Golf in Belgium: a UK golfer’s guide

Belgium has no marketing machine behind its golf the way Spain or Portugal does, so it sits quietly off the radar. But the golf has history. The country took to the game early through royal patronage, which is why so many of the best clubs carry the Royal prefix, and the design lineage is genuinely good. Tom Simpson laid out the original eighteen at Royal Golf Club du Hainaut in 1933. Robert Trent Jones Sr designed Royal Bercuit, which opened in 1967 and remains the only Trent Jones course in the country. Fred Hawtree shaped Royal Waterloo’s La Marache around 1960, and his son Martin Hawtree rebuilt the greens and bunkers to USGA standard between 2003 and 2006.

Belgium is a serious golf destination that most UK golfers have simply never tried. The clubhouses are welcoming and the tee sheets rarely as crammed as the better-known venues abroad.

This is where most Belgium trips are based, and rightly so. The countryside south of Brussels around Waterloo is gently rolling parkland, and the concentration of good courses inside an hour’s drive is remarkable. You can play a different course every day for a week and never repeat yourself.

The anchor is Royal Waterloo with its Hawtree-shaped La Marache, a mature parkland test that rewards thoughtful position play. Royal Bercuit gives you that one Trent Jones design, all bold bunkering and big greens. Beyond those, the choice is wide.

• Golf Club 7 Fontaines, a large complex with plenty of variety
• Golf Château de la Tournette, 36 holes set around a château
• Golf L’Empereur and Golf Rigenée, both within easy reach
• Pierpont, which has its own golf hotel on site

For bases, the four-star Van der Valk Hotel Waterloo is the practical, comfortable choice and our most popular starting point. If you want to go up a notch, Martin’s Chateau du Lac is a five-star lakeside hotel near La Hulpe. The Pierpont Golf-Hotel puts you on the course itself.

Head north and west and the trip changes character. The Flanders coast pairs golf with one of Europe’s prettiest medieval cities in Bruges, and the courses out here include some of the country’s most respected names. This is the option if you want the golf and the time off the course to carry equal weight.

Royal Zoute at Knokke-Heist is the headline, a links-influenced layout near the sea that consistently ranks among Belgium’s finest. Around it you’ll find Royal Latem near Ghent, the seaside Royal Ostend, the 27-hole Damme just outside Bruges, and Oudenaarde to the south. It’s an easy region to build a varied few days around.

Bases here run from the three-star Martin’s Brugge, which sits right in the historic centre, to the four-star Martin’s Relais nearby. Both let you walk out into Bruges in the evening, which matters more than you’d think after a day on the course.

Ypres is a different sort of trip, and for many British golfers it’s the most memorable. The town sits at the heart of the First World War battlefields, and a round here comes with a context you won’t find anywhere else. Palingbeek is laid out across the old battlefield itself, the ground still shaped by what happened there.

Each evening at the Menin Gate the Last Post is sounded, as it has been every evening since 1928 bar the four years of German occupation, in memory of the fallen. Plenty of golfers come for the course and leave saying the ceremony was the part they’ll remember. The four-star Hotel Ariane is our base in town, a short walk from the gate. If you have any connection to those years, or simply want a trip with more to it than golf, this is the one.

The season runs from April to October. Spring and early autumn give you the firmest, most enjoyable conditions and quieter tee sheets, while high summer brings the longest days and the warmest evenings in Bruges or on the coast. Belgian weather is much like ours, so pack as you would for a good summer at home and you’ll be fine.

Because it’s self-drive, you set your own pace. A long weekend gives you two or three rounds comfortably; a midweek break or a full week lets you mix regions, say a few days near Waterloo and a couple on the coast. You’re never far from the next course, and having your own car means you can shift plans on a whim.

• Best months: April, May, June, September, October
• Getting there: LeShuttle from Folkestone to Calais (about 35 minutes), then an hour’s drive to the Bruges courses, nearer two to Waterloo
• Trip length: a long weekend upwards; a week lets you combine two regions

Our Belgium packages are ground-only and built around your own car. The price includes your hotel, your golf and the return LeShuttle crossing for one vehicle. Flights aren’t part of it, because this is a drive. If you’d rather fly or take the train, we’ll quote a hire car at the other end instead.

Indicative starting prices, stay and play, bed and breakfast, with the car crossing included:

• Van der Valk Hotel Waterloo from £385 per person
• Martin’s Brugge from £440 per person
• Hotel Ariane, Ypres from £470 per person

We’ve been arranging tailor-made golf travel since 1981, we hold PTS 5087 and IATA accreditation, and we’re ATOL protected (ATOL 9046) on the flights we sell. Tell us your dates, your handicap range and which region appeals, and one of our specialists will build the trip around you. Take a look at our Belgium golf holidays and then get in touch.