Magazine
Golf & luxury living
Style & GearAccessories for the travelling golfer: eight things not to forget
Before you even choose your accessories, someone has already decided which ones you need: the Rules of Golf, club regulations, airlines. Here are eight accessories, each with the rule that makes it useful.
7 min read
Golf TravelGolf holiday for couples: one plays, the other unwinds
At Terme di Saturnia, the course is treated with the water of the spring where the non-golfer bathes. Seven hotels where two people with different plans, 18 holes for one and a spa for the other, still end up together at dinner.
6 min read
Wellness & SpaSaunas and Aufguss in South Tyrol: where to go after golf
Up to six times a day, beneath the five-metre ceiling of the DOME sauna at the Andreus in the Passiria Valley, a master swings a towel over glowing stones: this is the Aufguss, and in South Tyrol it is almost a show.
5 min read
Wellness & SpaMuscle recovery after golf: what the research says and what hotels offer
Golfers who play without warming up are 3.2 times more likely to report an injury, according to the researchers behind a 2022 Dutch study protocol. The evidence on recovery after the round is subtler, and worth knowing before you place your trust in the spa.
4 min read
Luxury StaysCastles and medieval villages turned resorts
A fresco by Pietro Lorenzetti from 1345 stayed hidden under plaster until 1876, in a church a mile from a medieval village in Montalcino. Today the village is a hotel with a golf course: it is the first of eight historic residences for those who play.
9 min read
Golf TravelGolf in South Tyrol: mountain courses and spa hotels
At 1,680 metres, beneath the Catinaccio, you play a round with 400 metres of elevation change; lower down, among the apple orchards of Appiano, there is a course that owes its nickname to water. South Tyrol is the Italian region where golf changes character with every valley, and where almost every course has a spa hotel a few minutes away.
10 min read
Style & GearMade in Italy golf clothing
For the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome, a brand from Costermano sul Garda was the official licensee and one born in Quarona in 1924 dressed Team Europe: golf has an Italian fashion scene, but “made in Italy” is a phrase that needs reading with care.
5 min read
Luxury StaysHow to choose a hotel for a golf holiday: 10 questions
A hotel can be open while its course is not: at Verdura, in Sicily, the nine-hole Executive stays closed until spring 2027 and the West Shore is under works. Before booking a golf resort it pays to ask ten questions, and the answers are almost always on the hotel's website.
6 min read
Food & WineEtna wines for golfers in Sicily
On Etna the vines grow on narrow terraces carved into the lava and tended by hand; in Castiglione di Sicilia, amid those same lava flows, there is an 18-hole golf course. What to know about the wines before sitting down to dinner after your round.
4 min read
Luxury StaysThe Riviera's Grand Hotels: Sanremo, Alassio, Rapallo
“I hate rectangular swimming pools. Are lakes and rivers rectangular?” With these words Gio Ponti presented the Royal's seawater pool in Sanremo in 1948. It is one of the Riviera's historic grand hotels, and like the other two, in Alassio and Rapallo, it has a golf course within driving distance.
7 min read
Golf TravelFrom Switzerland to Lake Maggiore: golf just across the border
Italy's second-oldest golf club was founded in 1907 in a Menaggio hotel by four English gentlemen, and lies just 25 kilometres from Lugano as the crow flies. From there, three days of golf on the Italian shore of the lakes.
7 min read
Great CoursesGolf Club Milano: playing inside Monza Park
Seventy-three thousand spectators and seven million dollars in prize money: in 2017 the Italian Open reached its highest numbers at Monza, on a course that has occupied a corner of the Royal Park since 1928.
6 min read
Luxury StaysWhere to stay near Milan for a golf trip
At the Golf Hotel in Lainate, a few kilometres from Milan, all 34 rooms are on the same floor: one side looks over the course, the other over the pool. It is one of the ways Milan's clubs solve the night, alongside lodges, residences and grand hotels on the lakes.
7 min read
Golf TravelThe first golf trip to Italy: mistakes to avoid
A historic course that admits only members on Saturdays, one closed on Tuesdays, another whose season starts in late May. A first golf trip to Italy is almost always spoiled by a detail the club's website puts in small print.
5 min read
Golf TravelGolf and Art Cities: Florence, Verona, Venice
A course born on a landfill in Florence, an Austrian fort turned clubhouse on the Lido, raised greens among the hills of Custoza. Seven days, three art cities and four courses, to be played in the morning before stepping into a museum.
8 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
Food & WineItalian 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
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
Golf TravelFlying with a golf bag: the airline rules
On easyJet a golf bag counts as a «small» item of sports equipment and cannot exceed 20 kilograms, and adding it at the airport costs more than adding it online. Before you pack, it helps to know what you pay, where and how to avoid it.
4 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
Style & GearGolf travel bags and covers for flying with your clubs
One model weighs about three kilos, another almost seven: the empty travel cover counts towards the airline's weight limit, and choosing the right one means deciding how many kilos are left for the clubs.
6 min read
Luxury StaysGolf hotels in Tuscany: Maremma, Argentario and Elba
Italy's only course licensed by PGA National sits in a resort above the Orbetello lagoon, and in 2025 it hosted the Italian Open. Several Tuscan hotels have a course on the doorstep, and one keeps it reserved for members.
6 min read
Golf TravelSummer 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
Luxury LivingLuxury shopping near golf resorts
More than 230 shops and discounts of up to 70%, says Serravalle Designer Outlet, in the same municipality where a nine-hole course stretches among the Gavi vineyards: four outlets and a concept store, each paired with a course or a hotel.
6 min read