Europe and America’s best golfers contest the Ryder Cup in Paris this autumn. We visit the host course in the 530e hybrid, one of the cars that will chauffeur players from the city of lights to the heat of battle
Words Steve Moody | Photography Justin Leighton
Every four years some Americans turn up in Europe and shout a lot, lose and then go home. It’s otherwise known as the Ryder Cup and usually this vast sporting event is held in the European golfing powerhouses of the UK, Spain or Ireland.
But this year, it is heading for a country with a rather perplexing relationship with the game: France. You would think, with millions of acres of fabulous, varied countryside ideally suited for 18 holes and a game which ripe for philosophical rumination over many studied hours, the French would be golfistes of the first order.
Yet it has never taken hold as it has elsewhere in Europe, evidenced by their one claim to fame in the game being a man stood up to his knees in a freezing Scottish ditch, losing the 1999 British Open Championship in one of the most famous sporting collapses of all time.
It may all be about to change however, because in September Le Golf National, just south-west of Paris, will host this year’s continental clash and it is likely to be an epic encounter, on a course of brutal, wicked design which will stymie the Americans’ bombastic long hitters and reward European accuracy and control. Or so the theory goes.
Ryder Cup players, officials and VIPs will need to get to Le Golf National from their hotels 20 miles away in central Paris, and BMW has the job of running everyone about. So just as the pros will play a few practice rounds, it seems entirely sensible that BMW should map out its course too, and so we are tasked with driving a BMW 530e iPerformance Saloon down to Le Golf National to check out how it will fare as the most luxurious of golf buggies.
Charging up for a long drive
Because the 9.2kWh of lithium-ion cells are stowed under the rear seats and not stuffed in the boot, the golf clubs fit in quite happily. Remember when the ability to fit in your Pings used to be a pre-requisite of every car, even if it was a two-seater convertible? Now the question is more likely to be how you can transport your carbon-framed road bike, such as the craze among the moneyed middle-aged shifting from tee to toeclip. Personally, looking dreadful in Lycra, I’ll stick to just looking obsolete in Pringle, thanks.
I’d charged the battery up the night before on a 3.7 kW wallbox at home, which took about two hours 40 minutes, cost me about £1.10, and offered an expected range of 28 miles. Clearly, we’re not going to get the nearly 400 miles to Le Golf National and back on that, but around 30 miles is a commutable range for most people and if you have a charger at the office you can use, it could result in some significant savings over the course of a year. For the non-EV bits, we’ll be used 184hp 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine the 530e also carries.
We reach the Eurotunnel at Folkestone and discover free rapid charging waiting for us right by the terminal. All that’s required is a poke of a button on the charger, plug the BMW in, and lots of lovely free electricity is pouring its way into the car. This most definitely counts as a bonus, brimming our batteries to 100% before we’ve even hit the continent.
The question once we reach Calais is how to use our precious resource, because hoofing down the autoroute at 130kph with batteries at full effort wouldn’t see us reach Boulogne before they’re depleted, and that’s clearly not the way they’re intended to be used.
So instead of hitting the fast roads, and with plenty of time before we’re due to tee off later that day, we take to the road which hugs the coast. Being Northern France it’s misty, as it always seems to be, and also strangely, eerily quiet, which is ideal for making the flowing progress the 530e iPerformance is good for, charging the batteries on lift-off downhill, mixing petrol and electric to climb to the top of cliffs. In total, when both powerplants are letting it rip, the 530e has 252hp and 420 Nm of torque – 184hp and 320Nm from the petrol engine, and 95hp and 250Nm from the electric motor.
Averaging 65mpg on the scenic route to Paris
It’s fairly nimble for a big car too, with rear-wheel drive rather than four, and there’s even the option of Sport mode should you really want to stiffen the car and get on it. But Eco Pro seems the most suitable mood on this trip.
BMW has also positioned the electric motor so that the eight speed Steptronic gearbox’s ratios to be used in all-electric mode too, and the effect is that the two motors work pretty seamlessly together, to the point where there are quite a few occasions when I had to switch to the display showing from where the car’s power is being gleaned. There’s none of that doleful whining and indecision you get in some hybrids when the electric cuts in or out. Acceleration and shifts are clipped and precise. If only my chipping was completed with such assurance.
The villages along the way have hybrid names too, some more Flemish than French, like Wissant, Berck and Wimereux, mixed in with more familiar local spots such as Neufchatel-Hardelot and of course the classic golfing getaway of Le Touquet, an oddly ordered town like some vast holiday camp, where PG Wodehouse lived, no doubt in tweed, hitting his persimmons while dreaming up more scrapes for Bertie Wooster.
We carry on down the coast into the Somme region, and at this point we dogleg left for Paris and travel on more prosaic roads. We’ve covered about 44 miles in Auto eDrive, which does the decision-making for us over which powertrain to use, and the trip computer suggests we’ve averaged about 65mpg. Impressive stuff. But now we’re joining the autoroute, we should save the battery by switching to Battery Control.
This lets you choose what battery storage level you want to hold, between 30 and 100%, keeping it in reserve so that it can be used at a more appropriate time. Driving the 530e requires a bit of thought, because rather like golf, you’ve got a selection of clubs to use, and you need to work out when you want to bomb it with a driver, play safe with an iron or chip delicately with a wedge.
And like golf, you get better with experience. There are plenty of hybrids which are very much the plug and play type, where the driver just switches it on and the car then makes its own mind up with very little ability to influence its choices. But being a BMW, the 530e very much involves the driver in the process, and I admit to doing something I rarely ever do: getting the handbook out to read up on its various modes and ways of using them.
