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Golf holidays in Italy: the complete guide
Twelve Italian Opens at Villa d'Este, nine at Monza, seven at Monticello, three at GardaGolf: the story of the big tournaments is almost entirely Lombard, but Italian golf stretches all the way to Sicily, and choosing where to start is the hardest part.
15 min read
Golf TravelA 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
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 in Apulia: Valle d'Itria and Salento
When the Knights of Malta tower at Savelletri became a hotel, it was, according to the Michelin Guide, the first time the word “masseria” had been used for an accommodation. Today the same property runs the course overlooking the Adriatic, and a few minutes away there are two more masserie with a nine-hole course.
7 min read
Golf TravelGolf in Liguria: the Riviera from Sanremo to Rapallo
At the 11th hole in Garlenda, members say they play their own “Amen Corner”; at Rapallo a stream was moved to make room for the last nine holes; at Sanremo the course closes every autumn for reseeding. Liguria has few courses, nearly all short, nearly all open year-round: here is how to build a trip around them.
9 min read
Golf TravelGolf on the Adriatic coast: Marche and Abruzzo
In 2009 the golf tournament of the Mediterranean Games was played among the olive groves and vineyards of Miglianico, in Abruzzo. The same course has since hosted a stage of the Alps Tour: it is the starting point of a coast where golf is small, little known and almost always cheap.
8 min read
Golf TravelGolf in Umbria and the Tuscia
Beneath the course at Antognolla lies a Benedictine crypt, at Panicale a tractor maker built nine holes on Lake Trasimeno, and at Tarquinia one hole runs beside Etruscan tombs. Six courses between Perugia and Viterbo.
8 min read
Golf TravelGolf 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
Golf TravelThe most convenient airports for a golf holiday in Italy
At Turin, about 22 minutes separate Caselle airport from the first tee at La Mandria; in Sicily, getting from Palermo to Verdura takes more than two hours. Before choosing a flight, look at the road.
7 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
Golf TravelFrom Munich to South Tyrol: a golf weekend by car
It is 284 kilometres from Munich to Bolzano, about three and a half hours without traffic according to the ADAC route. Three days are enough to play three South Tyrol courses, at altitudes from 850 to 1,680 metres, and to spend two nights in two different hotels.
7 min read
Golf TravelGolf on Lake Como: historic clubs and grand hotels
On 10 January 1907, in the Hotel Victoria in Menaggio, four English gentlemen founded a golf club, and the village priest feared its influence on the young. The club still exists, above the lake, and is the second oldest in Italy.
8 min read
Golf TravelA 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
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
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
Golf TravelGolf in Tuscany: Maremma, Chianti and Versilia
On 29 June 2025 Adrien Saddier won the Italian Open on a resort course above the Orbetello lagoon. Tuscan golf is not one landscape but three: the Maremma coast, the hills between Siena and Florence, and the shoreline between the Apuan Alps and San Rossore.
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
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
Golf TravelGolf at the Foot of Mont Blanc: the Aosta Valley
At Courmayeur the Dora flows through the course and two par 3s cross it; at Breuil-Cervinia you play at 2,050 metres beneath the Gran Becca. In the Aosta Valley golf is a summer game, or nearly, played between 1,000 and 2,000 metres.
7 min read
Golf TravelGolf in Rome and Around, from the Ryder Cup to Acquasanta
In 1944, the club says, Allied bombers spared a German camp on the Almone because destroying the only 18-hole course south of Florence would have been madness. That course is still there, and today it shares the city with the one that hosted the 2023 Ryder Cup.
9 min read
Golf TravelGolf on Lake Maggiore: Stresa, the Borromean Islands and the courses
In 1927 Percy Alliss won the Italian Open on Mottarone, above Stresa, after a play-off in which he shot 67. That nine-holer is where a lake begins on which you play between the Alps, the islands and the villas.
8 min read
Golf TravelA golf weekend from Milan: the courses within an hour
In 1985 the Italian Open was played at Cernusco sul Naviglio, about ten kilometres from central Milan, and the winner finished 21 under par. For a golf weekend in Milan, the hard part is not going far but choosing where.
9 min read
Golf TravelWinter golf in Italy: where to play from November to March
At Tanka, in Sardinia, the 2026 price list sets a winter green fee of 60 euros for 18 holes, against 100 in August. In Italy winter is the season when golf costs least and, on the coasts and the islands, you can genuinely play.
8 min read
Golf TravelCar hire and transfers for golfers in Italy
To hire a car in Italy, according to the ACI, you need a credit card in the driver's name, and holders of a non-EU licence also need an international driving permit. But for a golfer the decisive question is a different one: car or transfer?
5 min read
Golf TravelThe 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