Belle Dune

Overview: Belle Dune is an 18-hole links-style course in the Marquenterre dune massif at Fort-Mahon-Plage on France's Opal Coast. Jean-Manuel Rossi routed the course through a large coastal landscape of marram grass, maritime pines and open sand, and the club describes the site as 30 hectares of preserved nature. The profile is par 71 and 6,410 yards. Belle Dune does not present one uniform view of links golf: the round moves between pine-lined corridors and exposed dune holes, with wind, rolling ground and the run of the ball changing the best strategy. The natural setting is not just scenery. It determines sightlines, landing areas and the approach angles into greens that can be difficult to judge from the fairway. Belle Dune's character comes from the way Rossi lets the transition from woodland to dunes create several different forms of coastal golf within one routing.

History: The 18-hole course opened in 1992 as part of the development of the Fort-Mahon-Plage and Marquenterre area, with Jean-Manuel Rossi responsible for the design. The project was conceived as a way to bring golf into a sensitive coastal environment while preserving the dune landscape rather than replacing it with a conventional resort course. Research and environmental planning accompanied the construction, and the course was shaped around existing dunes, pine stands and marshland. The current club presentation continues to emphasize the protected natural setting and Rossi's design. That history explains why Belle Dune feels more like a walk through a coastal habitat than a course built on a blank site, even though it offers a complete championship-length round.

Did You Know? Belle Dune's routing is deliberately divided by landscape: early holes move through pine and woodland, while the middle of the round enters the larger dune massif. The change is especially striking because the colour, wind exposure and scale of the holes alter without leaving the same 18-hole course.