Technically the Côte d’Azur, or the French Rivera, is the coastline that runs from Toulon (or Saint-Tropez) to Menton. But if we look at the departments along the coast we see that Toulon is the administrate capital of the Var. And the Var runs from before Saint-Raphaël, past Sainte-Maxime, Saint-Tropez, past Toulon, and up to Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer. This means the Fregate Province Golf & Country Club is in the Var, in fact it sits between Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer, famous for its olives, and Bandol, famous for its wine.
We stayed there several times between the mid-1990’s and 2007, but we stopped taking photos in 2003. In part this hotel was a stop-over when driving back and forth to Nice, and in part it was to simply enjoy playing a very pleasant 18-hole golf course built in 1992.
At the time the hotel, now called Le Fregate Provence, was called something else, but I still remember that it was a comfortable 4-star hotel with a good restaurant. Looking at the above photograph, the hotel doesn’t appear to have changed much, and it still has the same pools that lead down to a small series of lakes on the left side of the 18th hole (see photograph below from January 2003).
In the above photograph we can also see some of the houses in a private domain that is attached to the site.
According to the plans, there is also now a ‘training’ 9-holes (Frégalon) set along side the first 5 holes of the main 18-hole course (Fregate).
Below we have a few photographs of the golf course, which I felt personally was one of the most pleasurable courses to play on the French coast (taken January 2003). Below we can see my wife teeing up at the first par-3 (hcp 11), 153/134 m downhill into a tricky green.
Above I think we have the view over the course from hole 6, and below we have the spectacular 11th hole, a par-5 (hcp 12), 443/348 m, with a fantastic view from the green out to sea.
Above we can see my wife planning her shot on the par-3 18th hole, and looking forward to a nice cup of hot tea (mine was an ice cold beer).
