There are golf holidays, and there are holidays with golf. The two are quite different and you go to different places for them. For a golf holiday you might choose Florida or the Algarve, the Carolinas or the Costa del Sol. A holiday with golf is an altogether more civilised experience, and there is nowhere better for it than Italy, where the game is well established but not yet a big tourist attraction.

Few Italian courses are well known internationally. How many visitors to Venice know about the fast greens and well kept fairways that lie secluded among pine trees and dunes at the southern tip of the Lido? There is excellent golf to be played in Sardinia, among the olive presses and vineyards of the Tuscan hills, and against a white backdrop of Alpine peaks in Italy's Lake District. And when in Rome … try Acquasanta. The oldest golf club in Italy celebrates its centenary this year, in a leafy park crossed by a Roman aqueduct, less than five miles from the Colosseum.

Italian golf courses are not facilities; they are clubs, where people for whom the game is part of the social fabric of life meet for a round and a good lunch. As one might expect, most of these clubs are located in the northern two thirds of the peninsula, around the principal centres of population and wealth - Rome, Florence, and the great cities that stud the northern plains, from Turin at the foot of the Alps to the Po delta and Venice. Since its cities count among the foremost attractions of Italy, you are rarely far from a good course.

Or, choose one of our itineraries - a perfect introduction to enjoying golf in Italy. We have itineraries, which involve staying in one hotel and then playing as much of the nearby golf as possible. And, we have others, which involve moving from one hotel to another to experience the very best of the golf in the region.