Royal Golf Club of Belgium, Ravenstein

The verdict

The Royal Golf Club of Belgium is the country's senior club and its most rarefied. It was founded in 1906 under the patronage of King Leopold II, and the course sits in the parkland surrounding the Château de Ravenstein at Tervuren, on the leafy eastern edge of Brussels. The first eighteen was laid out by the Scottish professional Seymour Dunn, but it is the late 1920s revision by the great British architect Tom Simpson that gives the Old Course its enduring character, and that work has survived remarkably well.

A par 72 of classic proportions, the Old Course is a study in mature parkland golf rather than length. It threads through tall oak, blue cedar, birch, elm and willow, with Simpson's strategic bunkering and subtle green sites asking constant questions of line and angle. It is consistently rated among the finest parkland courses in Belgium and continental Europe, and the sense of history, royalty and quiet exclusivity is as much a part of the experience as the golf itself.

The holes worth the trip

Ravenstein is a course of trees and angles. Tom Simpson believed in giving the player a choice from the tee and a penalty for taking the lazy line, and that philosophy is everywhere in the Old Course. Tall hardwoods and stands of blue cedar press in on the corridors, so the round is less about overpowering the holes than about working the ball to the correct side of the fairway and earning the open look into the green.

Simpson's bunkering is the second great defence, placed to catch the careless rather than to frame the picture, and the greens reward a player who has thought about where the next shot should come from. The conditioning is immaculate, as befits the club's standing, and the parkland setting in the grounds of the château gives the whole place a hushed, almost private feel that few courses in Europe can match.

It is a course best understood as a piece of golfing history as much as a test of the game. Over more than a century it has hosted royalty, dignitaries and the Belgian amateur and professional elite, and a round here, for the rare visitor who secures one, is a step into a world that has changed very little. For students of classic architecture, the survival of Simpson's design is reason enough to want to play it.

Where to stay nearby

Ravenstein sits in Tervuren, an elegant, green suburb on the eastern fringe of Brussels, so the obvious base is the Belgian capital, with its full range of grand and boutique hotels and an easy drive out to the club. Brussels airport is only a short distance away, which makes the area a simple add on to a wider European golf or city trip.

Because play here is so tightly restricted, most visiting golfers build a Belgium itinerary around the courses they can readily access, then treat a round at Ravenstein, where a member connection allows, as a rare and memorable highlight. The countryside around Brussels and into Flanders holds a good spread of fine parkland courses to fill out the rest of a trip.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels across Brussels and Flemish Brabant.