Koninklijke Haagsche,
links golf by chauffeur.
The Royal Hague lies in the dunes behind Wassenaar, a short run off the A44 from Schiphol and ten minutes from the hotels of The Hague and Scheveningen. Your chauffeur handles the early start, the bags and the drive home after the round.
Sandy ground, marram grass and the wind off the North Sea.
Koninklijke Haagsche Golf & Country Club — the Koninklijke is the Dutch royal prefix, so English-speaking members simply say the Royal Hague — sits in the dune belt behind Wassenaar, on the green strip of coast between Leiden and The Hague. It is one of the oldest golf clubs in the country, and the course is links in the proper sense of the word: sandy soil, fairways that run between dune ridges, marram grass where you would rather not be, and a sea breeze that turns the same hole into two different problems on two different days. The club has hosted the Dutch Open, and the layout still asks tournament questions of anyone playing off the back tees.
The setting is the other half of the appeal. Wassenaar is a quiet town of long lanes, hedges and villas between the motorway and the Meijendel dunes, and the approach to the clubhouse is more country estate than car park. It is also close enough to the centre of The Hague that a round and a working afternoon at the Binnenhof, the seat of the Dutch parliament, fit into the same day without anyone rushing.
From the driver's seat, the route is the easy part. The A44 comes down from Schiphol and Leiden and ends at Wassenaar, where it becomes the N44 towards The Hague; the club is a couple of minutes off it. That makes the Haagsche one of the few championship courses in the Netherlands you can reach from an arrivals hall in well under an hour without touching a city centre.
What the day looks like with a chauffeur in it.
Most bookings to the Haagsche fall into one of a few shapes. Tell dispatch which one yours is and we will price it the cheaper way.
A first-light start on the coast means leaving a hotel on the Lange Voorhout or the Scheveningen boulevard before the kitchen has opened. Your chauffeur is at the door before you are, the bags go down in one trip, and the twelve minutes up the N44 turn out to be the calmest part of the morning.
Four players, four bags, four pairs of shoes and somebody's umbrella: that is a Van Class, not a taxi. Captain chairs, walk-in headroom and a boot that swallows the lot, with the A4 and A44 doing the work while the fourball argues about the order of play.
The A44 runs from the airport almost to the club gate, which makes Wassenaar an unusually forgiving place to be collected for. We watch the inbound flight, stand inside the hall with a board, and the travel covers go into the boot rather than onto a trolley. Sixty minutes of waiting after touchdown cost nothing, so a slow belt does not eat the tee time.
The Hague works on a different clock from Amsterdam. A round at Wassenaar, lunch at the club and a meeting near the Binnenhof or the World Forum is a normal shape of day here, and the same car and chauffeur carry it all the way through.
The part of a golf day that a hire car quietly ruins. Nobody at the table has to count drinks or keep an eye on the light over the dunes: the bets are settled properly, a second round appears, and the car is at the door when the party finally breaks up.
By the hour, or as one fixed quote.
Every rate is per car rather than per player, taxes included. An hourly booking runs for at least two hours, carries forty kilometres inside each of them, and has to begin and end in the same city — which is exactly the shape of a day that starts and finishes in The Hague.
A run out from Amsterdam or Schiphol to Wassenaar is priced as a fixed point-to-point trip instead of by the hour, because the hire would not finish where it began. Booking inside twelve hours of pickup adds ten per cent. Cancelling more than an hour ahead costs nothing at all, which is the useful half on a coast where the forecast changes its mind.
Four fixed points in the day.
Not the pickup time. Dispatch works backwards from the first tee, adds the traffic on the A4 and A44 for that hour of the morning, and proposes a collection time you can argue with.
Your chauffeur arrives before the agreed minute and helps load bags, trolleys and the cool bag. Water and chargers are on board; the boot is yours.
The car comes up to the clubhouse entrance so the clubs do not travel across a car park. Then it waits, or leaves and returns at a time you set — whichever you have booked.
After the round, the drinks and the debrief, your chauffeur is outside. Dinner in The Hague or a drop in Amsterdam on the way is a note in the booking, not a renegotiation.
The coast, the town and the courses beside it.
The national page this club sits under: how the day is put together and what it costs, course by course.
The town itself: the villa lanes, the dunes at Meijendel and the run down to the N44.
Hotels, the Binnenhof, the World Forum and Scheveningen — the city the club leans on.
The other North Sea links, half an hour north through the Bollenstreek bulb fields.
Which course to book when the round is really a meeting, written from the chauffeur's seat.
The dune course at Zandvoort, the nearest championship links to Amsterdam.
The car and chauffeur by the hour, with the terms spelled out in full.
Around 35 minutes on a clear run: straight down the A44 past Leiden to Wassenaar, then a couple of minutes on local roads. Morning traffic towards The Hague can add a quarter of an hour, so dispatch builds a margin into the pickup time when you give us the tee time rather than a departure time.
In a Van Class, comfortably: seven seats, seven bags, and a boot deep enough for four sets in travel covers with the trolleys and the wet shoes on top. The saloons in Business and First Class take three passengers and three bags, so two full-size sets travel well and a third becomes a negotiation. For a fourball out of The Hague we send the Van.
Your choice, and it changes the arithmetic. Taken by the hour, car and chauffeur simply stay in the club car park from the first tee to the last drink. Taken as two fixed transfers, they leave after the drop and come back at a time you name — better value for a slow round with lunch in the middle, worse if the afternoon keeps moving. Give dispatch the shape of the day and you will be told which way costs less.
Yes, and that is usually the reason people book us for Wassenaar. The whole party can stay at the clubhouse bar as long as it likes. Your chauffeur is outside when you are ready and drives everybody home, with a stop for dinner on the way if you want one.
Yes. Multiple pickups in The Hague, Scheveningen or Amsterdam are planned into one run — give us the addresses when you book so the order and the timings are set before the morning rather than during it.
No. We drive; the tee time, the clubhouse and anything to do with playing the course are between you and the club. What we look after is the door-to-door part: the timing, the bags, the waiting and the way home.