It’s fair to say that it has been an interesting few years for 31-year-old Jack Laws.

Settled in his role as professional assistant at Sunningdale – a position he held for just over four years – in August 2018 Laws was catapulted into the Loire Valley in France. Assigned the role of head professional at Les Bordes, the exclusive private resort in Saint-Laurent-Nouan, Laws found himself in unfamiliar territory and unable to speak the language. He was very much an Englishman abroad, unable to converse in French nor relate to the culture.

But, like his previous role at Sunningdale when he took a fifty per cent pay cut to work with head professional Keith Maxwell, Laws knew that the move to Les Bordes would be beneficial to his long-term career objectives.

Sat in the grandeur of the clubhouse at Les Bordes – recently voted one of the best in world golf – Laws reflected on his earlier career: “My dad was a professional snooker player, and he didn’t want me to play snooker. So, he used to just take me out to the countryside to play golf.

“He stopped playing when he was 22, but he beat Jimmy White, and his best mate was Steve Davis. So, he was properly good. And he still is quite good now. But back then it was like smoking, drugs, gambling, you can imagine, in the East End of London.”

His father’s insistence that young Laws pursue another sport proved merited, when he earned his place in the Kent County golf team. “I realised that I was actually quite good,” recalls Laws. “I wasn’t the best in the county, but I was in the same team with people that I thought were way better than me.”

Like many of his peers, aged 18, Laws soon realised that he would struggle to make a career on tour, and opted to go back into education.

“I went to the PGA, and got my degree,” he said. “And that’s when I knew, I was going to stay in the industry as golf would be my livelihood now – I wasn’t really good at anything else.

“I left school with one GCSE, and worked very, very hard to get two more GCSEs, which allowed me to go onto the PGA. I was a historic underachiever. I was very, very capable, but I went to a school which was in Central London, which was awful, basically. I never really used to go. But luckily, I was always good at golf.”

And that grit and determination forged in the East End of London paid dividends when Laws had the tenacity to push for a job at Sunningdale.

After being made redundant from a central London Golf Centre, Laws landed a role coaching at Roehampton Golf Club, but after two years, was keen to progress. “A role at Sunningdale came up, and I was one of about a hundred applicants that went for the job. I went to the club, wrote letters and played golf with head professional Keith Maxwell as it was such a sought-after position.”

Laws learnt the basics of his craft as a club professional such as retail, playing with members, coaching and golf operations. “Keith was a huge mentor to me,” added Laws. “I left Roehampton, halved my income and doubled my work hours, but he was like a traditional old golf pro and I thought he was like the last Jedi,” laughed Laws. “I learnt from him, and I wouldn’t change any of that.”

And Law’s tenacity to land a job at Sunningdale – which he describes as “the best private members’ club in the UK” – eventually led to him securing the role of director of golf at Les Bordes and working closely with one of the world’s best golf course architects… Gil Hanse.

The golf course at Les Bordes was originally born out of an idea at a meeting of the industrialist Baron Marcel Bich (the “Bic” pen brand) and businessman Yoshiaki Sakurai. The two friends decided to create a golf course of high quality and international dimension for their pleasure and that of their friends.

Robert Von Haage, a Texan architect was contracted to give an ‘American’ touch to the project, and with no limits given to the investment and the size of the project, the Old Course at Les Bordes was opened in 1987.

By 2008, both Baron Bich and Sakurai had passed away, and new investors took control of the property with Von Haage returning to Les Bordes in 2013 to create a second course.

Five years later, in 2018, RoundShield Partners – a private equity firm – took control of the Les Bordes estate, and as part of that acquisition, formed Les Bordes Golf Club as a private club accessible exclusively for members and their guests.

“At the time, there were seven members here, three of which were Sunningdale members,” said Laws, explaining the link between his current and former employer.

“One of the members contacted me in 2018, so I came over and took a look at the project. It was obviously amazing at that point; the golf course was great, and the ambition was there. I went back to London, met with the owner and our vision [for Les Bordes] aligned and I flew back two months later.”

In the absence of a general manager or CEO to oversee the estate, Laws – who recently got married – was tasked with running the entire operation, and one of his primary goals was to setup the membership structure.

“Previously, Les Bordes was never a club – it was a venue,” he explains. “You had cottages, a clubhouse and a golf course but there wasn’t a club in the true sense of the word.”

The seven members from the previous regime all lost their playing rights after RoundShield purchased the estate, yet so enthusiastic were they to remain, all re-joined keen to buy-into the vision for the ‘new’ Les Bordes.

And that vision included the re-designed New Course, imagined by Gil Hanse. His first project in Europe, Hanse was selected to create a second contrasting championship course which opened in July 2021 spending much of his time on-site with Laws.

“It was an 11-month build, and it was a big, big project. He lived with us for a long time, Gil. He was literally on the dozer every day.”

And in terms of the design, Laws added: “Some of the corridors are [original], because we couldn’t do anything about that, but I would say 10-15 per cent has been used of the old course. Away from that, it’s all fresh. It’s all new architecture.”

And it would appear as if the changes have been well received by the membership, which now totals over a hundred, but with capacity for more.

“80 per cent of our membership is international,” explains Laws, “so it’s a very broad mix. Legally we have to be under a thousand [members], and I think the balance will be 500-700. We’ll see, because at the end of the day, we haven’t got an unlimited amount of accommodation on the estate.

“We are building a second hotel, which will be 88 rooms, but we’ll have to see the ebb and flow. I mean, there’s no rush.”

And it’s the ebb and flow of French life at Les Bordes, which seems to suit Law’s character. And although his personal life has recently changed, he sees no change on the horizon professionally.

“I could be here for 25 years,” he smiles. “Yeah, I’d be stupid to say otherwise because there’s so much going on. There are so many moving parts, and the people that are behind the project are very personally invested with friends, family, etc.

“So, there’s a trajectory to the club, which is happening. But where else would I want to go? I mean, this is a once in a lifetime situation and I appreciate that every day.”