Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge may be the golfing event capturing the imagination most in France this week, but it has also caught the eye of Jean van de Velde, teeing it up in the Senior Open Championship Presented by Rolex at Carnoustie.
The Frenchman is making his European Senior Tour bow – back at the scene of his infamous Open Championship heartbreak in 1999 – but he was keen to discuss the impressive wealth of French golfing talent emerging on the European Challenge Tour this season.
Adrien Saddier took a maiden Challenge Tour win at last week’s Fred Olsen Challenge de España while numbers two, three and four in the Road to Oman Rankings are Romain Langasque, Matthieu Pavon and Damien Perrier.
Add to that Clément Sordet’s victory in the Turkish Airlines Challenge and Joël Stalter’s three top ten finshes this season and van de Velde finds much to be excited about when inspecting the field at Golf PGA France du Vaudreuil this week.
“We have some great players,” said the 50 year old. “The development programme has been on for about 20 years now, pushed by the French Federation. And if you look at it, you realise that over the last five years, we have about 60 youngsters who are in universities in America, and in college in America, boys and girls.
“So sooner or later, some of them are going to appear on this side of the Atlantic. Some others are going to be on the other – Julien Brun decided to play on the Canadian Tour and is doing very well, I'm sure he's doing to play on the PGA Tour.
“[In Europe] we have Saddier, Sordet, and all the others. Langasque is a pure example of how much he's been followed by the different bodies who invest in the programmes in golf. There are some good days to come I think.”
Langasque – who narrowly missed out on a maiden professional title when he lost to Espen Kofstad in a play-off at the D+D REAL Slovakia Challenge in his last outing – drew special praise from his veteran compatriot.
“I think Romain is a tremendous talent," he said. "I saw him hit a few shots at the French Open this year. I mean, the distance this lad has, it's out of this world. He hit a driver and a gap wedge on 18. On 18 at Le Golf National, he hit to the right inside because it runs out in front of him and it wasn't even hot or sunny or whatever and the ball wasn't going anywhere.
“He's got tremendous talent, tremendous potential, he's got an amazing short game. He's got a good head, as well. He's young. All the good ingredients. His head is not polluted with all the different dramas this game can throw at you.
“He has the ability of analysing what is happening and forget about it, and move forward. As you're young, you're going to have so many more opportunities and you can do that. As you get older, it's a different story.”
