Morfontaine Golf Club - The Morfontaine Course

Situated 25 minutes north of CDG Airport you travel through some very pretty villages and country to arrive here.

It's a throwback to older times with a clubhouse that oozes old world charm and certainly not of the monolithic proportions we have come to associate with our best courses. The welcome from the manager and staff was warm and after a quick feed and drink we were off.

I think it was Nicklaus that said the first should ease you into the round but 416 metres from the black gets your attention straight away. The course is inland and parkland in style, reasonably heavily treed but none that seriously encroach on your lines. If you hit them you've hit a poor one.

The rough isn't ridiculous but, if you find it, the new three minute rule will test your search abilities as it's really good at hiding balls.

The green complexes are fairly large and undulating and it's here that scores can be made or destroyed. Coming from the Melbourne Sandbelt they played slower than I was used to and took a few holes to adjust. Having said that, they were very true, rolled well and made a couple of nice length ones.

If I was to compare it to anything in Melbourne I'd say a cross between Victoria and Riversdale with Victoria being a fairer comparison. It's a par 70 with a good mixture of long and medium length par fours and is really about hitting to the correct side of the fairway to allow for the best shot into the green. A really solid collection of par 3's round out an excellent golf course.

There is also a nine hole course here but I didn't have time to play that. One of the best features of the day was the number of members playing with their canine friends accompanying them around the course. A delight to see and something we should seriously incorporate in our club golf in Melbourne, particularly in daylight savings.

It's not cheap to play Morfontaine (nor are the others I am playing apparently!) but it's certainly money well spent if you are only going to France once to play golf.