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The golf of Etretat was created in 1908, mainly on the initiative, and like many marine golfs (Wimereux, Hardelot, Dieppe, Dinard, Biarritz), of British coming to remain the summer on the French coasts. In fact, the first president of the Golf of Etretat was Bernard Forbes, 8th count de Granard, and one counts to other pars of the crown among the very first members of honor of the club: Lord Denman, future vice-governor of Australia, or Lord Wodehouse, baron de Kimberley.
The course, which counted only 13 holes in the beginning (one needed play again the five first to carry out, on approximately 4300m, a real 18 holes), was drawn by Julien Chantepie, architect of the golf of Boulie, in collaboration with Arnaud Massy, professional golfor who taught in Etretat and remains the only French to date to have won British Open (1907). |
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| Terrace of the club house about 1910 |
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On rented grounds with Mr. Dubosc, owner of the castle of Fréfossé, with the Lime, rose soon an imposing house with the site of the green of the 11 current. If it were necessary to gain with foot this first club-house, one could taste five the o' clock tea there while enjoying the same panorama which enchants the visitors nowadays. The shearing of the grounds then was mainly ensured by sheep left in grazing ground for this purpose.
Many improvements were made after the war of 1914-1918, under the impulse of the Land Company of the Casino which, in order to attract stronger customers, took the control of the Golf but also that of the Lawn-tennis (famous before the golf and founded, more or less, by the same people). It is true that transport as well railway as road were then in full rise, putting Étretat has hardly 4 hours of Paris. |
During this period, new an club-house was built in overhang of the current hotel Dormy House (and old the purely shaven one), the course carried with 18 holes and of the arranged automobile accesses side road of Le Havre. After the bankruptcy of the Layer, and with the financial support of Mr. Dubosc, the Sports association of the golf of taken again Etretat the torch in 1937, under the crook of Jacques Compère and some old rollers, Albert Mouchet or Maxime Lindon to quote only them.
War 39-45 could have signed the end of the golf, because its installations were ransacked and the mined grounds. It was without counting on the obstinacy of Mr. Compère, who succeeds in obtaining war damagees and even the labour of the prisoners of war to proceed to the mine clearance. With its reopening, in 1949, the club-house also accomodated the members of Le Havre, then deprived of course… When Mr. Dubosc, untiring banker of the golf, left the area in 1958, the members cotisèrent themselves to finance the repurchase of the grounds… carried out on better account by the town of Étretat, n the other hand of a lease long life. This agreement, like the efforts of association to maintain and develop the club, are never contradicted since.
Deeply modified in 1992, the course extends from now on on more than 6 kilometers, offers a variety of play and landscapes clean to charm the amateurs, as well as a gourmet restaurant in an club-house renovated and accessible to all… except with our friends the dogs. Today twinned with an English club, Hockley Golf Club (Winchester), the golf of Etretat on the other side of the Atlantic perpetuates the tradition of alliance which governed its birth and is the always long-lived witness of the golden age of Étretat. |
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