Par Thomas Porcher
Published on May 5, 24 at 3:08 p.m. See my news Follow Les Informations Dieppoises
Forty-four hectares, 18 holes and a view of the cliffs and the sea. This is the panorama of the Dieppe-Pourville golf course (Seine-Maritime), the oldest of Normandy golf courses.
Founded in 1897, it has seen countless members and presidents. Arriving in 2023, Christophe Romefort is the current president of the club.
While he still has four years left in his mandate, he does not hide his ambitions and his plans to improve golf.
Financially straighten out the club
The first objective, and not the least, is to financially recover a club stuck in a complicated situation. The objective is on the verge of being achieved.
The president has made many changes, including a new team of professionals around him.
The desire is also to attract new people to the club.
For this, golf will launch an advertising campaign on social networks to find players in the Normandy region, with the French federation.
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Rejuvenate the club
The club also wishes to rejuvenate its image and that of golf in general. In France, according to the French Golf Federation, the average age of players is 54 years old, the same as in the Dieppe-Pourville club.
To bring in new people and rejuvenate players, golf focuses on young people. Thus, 57 children are registered at the golf school, or 17 more than during the 2022-2023 season.
To make them stay, Christophe Romefort hired a second professional for the courses. A good idea since the school is ranked first in Normandy, which makes him “rather proud”.
The club also works with schools and high schools to give young people the opportunity to discover and learn.
Parakids approved, the Dieppe golf course has signed a partnership with the Château Blanc medical-educational institute, in Arques-la-Bataille, to allow children with disabilities to have fun and learn about this sport. free in summer.
An ecological ambition
Christophe Romefort’s other major projects focus on biodiversity. Already awarded the Bronze level Golf for Biodiversity label, the next objective is to move to the silver level.
” But not right now. This is the ambition for 2025,” explains Christophe Romefort. This program is based on a voluntary approach by golf clubs to preserve and enhance the natural heritage of golf courses.
Good management of biodiversity
A diagnosis must therefore be carried out by a specialized organization and the golf course must commit to implementing various development and management measures favorable to biodiversity.
In Dieppe, ambitions are high on this subject. Two beehives have already been installed, as well as insect hotels and bird nesting boxes.
In addition, apple orchards have been planted. Added to this are flowering fallows, which will reach maturity within a few weeks.
Striving towards water self-sufficiency
But the flagship project concerns the water autonomy of the golf course. If the Normandy golf courses were rather spared by the drought of the summer of 2023, the French golf courses will remain in the sights of environmental associations regarding their water consumption.
The golf federation indicates on its website that on average, a golf course consumes 25,000 m3 of water per year per nine holes. For an 18-hole golf course, consumption therefore reaches 50,000 m3.
But the Dieppe golf course prides itself on consuming “only 6,000 m3 of water per year, because we only water the greens and tees, or 4% of the total surface area of the golf course”, specifies the president.
Many projects around this water issue are in the pipeline, such as the construction of a rainwater retention basin, so that the land is “usable all year round” and the installation a topographical study of the land to install flow circuits.
Because Christophe Romefort makes no secret of it, “my dream is to be self-sufficient in water before the end of my mandate in order to leave an eco-viable club on all these points”.
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