Golf hotels in Venice and the Veneto: four bases, from the Lido to the Asolo hills

According to the club's own account, in 1928 Venice did not have a single golf course. Today the Veneto's clubs range from the links at the tip of the Lido to nine-hole courses in the hills, and the best idea is to use the hotel as a base: you sleep somewhere exceptional and go out to play, sometimes by water shuttle, sometimes with the hills ahead of you through the windscreen.

Four golf hotels in the Veneto compared

Four hotels in four different landscapes: the lagoon, the Jesolo coast, the hills of Treviso, the Veneto shore of Lake Garda. None has a course of its own, but each says clearly where to play and what it does for golfers.

Excelsior Venice: the links of the Lido

The Hotel Excelsior opened on 21 July 1908 with a party for three thousand guests. For golfers its name is tied to an anecdote the club tells like this: in 1928 Henry Ford landed with his bag and asked Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata where he could play, and was told that Venice did not have a single course. Volpi found 100 hectares of dunes at Alberoni, the southern tip of the Lido.

The Circolo Golf Venezia is today an 18-hole par 72 of 6,039 metres, opened in 1930, which the club describes as similar to a links: the bora and the scirocco decide the play, but the fairways are lined with maritime pines and willows. The first tee is next to an Austrian fort, converted into the clubhouse. From the hotel, according to the Excelsior, it takes about 20 minutes; Guest Relations books the tee times, arranges the transfer by car, taxi or water taxi, and the hire of equipment. In the 2026 price list the 18-hole green fee is 95 euros on weekdays and 110 on public holidays.

The Excelsior is a seasonal hotel, with the beach open from late May to mid-September and a free shuttle that takes a quarter of an hour to reach the area near St Mark's. It has neither a spa nor a car park: the car is left at Piazzale Roma. The exact opening dates should be checked when booking.

Villa Cipriani: Asolo and the hills of Treviso

In 1889 the English poet Robert Browning bought the villa in the hills of Asolo; in the 1960s Count Rupert Guinness entrusted it to Giuseppe Cipriani, the founder of Harry's Bar, and since 2012 it has belonged to the industrialist Massimo Zanetti. Villa Cipriani has 28 rooms, a garden ranked among the ten most beautiful of the hotels in Historic Hotels Worldwide, and a restaurant open every day of the year.

The hotel has no course and no golf packages, but it lists the nearby clubs with their distances. The Asolo Golf Club in Cavaso del Tomba, founded by Gilberto Benetton, is 12 km away: 27 holes on three par-36 courses, Red, Yellow and Green, and the first federal Academy in Italy, active since 2003. In the 2026 price list 18 holes cost between 50 and 100 euros; the club does not specify which days each amount applies to. At 16 km is Ca' Amata in Castelfranco, an 18-hole par 71 in the park of an eighteenth-century villa, with eleven holes that have ponds and canals. For a full day the hotel suggests the Cansiglio, an 18-hole course at 1,027 metres in the forest of the Belluno Prealps: the 2026 price list runs from 60 euros in low season to 80 in high season, and the course is open from 1 May to the end of October.

Almar Jesolo: discounts at three clubs

The Almar opened in 2014 on the seafront of Lido di Jesolo: 184 rooms with a private terrace, a private beach, supervised parking at no extra cost and a 70-metre pool heated to three temperatures. The Almablu spa measures 2,000 m² and admits guests from the age of 16; among its treatments are massages designed for golfers.

On golf the hotel has an agreement: discounted green fees at Golf Club Jesolo, at Pra' delle Torri in Caorle and at Villa Condulmer; the concierge takes care of the booking. Jesolo is a par 72 of 6,397 metres designed by Gian Paolo Mar and Marco Croze, completed in 2004, with the double green shared between the 9th and the 18th. Pra' delle Torri, whose current layout dates from 2007, has a 2026 weekday green fee that runs from 42 euros in low season to 90 in high season. Villa Condulmer, near Mogliano Veneto, was created in the park of a seventeenth-century villa: the published price list, undated, shows 80 euros on weekdays and 90 at weekends, and the club closes on Mondays.

Quellenhof Lazise: the Veneto shore of Lake Garda

The Quellenhof Luxury Resort Lazise, owned by the Dorfer family, lists twelve courses within an hour and twenty minutes, and offers its guests reduced green fees, equipment hire and personal advice.

When to go

Golf in the Veneto is mainly a spring and autumn affair. In summer the coast has high prices: at Pra' delle Torri the most expensive band runs from 11 May to 20 September. The Cansiglio plays only from May to October, while the Circolo Golf Venezia has published a winter green fee of 60 euros for 2026, valid from 1 November 2025 to 31 March 2026: for the following winter it is best to ask the club office. The Excelsior closes out of season.

Curiosities

• Palmer, Ballesteros and Trevino. According to the Excelsior, they have all played the Alberoni links, where the Leone di San Marco amateur trophy has been held every year since 1953.
• An Open to inaugurate. Ca' della Nave in Martellago opened in 1988 with the Italian Women's Open.
• Hazards without an architect. At the Cansiglio the hazards are karst sinkholes and swallow holes, left where nature put them.
• The Bellini as at Harry's Bar. At the American Bar of Villa Cipriani it is made with puréed white peach and prosecco.