Question 1

When is the best time of year to play golf in Italy?

Accepted Answer

It depends on where, and the range is wider than most visitors realise.

Sicily and Sardinia play through the winter, and this is Italy's least-known golf advantage. Verdura and Pevero in February and March offer sixteen to eighteen degrees, empty fairways and green fees a long way below high season, at a time when courses in northern Europe are frozen or waterlogged. For anyone who plays seriously, it is the best value in Italian golf.

Tuscany, Umbria, Rome and Piedmont are at their best in April to early June and again from September into late October. Autumn is the connoisseur's season: firm ground, low light, the harvest happening around you, and the wine regions at their most alive.

High summer inland is genuinely hot. July and August in the Val d'Orcia or the Roman countryside means playing at seven in the morning or not enjoying it. If those are your dates, we move the golf to the coast or to altitude and build the middle of the day around water.

Question 2

How many rounds should we plan in a week?

Accepted Answer

Fewer than you are about to say. The most common mistake in golf travel is booking seven rounds in seven days and arriving home needing a holiday. Three or four rounds across a week, played every other day, is almost always the better structure: you play better, the courses stay special rather than becoming a routine, and the days in between are what make it a journey through Italy rather than a series of car parks.

If the trip is a dedicated circuit with a group of committed players, five is workable — but we would still build in one day with no tee time at all, and it is always the day people remember.

Question 3

What if not everyone in the party plays?

Accepted Answer

This is where Italy is unbeatable, and it is the reason people who have done Scotland and Portugal come here next.

On a golf trip to most destinations, the non-golfer's day is a consolation prize. Here it is arguably the better one. While you are at Castiglion del Bosco, they are in a Brunello cellar in Montalcino with the person who made the wine, or at a table in Pienza, or being driven through the Val d'Orcia by someone who knows where to stop. At Pevero, the alternative is a boat into the Maddalena. At Le Betulle, it is Barolo and the Langhe an hour away. At Verdura, it is a spa on the Sicilian coast and the Valley of the Temples in the afternoon.

We design both days in parallel and time them to meet — usually over a long lunch after the round, which is when the two versions of the day turn back into one. Tell us who is playing and who is not, and we will plan for both rather than treating one as an add-on.

Question 4

What are the courses actually like to play?

Accepted Answer

Different enough that the order you play them in matters.

Pevero is Robert Trent Jones Senior on Sardinian granite and macchia — dramatic, exposed, and a harder golf course than the photographs suggest. Wind off the Costa Smeralda decides your score.

Le Betulle at Biella is the connoisseur's answer to "the best course in Italy": a classic Henry Cotton parkland layout in the Piedmont foothills, quiet, beautifully proportioned, and the one most likely to surprise a visitor who came for the scenery.

Castiglion del Bosco is a Tom Weiskopf design inside a private Val d'Orcia estate — spectacular setting, generous off the tee, and among the most complete golf-and-place experiences anywhere.

Verdura in Sicily plays closest to links golf in Italy, laid along the sea by Kyle Phillips, and it is the course most rewarding in winter.

Marco Simone, outside Rome, hosted the 2023 Ryder Cup and plays like a modern championship venue — long, shaped, and a genuine test from the back tees. Guests almost always want to see it; we will tell you honestly where it fits in a circuit and where it does not.

Antognolla, Olgiata and Venezia Lido each have their own case, and we will make it when we know how you play.

Question 5

What happens after the round?

Accepted Answer

In Italy, more than anywhere else, and it is the actual reason to play golf here.

The clubhouse lunch is not a sandwich. Italian clubs take their kitchens seriously, and a two-hour table after eighteen holes is a normal part of the day rather than an indulgence. Beyond that, every one of these courses sits inside a wine region that deserves the afternoon: Brunello below Castiglion del Bosco, Barolo and the Langhe from Le Betulle, Vermentino di Gallura from Pevero, Etna reds a drive from the Sicilian coast.

We build the afternoon into the round rather than around it — a cellar visit at four, a dinner at eight in the estate's own borgo, and no one driving. On a well-designed golf day in Italy the golf is roughly half of it, and the half everyone recounts afterwards is often the other one.

Question 6

Should we bring our own clubs?

Accepted Answer

If you play to a handicap you care about, yes. Rental sets at the resort courses are good — Verdura and Castiglion del Bosco both keep current equipment — but nobody putts well with a stranger's putter, and if the trip is built around the golf, the clubs should travel.

The practical side is ours to handle: the airlines and the private jets have different rules about what fits, and a full set plus a travel case is a real consideration on a light aircraft. Tell us at the itinerary stage and we will specify the aircraft accordingly, arrange shipping ahead where that is simpler, and have the bags waiting at the first clubhouse rather than at the hotel. Bring your own shoes regardless.

One thing to pack that people forget: many Italian clubs ask visitors for a handicap certificate or federation card. We flag it before you travel, but it is easier to bring than to explain at the starter's hut.

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