Magazine
Great Courses
The layouts, architects and signature holes worth the trip.
Great CoursesPlaying on a volcano: golf on Etna
At Il Picciolo the hazards are ancient lava flows: one guards the left of the 7th green, a field of stones cuts across the 14th. This is Etna's course, 18 holes, par 72, opened in 1989, and this is the guide to playing it: key holes, wind, 2026 rates and where to stay.
7 min read
Great CoursesFranciacorta's golf courses compared
Between 35 and 105 euros: that is the gap, in the price lists published by the clubs, between an 18-hole round at Colombera on a weekday and one at Franciacorta Golf Club on a high-season weekend. Four courses compared between Brescia and Bergamo, with the choice based on the kind of day you want.
6 min read
Great CoursesArzaga: Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player in the Garda hills
At Arzaga, under the local rules, a wall and a toilet block are integral parts of the course: if the ball ends up against them, there is no free drop. In the Valtenesi hills above Lake Garda, two famous names designed 27 holes at the foot of a fifteenth-century villa.
6 min read
Great CoursesThe architects who designed Italian golf
One name keeps turning up on Italian courses, an architect little known outside golf: Marco Croze, from Franciacorta, where he worked with Pete Dye, to Versilia, Grado and Jesolo. Here is who laid out the fairways we play.
5 min read
Great Courses27- and 36-hole courses: several days of golf without changing club
Four rounds in four days, and no two alike: that is the promise of clubs with 27 or 36 holes, where a golf week does not mean repacking the suitcase every evening. Here are twelve addresses, from Monferrato to Sicily.
9 min read
Great CoursesKyle Phillips in Italy
From Scotland to Morocco, the Netherlands and South Korea, the map of Kyle Phillips's courses has a single point in Italy, and it lies in Sciacca, Sicily.
5 min read
Great CoursesThe 9-hole courses worth travelling for
A nine-hole course is played twice, which is why place matters more than design: at Courmayeur a river runs through it, at Carezza there are 400 metres of elevation change, at Cortina every hole is named after a peak. Ten short courses, chosen because each has a reason to go.
7 min read
Great CoursesRobert 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
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
Great CoursesIs Molas: the hole shaped like Africa and four Italian Opens
At the 14th at Is Molas the green is almost surrounded by water and traces the outline of the African continent. For Baldovino Dassù, who won the first Italian Open played here in 1976, the advice is to fly over Cape Town.
6 min read