Jean Van de Velde, French broadcast team call golden age of golf in France

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – No French player had won on the modern PGA TOUR until this year’s Farmers Insurance Open, when Matthieu Pavon played a bold third shot from thick rough on Torrey Pines’ par-5 18th hole to 10 feet, then converted for the win.

Among the Frenchmen who nearly won on TOUR: Jean Van de Velde and Thomas Levet, both of whom now call golf for French broadcaster Canal+ and are on-site for THE PLAYERS Championship, lending insight and observations about this week’s happenings at TPC Sawgrass, with a focus on France’s budding star Pavon.

This week’s Canal+ broadcast team at TPC Sawgrass’ PLAYERS Stadium Course includes Thierry David and Van de Velde in the booth, with Levet and Adrien Toubiana as on-course reporters, and reporter/camera operator Gael Chatelus.

Toubiana was on the call to punctuate Pavon’s winning moment at Torrey Pines, a scene that illuminated France golf’s spirited culture to the greater golf world.

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Matthieu Pavon becomes the first French player to win a tournament on the PGA TOUR! Fabulous! Who would have thought?” Toubiana exclaimed, calling the action from the Canal+ Paris studio alongside analyst François Calmels.

“For his third tournament as a member of the PGA TOUR," Toubiana continued, "he writes the history of male French golf.”

Strong words, perhaps, but not exaggeratory. Van de Velde wasn’t broadcasting on Farmers Sunday. Still, he followed along closely, with Pavon’s high-pressure finish eliciting memories of his experiences in contention – he won twice on the DP World Tour and finished runner-up at The Open Championship 1999, making triple bogey on the 72nd hole to fall into a playoff, which he lost to Paul Lawrie. (Levet also lost in a 2002 Open Championship playoff.)

“You close your eyes and you remember everything,” said van de Velde this week at TPC Sawgrass. “Thirty years go by very quickly. You just remember how it felt to be leading a tournament or to lose one or to win one, and once you’ve been a professional athlete or professional sportsman, it doesn’t go away. I know how much people wanted it, I know how much he wanted it, and I’m just delighted that it was his time. This game very often takes more than it gives, but that’s the essence of it, and that’s OK.”

French golf’s modern era is bridged on the Canal+ broadcast, featured on the network’s Golf+ channel, which is Canal’s only channel dedicated to one specific sport. The main broadcast (anchored by David and Van de Velde) includes on-course reporting from Levet (who followed the group of Scottie Scheffler, Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas on Friday and will follow the final groups on the weekend), with Toubiana following Pavon for the first two days (he missed the cut) and also offering human-interest reports (e.g. an alligator that took up residence on TPC Sawgrass’ 18th hole Friday).

For the Canal+ team, this week’s reporting extended beyond THE PLAYERS broadcast. Throughout the week, the team gathered evergreen content for the network’s weekly hour-long magazine show and potential later use – including time at Wednesday’s First Timers Press Conference, interviewing Pavon and two of his playing partners from the Farmers, Jake Knapp and Nicolai Højgaard, among others.

Canal+ is one of 17 international broadcasters with an on-site presence at THE PLAYERS, with this week’s broadcast team scheduled to be on-site for all four major championships in 2024.

How interested might French golf fans be in Pavon’s progress? Levet shared a story of a past French Open where it took him more than an hour to transition from his final hole to the scoring area, such were the requests of autograph-seeking fans along the way. Crowd control has developed to where Pavon won’t experience a similar rope line when he returns, Levet said, but the boost from his Farmers win was immediate and should continue to elevate, as evidenced by the many fans that inquire with Canal+ as to how often Pavon will be shown at a given event.

“We were waiting for this for 40 years on Canal+,” said David, who duals as the network’s head of golf. Canal+ arrived on the air in 1984, with Golf+ debuting in 2012.

As a 17-year-old, Pavon spent a few months with Levet in South Florida, amidst Levet’s career prime, learning the veteran’s day-to-day routines as a professional golfer. Levet jokes he has known Pavon since before he was born; Levet and Pavon’s mom Beatrice are longtime friends – Beatrice played amateur golf with Levet’s wife Caroline.

Now 31, Pavon holds that trip near to his heart; he immediately thanked Levet in his Farmers winner’s interview. Levet gets emotional when remembering that moment; while speaking for this story, he pulled out his phone to share a video of himself watching Pavon’s winning putt at the Farmers and the ensuing euphoria.

Leave things better than you found them. It’s a mantra that France’s professional golfers relish as the sport, still niche in France, eyes a larger place in the golf world at large.

The COVID-19 pandemic boosted golf’s place in the French sports ecosystem – “it was horse riding and golf,” van de Velde said. “Not everyone can go horse riding, so it’s a lot easier to go and play golf.”

With Pavon and Victor Perez earning their TOUR cards via last year’s DP World Tour (top 10 on season-long standings, not otherwise exempt), Celine Boutier’s win at last year’s Evian Championship and Pavon’s win at the Farmers, a golden age of modern French golf is perhaps upon us.

Canal+, and its broadcasters intimate with the journey, will be along for the ride.

“At the end of the day, you need to pave the way,” Van de Velde said. “A guy like Thomas Levet broke down a lot of barriers, I helped my share as well, and at the end of the day you need to have the momentum to keep on going forward.”