Staff WriterBernardus has been named Best Golf Club in the Netherlands for the third consecutive year, and that tells you something useful straight away: this is no flash-in-the-pan resort with a shiny website and a few flattering drone shots.
This is a place golfers actually visit, play, and rate highly enough to keep sending it back to the top. In the 2026 Golfers’ Choice Awards by Leading Courses, Bernardus again took the national honours, while also landing top spot for Best Maintenance, Best Hospitality and Best Facilities.
Some awards are decided in committee rooms. These were built on verified golfer reviews, which is rather different. Golfers, as a species, are not known for reckless generosity. They will forgive a missed three-footer before they forgive a scruffy tee box or a sandwich that tastes like the packaging.
So when a club keeps winning their approval, year after year, it usually means the thing is real.
A modern course with old-fashioned standards
Since opening in 2018, Bernardus has moved with unusual speed from ambitious newcomer to one of Europe’s most admired golf and lifestyle destinations. That rise has not come from gimmicks or noise. It has come from getting the fundamentals gloriously, almost stubbornly, right.
The course, designed by Kyle Phillips, is heathland in style and tournament in presentation. Phillips, who has a gift for building courses that feel natural rather than imposed, has given Bernardus a layout that asks proper golfing questions without turning every hole into a lecture. There is width where you need it, shape where it matters, and the sort of visual clarity that settles the eye before the swing has a chance to misbehave.
This is not a course that shouts. It does not rely on ocean cliffs, mountain backdrops or desert theatre. Its appeal is subtler than that. The light, the space, the texture of the landscape, and the sense of calm all do their work quietly. Bernardus feels modern, but not manufactured. It is refined without becoming sterile, and that is a trick far harder to pull off than most clubs realise.
The detail that golfers always notice
Among Bernardus’ latest honours, Best Maintenance may be the most revealing. Golfers will talk about hospitality and handsome clubhouses, but conditioning is where credibility lives. You cannot fake good turf, and you certainly cannot maintain it by accident.
That award is a nod to superintendent Niall Richardson and the greenkeeping team, whose work sits at the heart of the club’s reputation. Fine conditioning is not simply about neat stripes and pretty photographs. It affects everything: ball flight, bounce, spin, confidence, pace of play, decision-making. A well-presented course makes golfers feel the place respects the game.
Sabine Riezebos, General Manager at Bernardus, shared: “Being recognised as the number one golf club in the Netherlands for the third year in a row is a wonderful achievement for Bernardus. To reach that standard is one thing, but to sustain it is another entirely. The fact that this recognition comes from golfers themselves makes it especially meaningful and is a real credit to the passion and commitment of our whole team.”
There is a line in that quote worth underlining: to reach the standard is one thing, to sustain it is another. Golf is littered with venues that launch like fireworks and fade like damp sparklers. Bernardus appears to understand that excellence is not an opening statement. It is a habit.
More than a round of golf
That is also why the club’s honours for Best Hospitality and Best Facilities matter. Elite golf travel is rarely just about the walk from first tee to 18th green. It is about the rhythm of the day around it. Arrival matters. Service matters. Food matters. The feeling of being looked after without being fussed over matters a great deal.
Bernardus seems to have grasped that the modern golf traveller wants substance on and off the course. Noble Kitchen, the on-site Michelin-starred restaurant, is entering a new phase in April with an updated concept, which only strengthens the sense that this is a destination, not merely a golf stop. You come for the course, certainly, but you stay for the broader experience: the atmosphere, the standard, the sense that everything has been considered properly.
That gives Bernardus a wider appeal than the traditional members-only idea of prestige. It sits more comfortably alongside Europe’s leading integrated golf destinations, where the experience has to stand up from breakfast to final putt. Yet it does so in a distinctly Dutch way: less pomp, more polish; less showmanship, more assurance.
Why Bernardus is different on the European map
There are grander settings in European golf. There are older clubs, louder reputations and places with more obvious visual drama. If the Algarve offers sunshine and scale, and Scotland offers history in every gust of wind, Bernardus offers something else: control, clarity and a deeply contemporary sense of place.
That matters because modern golfers travel differently now. They want championship quality, yes, but they also want atmosphere, design integrity, strong food, high service standards and a destination that feels worth the flight. Bernardus appears to be meeting that demand with rare consistency.
Its long-term approach also deserves mention. The course is presented to tournament standard throughout the year, but with respect for the natural environment built into its philosophy. In an era when golf’s future depends as much on stewardship as spectacle, that is not a decorative extra. It is part of the bargain.
The Solheim Cup will bring the world to its doorstep
All of this comes into sharper focus because Bernardus is preparing to host the 2026 Solheim Cup in September, the first time the contest will be staged in the Netherlands. That is a serious moment, not only for the club but for Dutch golf more broadly.
The Solheim Cup does not merely arrive; it magnifies. Courses are examined hole by hole, bunker by bunker, right down to the firmness of a fairway and the quality of the welcome at the gate. Bernardus heading into that week with this level of public approval is significant. It suggests the venue is not merely preparing for a great event. It is already living at that standard.
And that may be the most impressive thing about Bernardus. It is not waiting for the Solheim Cup to validate it. The place has already built its case with the people who matter most: the golfers who have walked it, played it and judged it with their own scorecards in hand.
A destination with its eyes on something bigger
Bernardus now sits in an interesting position. It is clearly the leading golf club in the Netherlands, but it is aiming beyond national borders. The ambition is larger than trophies on a shelf. It is about shaping how golf in the Netherlands is seen, experienced and talked about.
That is why this run of recognition feels meaningful. Not because awards are everything, but because they point to a venue doing several difficult things well at once: elite course conditioning, strong design, thoughtful hospitality, serious culinary appeal and a clear sense of identity.
For golfers thinking about where to travel next, Bernardus has become the sort of place that lingers in the imagination. Not loud. Not overcooked. Just very, very good.
And when the Solheim Cup arrives next September, do not be surprised if plenty of people decide they want to see the place for themselves, preferably with clubs in hand and time enough to stay for dinner.
