm and would use a piece of chicken attached to a strand of wool to lure them out of drainage ditches that connect with the sea. Pull the wool with the determined eel clinging on into the umbrella and, voilà, dinner hooked.
I can’t say for certain the glint-in-the-eye Diane wasn’t pulling the wool over my eyes, but it put me in mind of the delicious anguille poêlée en persillade — fried marine eel with parsley — on the menu at our beachside restaurant the night before.
It’s not all golf in this part of the world — the beaches around Moliets are every bit as spectacular as the courses
That’s the thing about this part of southwest France, the country’s Basque coast, where the pine woods roll down towards golden beaches and their Atlantic breakers: the ocean and its bounties are never far from your mind. Yes, I drove one hour north of Biarritz in search of golf, but I’m quickly finding plenty to lure me away from the fairways.
As Joanna Laforge, of Summer France, which runs holiday villas in the area, explained: “You get beautiful scenery, sleepy villages, fantastic beaches and an excellent cuisine. It’s known by the French, but it’s a little bit out of the way so less known by tourists.”
She explains this as we head down a single-track road on ebikes — the de rigueur mode of transport in this part of the world, apparently — from La Clairière aux Chevreuils, pantiled rental villas set deep in the woods on the edge of the village of Moliets.
Ten minutes later and we are pedalling amid the dunes backing the beach, which lead down to a vast expanse of sand populated by surfers and swimmers. In the evening, with the sun setting in the west, buzzy restaurants in sight of the Bay of Biscay come into their own.
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Summer France is the go-to agency for villas in the region, such as Villas la Clariere aux Chevrieuls in Moliets
At L’Hôtel Grill de l’Océan, garlicky eels, a giant seafood platter of fried fish and shellfish and a creamy chocolate tart are so good I didn’t want to finish any of them. It was so very French and so very authentic.
However, it’s golf that has brought us here. First up, Golf de Moliets (from £56 per round, golfmoliets.com), a Robert Trent Jones course that twists over undulating terrain through fragrant pine woods to emerge blinking into the sunlight at the edge of the dunes south of the village.
The next day we travel 15 miles south to Hossegor, a well-to-do town long popular with holidaying French families. After a pregame primer of hams, cheeses, fish croquettes, squid and fruit tarts from the food stalls at the central market, it’s just a 400-yard stroll to the first tee. Opened in 1927 for wealthy holidaymakers, Hossegor Golf Club (from £72 per round, golfhossegor.com) has matured into a golfing fantasy of velvety green fairways winding through majestic tree-lined avenues. It rains heavily for the first two holes but we don’t care. When the sun comes out and warms up the air, the scent of pine is overwhelming.
Golf de Moliets, one of a number courses in Nouvelle-Aquitaine that lie just back from incredible beaches
If Hossegor is Nouvelle-Aquitaine’s statesmanlike elder brother and Moliets the cheeky youngest sibling, then Golf de Seignosse (from £53 per round, seignosse-golf.com) is the slightly overlooked middle child screaming for attention. And, mon dieu, does it deserve it. Ranked in the top 50 European courses, Seignosse is a challenge to be relished. Manicured fairways dive down narrow valleys from elevated tees to distant par-fives; serene but potentially deadly lakes come into play on several of the more scenic holes. Par-threes are, ahem, tricky.
Seignosse Golf Course
STEVE CARR
Then there’s the only par-six in France to finish. A dogleg right then up — steeply up — past cavernous bunkers to an intimidatingly sloping green. I am lucky to escape with an eight — a fitting end to a magnificent, if humbling, golfing experience.
It’s so easy to overlook France for the golfing meccas of the Algarve and the Spanish costas, but quiet, well-priced courses in unhurried surroundings do it for me. Like the eels in the umbrellas, I’m hooked.
Jeremy Watson was a guest of Summer France (summerfrance.co.uk), which has villas in Moliets from £414 per week (sleeps 2) and from £611 per week (sleeps 8). Fly to Biarritz from Edinburgh from about £80 (ryanair.com)