Our golf pros Cédric and Fréd pack their clubs and take off for a tricky round in the forest of Montmorency, just outside Paris.

For our first highlight of the year, we are taking you to the Golf de Domont in the Val d’Oise, 20km from Paris.
Les Châtaigniers, a par- 71 (5876m) course designed by F W Hawtree, has a reputation for being quite technical and demanding. The course is carved into the forest of Montmorency, so accuracy off the tee is vital. You will have to deal with a lot of uneven lies due to the very scenic aspect of the layout.
There are no water hazards but the course is tough enough without them. The club is efficiently run and this shows in the course which is always kept in impeccable condition, justifying the high green fee.
The fairways are fantastic, firm and rolling throughout. The bunkers are always well raked and with just the right amount of sand in them.

Armand Cohendet is five years old, his pony Conchise is four. Armand helps look after him, train him and drive him. He’s learning the right order in which to put on the driving harness, and he’s even teaching Conchise to back between the shafts, all under his father’s watchful eye. He has the best teacher, one of the finest French carriage-driving horsemen of today: his father Éric Cohendet.
Éric, too, was around horses as a small boy, growing up near Annecy, with views of Mont Blanc from his bedroom window. His grandfather made driving harness and his uncle used working horses on his farm.
Horses became Éric’s passion and his spare time was spent learning about training and handling driving horses, as well as studying and training to qualify as a farrier.
His wife Carole comes from the Deux-Sèvres, an area somewhat short of mountains, “where houses and land were much cheaper than in the Savoy Alps”.