And then there are the sounds, and they are sounds that cannot be heard in unison anywhere else, certainly in Europe and maybe in the world. They were there before the golfers came and will be ruminant, pacific, reflective queens of their territory long after the sportsmen have gone. The Des Melezes is a roughly L-shaped building, with its bedrooms on the long arm and the bar and restaurant at right angles to it. In its lap, not 5 yards from the patio where the folksy but entrepreneurial Madame Leman sets out her stall, with its steaming coffee and cheese and ham baguettes, is the seventh tee of the golf course where the European Masters has been played, with a break for the war years, since 1939. The seventh hole at Crans is a short par 4 and in the thin Alpine air, where the ball flies and flies on endless wings, is easily driveable by all but the shortest hitters.
Birdies are commonplace, eagles far from unknown.
But for all that, it still has the enviable gift of producing great deeds and honoured winners. This year was no exception. He won the thing by 10 shots, no less, spread-eagling a field that contained some of the crown princes of European golf. Westwood, who subsided from joint second at halfway to 21st, claimed quietly, gentle soul that he is, that the house move he has made this year with Laurae, his wife, was playing a greater part in his life at the moment than his day-job. It was something of an idyll, up there in the soaring magnificence of the mountains.