Golf in France

started in the Southwest - in the Béarn, the Pays Basque - this is today the Département Pyrénée Atlantiques. In 1866 the first golf-course in continental Europe was established in Pau, and in 1888 the second in Biarritz. And many more followed along the traditional Atlantic-coast; we have now 50 in the region Aqutaine, and they belong to the most beautiful golf-courses of the nation. Famous architects of the past - Dunn, Taylor, Simpson, Morrison - and of the present - Trent Jones, Fream, von Hagge, Baker and Gayon - created them, and this stands for high quality. Thanks to a soft climate - usually free of winterfrost - the golf-courses are playable all-year- round.

Within half an hour from Bardos you will easily find 10 golf-courses, within one hour more than 20 - all very different, with a great variety of degrees of difficulty, but they are all of breath-taking beauty - with the ocean and the forests, dozens of lakes in the hilly countryside and with views so fascinating that you can almost forget playing golf. Guest-players are very welcome in the clubs and in the club-restaurants, which is the tradition in the South-West.

Combine your golf-holiday with the discovery of the authentic "art de vivre": regional gastronomy and "Haute Cuisine", wine tours and last but not least "thalassotherapy" - gain energy from the sea-water and the seaweeds.