Golf in Paris – What Ryder Cup?

Part 3 of Edward Keirsh’s adventure to France during Ryder Cup Week.

Golf in Paris? Tiger is back. The Ryder Cup is ready to start on Friday outside Paris. The weather is sublime for golf, in the mid-60s and sunny. Magnifique!

But here in this glittering city that many people fear, or often disparage because of some nonsensical feelings about the French, few people care about Tiger or the Cup. It’s as if it was being played on a different planet.

Forget golf. Eat pastries.

Take my favorite baker for example. I expected to see a few little cakes decorated with the European logo. But she would have none of that.  Her only interest was serving me a heavenly cup of coffee and a wondrous pained chocolate. Yum! But there was spectacle that did delight her made her even talkative.

Fashion Week Paris

Fashion Week in Paris is a week of fashion cognoscenti that is totally dwarfing Tiger and his fellows. And that’s understandable. The models or should I say the striking models. The outfits that totally defy the imagination. Ooooolala!

Haute Couture is not my game, but one must be awed sitting around Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Armani models in overflowing cafes. Life is good visually especially because everyone is strutting their stuff. Paris was never prettier.

Shopping in the Drugstore boutique near the Arc de Triomphe, I met Nathalie Martins, an executive at L’Equipe, a French sports magazine. She immediately bedazzled me with her beautiful outfit, charm, and her asking me, “Are you here for the Ryder Cup?”

I was dumbstruck. A real person, a pretty, French woman aware of the event. I could only respond, “no but do you play?”

No Ryder Cup banner on the tower

Now I was hopeful. In this radiant city in the middle of fashion week, and a major auto event coming next week, there might just be a few people who knew the Cup was being contested on French soil.

I walked along the Seine, later the chi chi Boulevard St. Germain. No one during this brilliant sun lit afternoon cared one whit that Tiger, Spieth, and Dustin were about to display their magic.

Tiger might be the MAN again, but Parisians are being Parisians, in love with what makes their world go around ——beauty and not golf balls.

Bistroy Les Papilles

Bertrand Bluy

What could I do? Have lunch —at the petite and cozy Bistroy Les Papilles near Luxembourg gardens. Ordering the lamb shoulder, I was immediately transported. I would soon be back in the US to watch the Cup. But for the moment I was content with owner Bertrand Bluy’s smiling service and a glass of delicious. Burgundy Golf could wait.

Watch for Part 4 of Edward Keirsh’s France trip during Ryder Cup Week at: www.golftravelandleisure.com.

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