Hardelot sits about twenty minutes down the coast from Le Touquet, where the eight of us had set up base for a week of golf across the Côte d'Opale, Normandy and Brittany. The drive south is pleasant enough — pines on either side of the road, the occasional flash of yellow sand where the real dunes show through — and you pull into Golf d'Hardelot already half-decided that you like the look of the place.