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Euro golf challenge
10:02 27 Mar 2003
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The Sovereign Bar & Grill, near the entrance of Portsmouth
Harbour, has - by word of mouth - become the meeting point for
golfers embarking on the Contract Journal European Golf Challenge.
It is an unpretentious venue, well used to catering for
cross-channel travellers and their demands for swift drinks and
snacks.
This is a good thing, as more than 120 players signed up for the first Spring European Golf Challenge, an event demanded by the oversubscription of the well-established Autumn trip. And they were rewarded for their pioneering spirit with a thoroughly entertaining 36 hours of top eating, drinking, shopping and, of course, golfing.
From the Sovereign, players made the short, but perilous, drive across the roundabout into the Brittany Ferries terminal and on to Brittany's Le Bretagne cruiser, their base for the next two nights.
The destination was St Malo in Brittany and four of the region's best and most picturesque golf courses: Des Ormes; Le Freslonniere; Pen Guen; and Val Andre.
On board, the players met their course sponsors - A-Plant, SGB, Utility Week and Consensus - to receive their balls and tee-off times (and directions to the Carrefour hypermarket), before heading to dinner and, inevitably, the well-stocked and exotically-named Gwen Har Du nightclub.
Partly due to the effects of the popular and ridiculously cheap 650ml bottles of Heineken, one or two groups seemed to forget that, since the clocks are an hour ahead in France, going to bed at 3.30am meant it was really 4.30am. The wake-up call for disembarkation was 7.30am sharp. You do the maths - they didn't!
As a result, the quality of golf on each course ranged from the indifferent (one player at Pen Guen thought he was in the world's largest bunker and had narrowly avoided the world's largest water hazard - the beach and the English Channel) to the superb (one player at Le Freslonniere course scored just one over par).
That evening, back on board - amid the exaggerated boasts of the losers - the unassuming course winners (see below) received beautiful Villeroy & Boch glassware decanter trophies from their course sponsors. And Brittany Ferries kindly donated a five-day cruise to the winner of the prize draw - Mr John Beeston.
The following morning, as CJ and the Spring European Golf Challenge sponsors waved their guests off the ferry, their cars laden with wine, cheese and those mini bottles of beer that only cost about 10p each, thoughts immediately turned to the next European Golf Challenge.
The date is 19-21 November 2003. Those interested in playing or sponsoring a course should call Tim Bertram on 020 8652 4776. See you at the Sovereign!
This is a good thing, as more than 120 players signed up for the first Spring European Golf Challenge, an event demanded by the oversubscription of the well-established Autumn trip. And they were rewarded for their pioneering spirit with a thoroughly entertaining 36 hours of top eating, drinking, shopping and, of course, golfing.
From the Sovereign, players made the short, but perilous, drive across the roundabout into the Brittany Ferries terminal and on to Brittany's Le Bretagne cruiser, their base for the next two nights.
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The destination was St Malo in Brittany and four of the region's best and most picturesque golf courses: Des Ormes; Le Freslonniere; Pen Guen; and Val Andre.
On board, the players met their course sponsors - A-Plant, SGB, Utility Week and Consensus - to receive their balls and tee-off times (and directions to the Carrefour hypermarket), before heading to dinner and, inevitably, the well-stocked and exotically-named Gwen Har Du nightclub.
Partly due to the effects of the popular and ridiculously cheap 650ml bottles of Heineken, one or two groups seemed to forget that, since the clocks are an hour ahead in France, going to bed at 3.30am meant it was really 4.30am. The wake-up call for disembarkation was 7.30am sharp. You do the maths - they didn't!
As a result, the quality of golf on each course ranged from the indifferent (one player at Pen Guen thought he was in the world's largest bunker and had narrowly avoided the world's largest water hazard - the beach and the English Channel) to the superb (one player at Le Freslonniere course scored just one over par).
That evening, back on board - amid the exaggerated boasts of the losers - the unassuming course winners (see below) received beautiful Villeroy & Boch glassware decanter trophies from their course sponsors. And Brittany Ferries kindly donated a five-day cruise to the winner of the prize draw - Mr John Beeston.
The following morning, as CJ and the Spring European Golf Challenge sponsors waved their guests off the ferry, their cars laden with wine, cheese and those mini bottles of beer that only cost about 10p each, thoughts immediately turned to the next European Golf Challenge.
The date is 19-21 November 2003. Those interested in playing or sponsoring a course should call Tim Bertram on 020 8652 4776. See you at the Sovereign!
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