Golf & luxury living

Italian wines to give a golfer

At Castiglion del Bosco, in Montalcino, the nineteenth hole is a short par 3 where anyone who wants to settle the match plays for a magnum of Brunello: a gift for golfers that the club has already invented.

6 min read

Golf 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

Terme di Saturnia: golf and thermal water

Among the holes at Terme di Saturnia stands a Tuscan trattoria in a historic farmhouse, La Stellata, and after the round the resort's spring awaits, at 37.5 °C. The course, 18 holes, par 72, by Ronald Fream, is the golf of Saturnia: how it plays, what the package includes and what to ask before you travel.

6 min read

A golf week with friends in Italy: how to organise it

Eight players, five days, four rounds of 18 holes: the real problem with a golf week among friends is not choosing the courses but getting everyone to tee off together. Here is how to plan a group trip with no surprises on the 1st tee.

5 min read

Valpolicella and Garda: wine and golf

Sommacampagna, Villafranca di Verona and Peschiera del Garda: three municipalities named in the official list of Custoza, the white wine of the Garda moraine, and each has an 18-hole golf course.

5 min read

Verdura: Kyle Phillips's 45 holes in Sicily

Sir Rocco Forte wanted a golf holiday in Sicily of the kind that, by his own admission, did not exist in Europe, and at Sciacca he got 45 holes without a single petrol engine. On Sicily's south-western coast, the architect of Kingsbarns designed 45 holes across 570 acres of orange groves, olive groves and sea.

6 min read

The nineteenth hole: the restaurants of Italian golf clubs

At La Mandria the club menu is split into a “Blue Route” and a “Yellow Route”, like the two eighteen-hole courses. It is not the only club where the table says something about the place: here is where the nineteenth hole is worth a reservation.

7 min read

Summer golf: mountain courses to escape the heat

At Sestriere, in 1936, Henry Cotton won the Italian Open at 2,035 metres. That course, like others in the Alps and Dolomites today, opens only when the snow goes: in return it offers snow still on the peaks in June, and a calendar that the mountain sets by itself.

8 min read

Wineries with a golf course

Ferruccio Lamborghini left tractors and cars for the vineyards of Panicale: the first vintage dates from 1975, the golf course from 1991. It is the most singular of the Italian estates where wine and greens share the same land.

6 min read

Style & Gear

Italian leatherwork for golfers: four Florentine workshops and where to play afterwards

Since 1919, the Donnini family writes on Madova's website, Florence has made nothing but leather gloves. None of these workshops makes golf its trade: here is why they are still worth a stop between rounds.

5 min read

Are there links courses in Italy?

Sand, dunes, wind and the sea close by: the ingredients of the Scottish links are found at very few courses in Italy, and one was built with sand dredged from the sea.

7 min read

Luxury Living

Private villa holidays near a golf course: where to find them

Villa Stabbi, at Castiglion del Bosco, has six bedrooms and comes with an off-road vehicle for guests to use. It is one of the villas that some of Italy's grand hotels offer alongside their rooms: here is which ones, and with which golf course.

6 min read

Pevero, Robert Trent Jones's course on the Costa Smeralda

The 16th hole at Pevero is a tribute to James Bond. The club ties it to 1962, the year the saga debuted on screen and, in its telling, the year the Costa Smeralda began.

6 min read

Hotels with all-inclusive golf packages: what they really cover

Two green fees per room per night: that is how Verdura builds its Golf Inclusive, while at Terme di Saturnia the second player pays half. Twelve Italian hotels sell golf as part of the stay, but each counts the rounds in its own way.

7 min read

A week of golf in Sicily, from Sciacca to Etna

At the 5th hole of Il Picciolo you tee off from boxes set into lava; 258 kilometres away, on the south-west coast, Verdura has, according to the resort, a links with not a single building along the holes. One week, two resorts, two opposite ways of playing in Sicily.

8 min read

Family golf hotels with kids clubs: ten addresses in Italy

Verdùland, the kids club at Verdura, was named Europe's best by The Times in 2023, according to the hotel. But among Italian golf resorts for travelling with children, the difference lies in the ages admitted, the seasons and the nearby courses.

8 min read

Golf courses with lake views in Italy

On a clear day, from the 10th tee at Golf des Iles Borromées, you can see four lakes and the skyscrapers of Milan with the naked eye. It is not the only Italian course with a view over water: here are ten clubs, from Garda to Como, from Maggiore to Varese.

8 min read

Robert Trent Jones in Italy: his courses

A volcanic crater drained by the Romans, a Savoy hunting reserve, a Benedictine castle: Robert Trent Jones and his son found seven settings in Italy, and no two are alike.

6 min read

Biella Le Betulle

Assembling the 70 hectares of Biella Le Betulle took some 170 landowners, in an Italy that had barely eleven 18-hole courses. John Morrison's design, 6,534 metres at par 73 and 590 metres above sea level, remains a benchmark of Piedmont golf.

6 min read

Discreet 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

Clubs 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

The Golf Courses Closest to the Sea in Italy

Joakim Lagergren, who won the 2018 Sicilian Open at Verdura, said you can see the sea from that course “from almost every hole”. Ten Italian clubs can claim something similar: here is where to play with the water in front of you.

9 min read