golf

Linda invites you play some golf; it's been years since you've played, but hey, you've never played en France.  She has an extra set of clubs for you, she makes the rez, and you're off to her private club, Golf de Servanes, situated at the foot of a wavy, rolling outcropping of rock that reminds you of ocean waves.  You can see how, millennia ago, the relentless pounding of the ocean formed the geography here.  She immediately birdies they first two holes (she says she hasn't played since September); your first drive slices left into the olive grove.  Yes, the olive grove.

As the afternoon progresses, her game begins to fall apart and yours picks up: she has an eight on the par 5 ninth hole, you shoot par.  Still, overall, she takes you to the woodshed (an idiom you attempt to explain to her), thus avenging her petanque defeat the day earlier.

On one hole she points to a residence along the 7th fairway: an old Provencal farmer lives there.  He'd sold some of his land to build the golf course, but a stipulation was he could keep and live in his house.  If Linda comes by at the right time in the afternoon, he will invite her and her party over for a bit of pastis and conversation, and maybe some apricots picked fresh from the trees lining the fairways.  That will not happen at Bobby Jones, East Lake or the PDC.