Pau Artiguelouve is a relatively new golf course on the western side of Pau. It was here that the second round of the Expatria Challenge was to be played and once again the weather was perfect.
The format for Day Two was Fourball Betterball and there were some interesting groupings. Reg Hole joined the fray on the side of the newly named Grenadiers and was drawn against his wife Lucy — that was always going to be good match. Jean-René Vidaud was also playing for the Grenadiers, and both of their four balls prevailed.
The course at Artiguelouve is very attractive with plenty of water, some technically difficult doglegs and some very small greens. All agreed it was a fun course to play and one that we may well visit again next year. The clubhouse is modern and quite sumptuous and the meal served was excellent.
By the time we were all seated on the first-floor terrace prior to lunch it was clear the Musketeers had been soundly beaten. There were seven matches and the Grenadiers won five of them and halved the other. This put them into a commanding lead for the final round, due to be held on Wednesday at Eauze.
For the third successive day we had cloudless skies and after a coffee and briefing by Martyn Hayward we set out to try to peg the Grenadiers back. The Musketeers lowest handicapper, scratch golfer James Gibb, was playing for the Grenadiers so we thought it would be an uphill battle, but Musketeer Mike Rawlings pulled off a famous victory against James, so hope was kept alive.
However, as all the other results came in the Musketeers dropped too many points and in the end the Grenadiers won the 3-day challenge quite easily. The restaurant at Eauze was not available so we travelled five minutes down the road to a lakeside restaurant and ate under the shade of magnificent chestnut trees. As always there was much banter, some merciless ribbing but the whole day went really well and everything was done in a most sporting manner.
We travelled home thinking what might have been, but looking forward to a day's rest before the big individual competition at Pallanne on the Fr
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