Other than at the tunnel, where it seemed only right to use the free electricity they had kindly supplied, I’ve kept the 530e out of Max eDrive mode, which essentially turns it into a full electric car. That’s ideal for creeping about in town or terminal, although it will do up to 87mph if you want to drain the battery quicker than Tiger over a two-footer.
On the hunt for charging stations
Having made pretty good progress, we stop at a services and fill the petrol tank, paying at the pump. Because it’s France, the garage offers a wide range of gourmet lunchtime fare and patisseries, with not a curly-edged sandwich in sight. So it seems an ideal opportunity to plug the 530e in and top up while we tuck into a leisurely coq-au-vin and tarte au pommes. How every civilised.
But there’s a problem. Charging your car requires signing up to the local region’s EV scheme via an app, and I have sketchy 3G coverage at best. When finally it grants me access after many minutes of digital doddering, I have to pay 50 Euros up front for the privilege. Why can’t I just pay for my electricity like I’ve just paid for the petrol? What is so special about electric cars that I have to join a club? I have a minor huff, move the BMW to a standard parking spot and head off in pursuit of my lunch. We’ll do the next bit on petrol.
And anyway, there will be plenty of opportunity to charge the 530e elsewhere, because the iDrive points out charging stations and they litter the map all across Northern France. It seems every hamlet and farm has a point with a plug and we must be able to access at least one of them.
We reach the outskirts of Paris having held our batteries in reserve the whole way, because as it turns out, the same problem of local-run schemes makes most of these hard to access. Thank goodness the BMW is a hybrid, because a full electric would have taken forever to get here. Or even not at all.
As the traffic thickens, it’s the ideal opportunity to deploy our preciously hoarded power. BMW will be running VIPs from here to the course, and being able to do it all on EV power certainly helps the event’s carbon footprint.
We’ve got just over 20 miles of range left and the iDrive’s sat nav works in unison with the powertrain to devise the most economical route and when to use what it has stored best. This includes a very scenic section past the Palace of Versailles – should the golf-loving US President be popping over to watch the play, even he might be overawed by the sheer scale of gold leaf largesse on display.
The 530e seems to be on EV power most of the time, but should it decide a bunt of petrol power is best served, with a hill upcoming or a dual carriageway ahead, it will call on it to help out. The result is on this stretch alone we are averaging up above 80mpg. This is what the 530e is best at and it uses the batteries energy much more slowly. It’s a decently quick car when it needs to be, and it doesn’t carry the extra weight of its batteries with any trouble, but relaxed commuting luxury in urban situations is most certainly its forte.
Le National, home to the 2018 Ryder Cup
If you ever go to the sort of posh golf club that might host a major event, it’s essentially what you imagine boarding school to be like. There are arcane rules and regulations, strict codes of behaviour and dress, and the whole thing is designed to leave you with the feeling that you are an inferior toad who has no place being there.
Le Golf National is the antithesis of this attitude. It is expensive to play, at 200 euros a round, but it is a pay and play course: anyone can pitch up and have a go, and all the staff are incredibly friendly and helpful: when we turn up with our BMW, we impudently ask if we can take it onto the course, the ultimate driving machine, as a golf cart.
Of course the answer will be ‘non’. A phone call is made. The answer is ‘oui, bien sur!’. So somebody opens a gate, and in Max eDrive I crawl the 530e past the hotel and astonished guests and take to the paved path which runs alongside the fairways. It’s just wide enough for the car, and is pretty tight, but bizarrely the 530e is now our caddy.
The course has been built as a gladiatorial spectator arena with every hole lined with high banking, like some grassy, infernal half pipe, with fairways barely wider than an autoroute, rough which comes above my knees and there are lakes and ponds on two-thirds of the holes.
On the first hole I smash my tee shot straight into the water. Typical. Its seems the only easy drive here is in a BMW 530e.
THE NUMBERS
BMW 530e Saloon
Price from £45,810
Engine 1998cc 16v four-cyl turbo + synchronous electric motor integrated in transmission
Transmission Eight-speed auto, rear-wheel drive
Suspension Double wishbone front; multi-link rear
Made of Steel, aluminium
Length/width/height 4936/1868/1483mm
How BMW keeps the Ryder Cup moving
BMW has been involved in the Ryder Cup since 2006 and is the Official Partner of the 2018 competition providing approximately 200 cars to the event.
'As one of the strongest and sustainable partners of international golf, BMW and the prestigious Ryder Cup are a perfect match. As a major sporting event, it is synonymous with passion, high performance and, extraordinarily for golf, team spirit,' said Thorsten Mattig, Head of Sports Marketing and Brand Cooperations BMW.
For the first time, BMW will provide the courtesy car service for both teams, as well as a courtesy car service to other partners, officials, past captains, ambassadors and VIP guests. It will even be using its cars as evacuation vehicles in case of lightning.
You might think that as a major golf facility, holding a golf event wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. But the Ryder Cup is a one-off event, and the third most watched sporting event on the planet, after the Olympics and FIFA World Cup. Making sure the course and facilities are up to par falls to Paul Armitage, Directeur Le Golf National. No surprise then, that this year’s competition has been a decade in the planning.
'The French Golf Federation have been working on this event for 10 years,' says Paul. 'The bidding process started back in 2008. Once France had won in 2011 there were three years of background preparations, and then the operational organisation has been going on since 2014.' The club even closed down for 10 months in 2015 and 2016 to go through major preparation and renovation work.
'Right now my role is a balancing act, keeping all stakeholders happy and running the business with a massive ongoing build,' says Paul. 'Then there’s staff to incentivize and customers to keep happy. During the 42nd Ryder Cup, my role will be animating our employees, groundstaff and volunteers, who will be key to delivering the matches. But also our front of office and back of office staff are all mobilised and organised running exhibition tents, fan zones and the team room concierge service.'
