Forty minutes west of the estate, through the sweet hills of Monbazillac and Saussignac — which is to say, through some of the best dessert-wine country in France — you come to the Château des Vigiers. A country club with a hotel, a restaurant, and twenty-seven holes of golf laid out across a private estate that has, by any measure, one of the more enviable settings in rural France.
We're not a golf-obsessed household. But we do play, and across the years we've put a lot of guests onto the fairways here, and it deserves its own note.
The courseThree nines, one worth choosing.
Des Vigiers runs three nine-hole courses that can be combined into eighteen in any configuration. All three are decent. One is better than decent.
The Vines course is the one. It's obviously older — the trees are the right age, the fairways have settled into the land rather than having been cut out of it, and the views back across the estate and out to the Monbazillac hills are the best of the three courses. Some of the hole designs are genuinely delightful: sweeps around mature trees, elevated tees that show the whole of what's coming, and a couple of holes that look impossible from the tee and turn out to be quite fair once you're walking them.
It's a course that has enough to challenge an experienced player but is forgiving enough that a novice can get around without losing a bag of balls. That's a harder balance than it sounds.
The 18th on the Vines course is the hole I'd pay to play again. It doesn't dogleg — it boomerangs — and as you come around the bend the full view of the château and clubhouse opens up across the final approach. First time I played it I stopped on the fairway and just looked. It's that kind of view.
The rest of itClubhouse, hotel, wine country.
The clubhouse at Des Vigiers is straightforward — professional, polite, not stuffy. You can book tee times online. Clubs are available for rental for guests who've flown in without them. There's a pro on site for lessons if that's of interest.
The hotel restaurant at the château is good — classic French, with wines from the Bergerac region next door — and if you're making a day of it, a long lunch after a morning round is a reasonable plan. If you're not golfing but coming for the lunch, the terrace view over the estate is worth the drive on its own.
And then: you're in Monbazillac. Coming home, it's worth a detour of ten minutes to drop into one of the chateau vineyards for a quick tasting. Château de Monbazillac itself has a reliable visitor programme and a very good restaurant; the smaller Monbazillac producers are a topic for the wine post proper. Forty-five minutes back to the gate along small roads, past fields of vines, through a landscape that wouldn't make you slow down for a detour unless you knew what it held.
PracticalHow to book the day.
Four practical things, briefly.
Book ahead. Tee times through summer fill up — not densely, but enough that arriving unannounced on a July morning is a gamble. A few days' notice is usually enough.
The Vines course can be requested. If you're playing eighteen, you can ask to do it as two rounds of Vines rather than the default rotation. It's worth asking for.
Caddies aren't standard here. Unlike some older French clubs, Des Vigiers runs as a modern resort. Golf carts are available. Expect to carry or pull if you want to walk.
Make a day of it. Forty minutes is a proper drive from Bardou. Going just to play eighteen and come home is fine but it's also a waste. Combine with a long lunch, a Monbazillac tasting on the way back, and dinner at the estate.
The club's website is at vigiers.com. Tell them you're staying at Manoir du Suquet — we have a reasonable relationship with the club, and it doesn't hurt.