Tosse

Europe / France

The Brief

Forming part a new residential and tourist development in the south-west of France, the brief is to create a new 45 hole public golf facility, consisting of two 18 hole ‘signature’ courses, a 9 hole par 3 course and Golf Academy.
The ‘Championship’ course is being designed in association with Colin Montgomerie, while the ‘Classic’ course will be in association with French golfer, Jean van de Velde. To compliment the two 18 hole courses, will be a state of the art golf academy and a 9 hole par 3 course, which will provide an ideal venue to learn, enjoy & challenge.

The Site

The land at Tosse is beautiful. It is a wonderful mix of vegetation and habitat. The intention is very much to leave the existing landscape as untouched as possible by sensitive design, construction and future maintenance.
The Championship Course will be designed to enhance the heathland feel – the heathers and natural grasses will be retained as the non-maintained areas of the course. As well as giving the course a significantly more authentic appearance, this will also have the added benefit of reducing the area to be irrigated and requiring the applications of fertilisers and pesticides, thus reducing maintenance costs. The bunkering on the Championship Course will be created to reflect the naturally occurring areas of sand throughout this part of the site. They will be free-form, with areas of natural vegetation contained within them, all of which will enhance the natural feel of the course.

The Classic Course will contrast in style to its bigger neighbour. Utilising the portion of the site with the most existing tree cover and, the course will be more like a parkland. The bunkering will be much more contained than on the Championship Course, and more traditional in appearance.

Status

The design project has been submitted for planning and public consultation.
Detail design is due to commence at the back end of 2017, with construction scheduled to commence in 2018.