There's not a more breathtaking venue on any golf tour than Evian Les Bains. On the southern shore of Lake Geneva, its verdant landscape is backed the towering snow capped French Alps.
There's a tree-lined lakeside promenade, lined with trees and elegant gardens, and there are numerous chateaus and spas. I spent a week in Evian almost 10 years ago when I lived in Paris, and was charmed by the fairytale scenery and alpine architecture. Unfortunately, this was before I'd ever picked up a golf club so I didn't even visit the Evian Masters Golf Club. It's a beautiful woodland course situated between the lake shore and the mountains and host to the Evian Masters tournament, that begins this week.
The Evian Masters is a major on the European Tour and one of the most universally loved stops. Ai Miyiazato is the defending champion and Americans Natalie Gulbis, Paula Creamer and Julie Inkster have won in recent years.
Television Coverage in the US is not what it could be, and there have been a number of complaints about that:
Jul 22 6:30-8:30 PM ET GC ~ ~ Jul 23 6:30-8:30 PM ET GC
Jul 24 1:00-4:00 PM ET GC ~ ~ Jul 25 1:00-4:00 PM ET GC
The tournament however, does a number of awesome things to share the action with fans and viewers... like live segments on their website, and continually updated photo galleries... as well as interactive guestbooks were you can leave messages for favorite players. You can follow the Evian Masters on Twitter and facebook too. And this year there's a new iPhone app especially for the Evian Masters that brings yet another kind of coverage.There'll be activities going on all week too. In fact, the EMJC 2010 junior tournament took place over the past couple of days, and today Michelle Wie presented a trophy to the 2010 winning team: Team France. How perfect is that?
