Magazine
Golf & luxury living
Luxury StaysSuites overlooking the golf course: where to ask for one in Italy
At Masseria Torre Maizza the largest two-bedroom suite, 117 square metres, has golf courses as the only view the hotel lists. Four Italian hotels state that rooms face the course, and it is worth knowing which.
6 min read
Golf Know-howLearning golf on holiday
Twenty euros: that is what the Italian Golf Federation's GOLFPOP Card costs, with a lesson from a teaching professional, a membership card and insurance, and since 2026 it is the simplest way to give the game a try. After that come the clubs' courses and the hotels' packages, all the way to a first handicap.
5 min read
Food & WineMichelin-starred restaurants near golf courses
A two-star restaurant with only five tables, a 15-metre window over the Merano basin and, half an hour away by car, a nine-hole course beneath a castle. Five starred tables, all inside a hotel with a course within reach of a tee time.
7 min read
Golf TravelClubs in the boot: a golf road trip through Italy
Five courses, four drives and a change of scenery that runs from the Savoy hunting reserve to the olive groves above Sanremo. The trip begins where the Molinari brothers grew up and ends in front of the sea.
8 min read
Style & GearStyle on the course: golf and Italian fashion, from dress code to clubhouse
Collared polo, long trousers or knee-length Bermudas, long socks recommended: at Rome's Acquasanta the dress code is written into the local rules, and it says more about a club than many brochures. A story of regulations, a brand born in Florence and a futurist clubhouse.
5 min read
Golf TravelGolf in Franciacorta: courses and wineries
At Franciacorta Golf Club the three nine-hole loops are called Brut, Satèn and Rosé, after the wine styles produced all around. The course occupies an abandoned clay quarry, and it was a winemaker who transformed it.
7 min read
Luxury StaysLuxury hotels and sustainability
Since 2026, 888 solar panels on the roof have produced about a quarter of the energy of a resort above the Orbetello lagoon. Environmental measures with a figure attached are rare in luxury hotels: here is where to find them.
6 min read
Wellness & SpaSpa hotels for golfers: a guide to choosing
A cryogenic chamber at −85 °C, a six-storey sauna tower, six pools of seawater, a spring at 37.5 degrees: at hotels for golfers the spa can be a very different thing from one place to the next, and it pays to choose before booking.
10 min read
Luxury StaysThe golf concierge: what to ask before you arrive
In Stresa, according to the hotel, the concierge books green fees at nine affiliated clubs; in Rapallo the Excelsior states that it publishes no dedicated golf services. Before you leave, find out which of the two cases applies to you.
5 min read
Luxury LivingGolf and horses: resorts with riding stables
About twenty school horses, Haflingers, Icelandics and warmbloods, in a stable with a 60 by 24 metre indoor arena: in the Passeier Valley, anyone who stops playing golf can be in the saddle straight away.
7 min read
Luxury StaysGolf hotels on Lake Garda: three addresses and twelve courses
In 1934 the Bogliaco course was sown with wheat, during the war it served as an airstrip, and the Americans played baseball on it. Today, on the same shore of Garda, there are courses open twelve months a year and three hotels to start from.
7 min read
Food & WineThe chefs of Italy's golf resorts
Five tables and two Michelin stars: at the Hotel Castel, above Merano, the fine-dining restaurant serves only a handful of guests each evening, but among hotels for golfers it is not the only kitchen with a distinct name behind the stove.
6 min read
Wellness & SpaThalassotherapy: what it is and where to try it, hotels for golfers
The Treccani dictionary defines it in a handful of words, “a climatic and balneotherapy cure carried out in a marine setting”, but in Italian hotels with golf it can mean six seawater pools, a brackish pool among the rocks or a programme run by a medical director.
4 min read
Luxury LivingHill Towns for a Slow Holiday
A 13th-century tower with a Picasso in the bar, a Norman castle above the Alcantara gorges, a town Carducci called “of a hundred horizons”: five Italian villages where you can stay in a historic hotel with a golf course close by.
7 min read
Food & WineOlive mills to visit near Italy's golf courses
A free one-hour visit with a tasting of Garda PDO oil: it is offered by a cooperative in San Felice del Benaco, in the Brescia area where GardaGolf and Bogliaco are played.
5 min read
Luxury StaysRelais & Châteaux for golfers in Italy: three houses, three ways to play
A Provençal-style house in Garlenda, a late nineteenth-century villa in Franciacorta, a hunting lodge from 1624 above Merano: three Relais & Châteaux with golf on the horizon, and only one course within walking distance.
6 min read
Luxury StaysHistoric villas turned hotels, with a golf course nearby
A cardinal in 1568, a merchant in 1872, an English poet in 1889: the names behind three historic residences turned hotels, all within reach of a golf course.
7 min read
Luxury StaysAdults-only golf hotels in Italy
One, by its own account, runs the home course; one is built on the fairway; one has a 4,500 square metre artificial lake instead of a pool. Five hotels admit adult guests only, but the minimum age ranges from 14 to 16: here is how to choose.
7 min read
Luxury StaysGolf hotels in Sicily: Verdura and Il Picciolo at the foot of Etna
The last Duke of Verdura was a cousin of the author of The Leopard, and every room in the resort holds a copy of the book. On the other side of the island, at the foot of Etna, the tees of one hole are set into the lava. Two five-star golf hotels, on opposite sides of the island.
6 min read
Wellness & SpaThe finest hotel pools for golfers
A pool that floats on a lake, one carved out of granite rocks, an artificial lake 105 metres across: in golf hotels, water has become architecture. Here are the pools with a story to tell, and when you can use them.
6 min read
Luxury StaysDiscreet luxury: the 4-star superior hotels for golfers
Three hotels, two regions and a label that does not apply everywhere: “4-star superior” exists only where a regional law has provided for it. In Merano and in Pula, each hotel solves the golf question in its own way.
7 min read
Great CoursesMarco Simone, the Home of the 2023 Ryder Cup
On Friday 29 September 2023, after the opening session, Europe led 4-0, something that had never happened in Ryder Cup history. The course where it unfolded, in Guidonia, is a fifteenth-century castle with a par 72 around it.
5 min read
Great CoursesItaly's most spectacular golf holes
A green shaped like Africa, a tee in the middle of a lake, a par 4 that drops sheer onto the rocks: ten Italian courses with a hole worth the journey, and where to sleep to play it.
8 min read
Golf TravelGolf in Venice and the Veneto, from the Lido to the Asolo hills
Building the Albarella course meant reclaiming more than two million cubic metres of sand from the sea; in Venice, meanwhile, the clubhouse is an Austrian fort. Veneto golf runs from the links of the Lido to the woods of the Cansiglio, and it works best with the right base.
9 min read