Le Touquet La Mer

Restoring Colt and Alison's French links master piece

The La Mer course at Le Touquet was designed by Harry Colt and Hugh Alison in 1930 on pristine dunes which overlook the English Channel. When the course was being developed the wind erosion was so fierce that it was only possible to be build it a mile inland. Before the was the town of Le Touquet was a thriving seaside resort with more than twenty large hotels and a bustling casino which catered to the English upper class that would cross the channel to have a good time. This came to an abrupt halt with WWII when much of Le Touquet and its hotels were destroyed in the fighting.

Unfortunately, much of the La Mer course was also destroyed in the war, especially the parts of the course closest to the sea (current holes 13-17). Because the clubhouse of La Mer was also completely destroyed the club decided to rearrange the course and have it start from the other clubhouse of the La Foret course across the road. This meant that two holes out and two holes back were played to get from the clubhouse to the 14 remaining holes of the original La Mer course. This situation was in place until the 1990’s, during which time the French Open was played six times at La Mer, the last one won by Seve Ballesteros. Then in the 1990’s the club retained the English golf architect Bill Baker to bring back the missing four holes of La Mer nearest to the coast. Unfortunately, he did not have all the correct historical data, which meant that the holes that were built were quite different from what had been there originally.

Then in 2010, having painstakingly researched the course’s origins, Frank Pont and our French partner Patrice Boissonnas developed a long-term course plan to restore it back to its pre-war origins. Through a detailed aerial picture from the 1930’s they were able to exactly determine the green sites, tees and fairways of the four lost holes. These were quite different from what was there on the ground at the time. For instance holes 15 and 16 were a long par 3 and a medium length par 4, whereas in the original design these had been a medium length par 5 and a long par 3. Patrice and Frank were able to convince the management of Open Golf, who owned the golf courses at Le Touquet, to invest in bringing back these lost holes and work started in 2016 to bring them back.

Below you see a picture of the new restored sixteenth hole at Le Touquet La Mer.

Next to restoring back the lost holes on La Mer, our main focus was to bring back the Links character of the course. This involved expanding back the greens to their original sizes, renovating the green surrounds to allow for shorter grass, changing the mowing lines of the fairways to bring back the original strategy and removing a lot of poplar trees that had grown massively in the 70 years after the war. We also restored the original Alison locations and style to all the bunkers, making many of the holes both strategically and visually more interesting. Finally, a number of greens were rebuilt, to make the playing surfaces were made faster and firmer..

"In addition to its grand scale, the finest attributes of the refreshed La Mer are its playability and the design subtleties that constantly challenge your decision-making."

“Over the front nine, the course setting alternates between dramatic dunes and tree-lined flatlands, where the holes are strong and reward smart decision-making and solid hitting. La Mer gathers pace around the turn before really coming alive on the back nine, where the epic scale of the land is revealed. The closing holes keep you off balance with constantly changing vistas and topography, while a selection of elevated and tilted greens present difficult but not excessively penal challenges."

"Le Touquet Golf Club may have had a somewhat troubled past, but under the watchful eye of Boissonnas and Pont, it has a very bright future as one of the best golf courses in Europe."

The restoration work of this Colt/Alison gem has not gone unnoticed in the golf world, and although only 60% of the work has been done thus far, the course’s ranking has already risen dramatically. Having previously been ranked as the 60th best course in Continental Europe by Golf World magazine, it is now placed 20th in their latest rankings.