Golf National

Few courses in continental Europe carry the weight that Golf National does. Designed by Hubert Chesneau and Robert von Hagge and opened in 1990, it serves as the permanent home of the French Open and was the stage for one of the most dramatic Ryder Cup finishes in recent memory — the 2018 matches, where Europe retained the trophy on home soil in an atmosphere that rivaled anything the competition has produced. That history is written into the layout itself, a course built with match-play theater in mind.

The Albatros course, the tournament track, is unambiguously a championship test: wide, links-influenced corridors give way to water hazards that demand precise carries and punish anything left or right of the line. The finishing stretch, particularly the 18th, is a true arena hole — a long par 4 semi-surrounded by water where grandstands transform it into a colosseum when the Tour is in town.

Yvelines sits in the greater Paris basin, about 25 kilometers southwest of the capital. The terrain is flat and open, the sky enormous. It doesn't feel like a parkland or a links — it's something distinctly French and entirely its own.