MONTE CARLO

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 91, 7 February 1947, Page 3

MONTE CARLO

REGAINING LOST GLAMOUR FAMOUS GOLF CENTRE Monte Carlo, famous Mediterranean haunt of pleasure, picturesque scene of a thousand adventure novels and glamorous motion pictures, is determined to recover a measure of its pre-war prosperity and resume its rightful place as the mecca of pleasure-seeking British and American tourists. Astute business interests of the gay Riviera resort addressed a cheery and optimistic invitation to all Australians capable of securing air or sea passages to book their next holidays in the south of France. They offer luxurious hotel comfort, therapeutic sea baths, a £60,00b golf course, opera, ballet and concerts, blue skies, gaudy gardens and the far-famed rubber beach, all on a munificent pre-war scale, as well as the customary fling at the gambling tables in the Casino and Sporting Club. For a town whose only source of income is the tourist trade,. Monte Carlo has suffered lean times since 1940. Rich foods are scarce, the famous Sea Baths were partly de-

molished by dive bombers, and the

enforced absence of well-shod American and English playboys was poorly compensated for during the war by a few handfuls of parsimonious Nazi officers, dutifully suspicious of the "decadent" carryings-on in the sophisticated Riviera resort. To make up for lost time (and lost revenue) the business folk of Monte Carlo have drawn up an ambitious programe. The organisation which controls the famous Casino, and which quaintly calls itself the Anonymous Society of Sea Water Baths and Strangers, proudly anounces "the construction of a luxurious establishment where physicians and beauty specialists with the most up-

;o-date equipment and apparatus at

j their command will exercise their skill to improve the health and figure of- patrons." As the town's latest information" bulletin puts it: "The Sea Baths are equipped with the most cunning devices, which, when required, will pull, shake and pummel the human body into proper shape. This particular treatment is considered by many to be invaluable after a late session at the Casino or Sporting Club."

After six years of German occupation, the famous golf links at Mont Agel, 2700 feet above the blue waters of the Mediterranean, were in a sorry state of disrepair, but much work has been carried out to get the fairways back into playing trim, and under the aegis of no less an expert than Henry Cotton, the Monte Carlo Golf Club stands a fair chance to recover its pre-war prestige as the greatest golf course on the Continent of Europe. With a keen eye to business, the resourceful Mr Cotton has added a new magnet to Monte Carlo's many attractions— a sumptuous golf school, with two 18-hole putting greens, situated just below the Casino terace on the side of what used to be the Tir aux Pigeons. So that, as he says in a friendly letter addressed to the' world's golfers, "on the side where thousands of 'birdies' were shot annually in pre-war days I hope to teach thousands of golfers to shoot 'birdies' of another sort."

"I can think of nothing more exciting," Mr Cotton adds enthusiastically, "than to hit ball after ball into the sea. below, aiming at a target in a dinghy-lined fairway," there to be retrieved by caddies rowing about in small boats.

As Mr Cotton says: "Put Monte Carlo on top of your list for a holiday—and bring your golf clubs."