Tee time sur les parcours de Cannes

Golf

There are more courses within an hour of Cannes than on any other stretch of French coast, and winter is the real season here, one of the few places in Europe where you play in December in short sleeves. Our job is not to sell you a green fee, which you can book yourself: it is to get the tee time you want at the hour you want, which is another matter in April and May. We check in advance what each club requires: several ask for a federation licence and a maximum handicap index, and the refusal comes on the first tee, not on the phone, and we arrange transport, equipment if you travel without your own, and the lunch table. If you want three courses in three days, we order them so the driving works.

The options

Golf Old Course Cannes-Mandelieu, fifteen minutes

The oldest on the Riviera, created in 1891 by Grand Duke Michael of Russia and laid out by Harry Colt: seventy-four hectares planted with four thousand umbrella pines, at the mouth of the Siagne. Two courses, the eighteen-hole Old Course and the nine-hole Grand Duc. Its oddity survives intact, you cross the Siagne by ferry mid-round, which happens nowhere else in the region.

Golf Country Club de Cannes-Mougins, twenty minutes

The area's tournament course, and the strictest on access: you must be a member of a club and affiliated to a golf federation, and the club asks for a maximum handicap index of 36. The dress code is enforced, on the practice ground too: no t-shirts, shorts, jeans or tracksuits. We check your licences before booking rather than letting you discover it on the first tee.

Royal Mougins Golf Club, twenty minutes

Laid out by Robert von Hagge and opened in 1993, eighteen holes at par 71 in a wooded vale, backed by a resort with hotel and spa. The club publishes no handicap condition for visitors, which makes it the most accessible of the area's courses with character, and the easiest to combine with a night on site.

Golf d'Opio Valbonne, half an hour

Eighteen holes laid out in 1966 by Donald Harradine across a protected two-hundred-and-twenty-hectare estate between Opio and Valbonne, reworked since. No handicap condition announced. The course we suggest for groups of mixed ability: enough movement to interest a good player, wide enough not to discourage the rest.

Terre Blanche, Tourrettes, forty minutes

Two eighteen-hole courses by Dave Thomas in the Pays de Fayence, about forty minutes from Cannes. Le Château, 6,616 metres, is open to visitors. Le Riou, 6,005 metres, is reserved for members, their guests and hotel guests. Both require a handicap index below 36. This is the day-long golf outing par excellence: leave early, play, lunch on site, come home.

Duration

A morning or a day per course. Allow four hours of play

When to go

All year: winter on the coast is the real golfing season, and the most sought-after tee times run March to June and September to November

Pricing

We do not yet publish a rate for this service. What will determine it: the course and the season (a February tee time and a May one are not booked at the same price) the number of players, the buggy, club hire, and transport from your hotel. The club's green fee is settled on top.