How did you discover golf?

Caroline Breynaert: In Saint-Cloud of course. Golf is part of my family's DNA. My uncles played at the high level as an amateur, my parents had a single digit index, my husband, my brothers, my children… everyone golfed or golfed! However, I started playing quite late, around 18 years old. I went from 24 to 12 index in six months. But I worked the following year, and it suddenly slowed my progress (laughs).

Clubs in hand perhaps, but today you are the president of a prestigious club ...

I have been the president since 2013, I have always been involved in the club. I was in charge of communication and member of the Committee for nine years under the chairmanship of Jean Crespon. It's a challenge, a responsibility, the life of this club fascinates me. The Saint-Cloud golf course is a nugget located in a magnificent location, near Paris. Henri Cachard, its founder, was a visionary. Saint-Cloud is an imposing house, just look at the clubhouse. It is also a story with an exceptional heritage in terms of architecture and terrain, not to mention our geographical location. This is the Paris club! We are a large liner, but one that has to be nimble to adapt to the changing world. Our members are very demanding and in demand.

In which area should we adapt?

I am thinking, for example, of the new environmental constraints on water, waste, soil, biodiversity or even the non-use of phytosanitary products from 2025. A balance must be found in relation to the demands of our members who wish to playing on perfect ground. Being president of such a club is exciting and it's also a lot of investment ...

Precisely, you work at the same time as development director of the company LinkUp Factory, which supports companies in their CSR commitment. How do you manage to reconcile these two activities?

I have always worked in communication, I am happy to work, I need it. I often say that the most expensive thing in my life is leisure. Paradoxically, I haven't played a lot of golf since I became president. I work on club files in the evenings and on weekends. I am very present at the club, I participate in the awards ceremony ... even if it is quieter in this regard at the moment (laughs). I have regular meetings with our director Denis Fabre, who will soon be flying under other skies and will be replaced by Julien Vasseur. But I am not alone, it is a collective work. There are 14 of us on the Committee.

What are the consequences of the health crisis on a club like yours?

We have shut down the entire life of the club. There are no more competitions or events, but we are lucky to be able to play, unlike other sports. With the confinements, a lot of members left to live in the provinces in their second homes and went from the status of permanent member to that of distant player. I think this crisis will have a number of delayed effects that we do not yet know, but which can have an impact on all our clubs.

How many members and how many people do a club like Saint-Cloud have?

We have 60 people working here and around 2400 members. Our strength is also having 350 children under the age of 15. We make sure they are as happy as possible within the club.

Apart from golf, what are the activities on offer?

We have a junior club, three tennis courts, three restaurant areas, a family area for children under 3, a bridge and billiards room. We also renovated in 2017 the two basements of the clubhouse, where there was previously a squash, to make it a space dedicated to fitness and well-being with a cardio-fitness room, treatment rooms and massage, two hammams, two saunas… All this contributes to the animation of the club. The idea is to offer a service offer on the outskirts of the golf course for the whole family.

In France, the proportion of female golfers is estimated at 29%. How do you attract more women to our courses?

In Saint-Cloud, there are 41% women. We must cultivate pride in playing this demanding sport and offer an offer adapted to practice. Some golfers enjoy competition, others prefer to play for fun with their friends, partner or family. It is not always easy for women who work or have to take care of children, even if there is more and more a division of roles. You also have to cultivate everything that is feminine, you often want to be pretty on a course. Pro-shops shouldn't just sell tees or gloves (laughs). The idea is that women feel welcome in a club, can make friends there, go to the course or to the gym without guilt because there is a junior club or a golf school. for kids. In short, that on Sunday evening, they can tell themselves that they had a great golf weekend with family or friends.

The Saint-Cloud club has trained some of the best French players such as Perrine Delacour, Joanna Klatten, Valentine Derrey and Manon Mollé. It's a pride I guess ...

Of course ! There is also Albane Valenzuela who is a child of the club, before leaving for Switzerland and the United States. Saint-Cloud has a great sporting tradition, I don't remember how many Golfer's we have won in total. Our boys are also writing a great story. Our players are very present in the Grand Prix, in the Coupe de France. At Gounouilhou or Golfer's, our teams regularly finish in the last four in recent years. Florent d'Harcourt, our manager of the golf school, is doing a very good job. All our young players have the culture of the club, they are happy to play here.

The Saint-Cloud golf course has a great history, in every sense of the word. The battle of Buzenval against the Prussians in 1871 even took place on the course ...

Yes, it was a terribly murderous battle that made us lose the war against Prussia for good. The battle wall is located between holes n ° 2 and n ° 5 of the green course and close to 15. At the time, it was bullets of a different kind that we were throwing. On the 14, there is also a monument which pays homage to the young painter Henri Regnault, heroically died during the battle.

Speaking of history, the club has also received golfers like the Aga Khan, the Baudoin kings 1^er and Hassan II, Dwight Eisenhower, Sean Connery… President Mitterrand also regularly came to play…

He came on Monday morning, closing day, to do 9 holes often in the company of his friend André Rousselet, who created Canal +. There was almost a bodyguard every 10 meters when the president was playing on our course. James Irwin, the American astronaut of the Apollo 15 mission and one of the twelve men to have walked on the moon, also came in October 1984. After playing, he gave us a picture of him on the moon - that one can see at the clubhouse - with this nice dedication: "To St. Cloud Golf Club, the most wonderful place of earth". Fifteen years later, the French astronaut Jean-Pierre Haigneré even took a logoté ball from the Saint-Cloud golf course into space in memory of his stay here.

And then Saint-Cloud, it is this unique view of the Eiffel Tower, in particular on the hole n ° 8 of the Vert. Has this incredible panorama always existed since the course was created in 1913?

Originally, we could glimpse the Eiffel Tower but for the architect Harry Colt, all the holes on the course had to be a signature hole, that was his philosophy. And then at the beginning of the century, the Eiffel Tower did not have the same symbol as today, it was even seen by some as a heap of scrap that had to be destroyed. At that time, we tended to flee Paris and rather look towards the West, which looked like an El Dorado. Moreover, our clubhouse is oriented towards Saint-Germain-en-Laye. From 1931 and the creation of a second course, the trees completely hid the view of the Eiffel Tower. It was not until 2006, when Stuart Hallet was commissioned to restore the course to its initial configuration, that he had the idea of ​​pruning the trees to offer this beautiful view of the Parisian monument. This is what the journalist Lionel Chamoulaud nicely called "the Eiffel Hole", it gives a strong identity to our club.

Interview by Franck Crudo

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