Naxhelet Golf Club

Designed in 1938 by Tom Simpson on the heights of the Principality of Liège, this course is a quality challenge. In 2019 Leaving Course ranked Le Royal Golf Club du Sart Tilman in 1st place all criteria combined.

Of all the Belgian courses that Tom Simpson has designed, it is perhaps that of Sart-Tilman, officially inaugurated in 1939, of which he was the most proud. The Liège course is, it is true, a pure wonder. This is all the more remarkable given that the famous British architect, also author of the Spa and Ravenstein courses, had to deal with a hostile natural environment and deal with a limited budget. At the cost of deforestation of nearly twenty hectares of trees, the removal of fourteen thousand stumps and the addition of five thousand cubic meters of earth, the challenge was nevertheless taken up. And in what way… The creation of a golf course in the Cité Ardente responded, in truth, to a real demand.

Faithful to his great concepts, Simpson draws, with his magic pencil, two loops of nine holes which each return to the Club House. The English architect lets himself be guided by his inspirations, multiplies the “doglegs”, composes with nature and plays with trees.

But the Sart-Tilman is also a few terrible par 4s (holes n ° 5 and 11, in particular), superb par 3 (hole n ° 2 sets the tone from the start and n ° 10 is one most difficult) and the famous hole n ° 14, a par 5 of more than 500 meters whose green is protected by a double water obstacle and three bunkers!