Villa d'Este - Northern Italy - Italy

What a joy to play this beautiful members course. The Milanesi lucky enough to call themselves members are very privileged.

The stars here are the routing and the topography. There are 6 par 3’s and 3 par 5s, which – you might have guessed it – adds up to par 69. It has an amazing flow. The course starts off with two relatively dull holes, followed by a magnificent par 3 third which makes great use of the natural slopes of the old forest. The rest of the front nine is very solid without any evident highlights, but there is much to enjoy! The back nine however is truly magnificent. Every hole is different, challenging, very beautiful and strategically ingenious. There are no weak holes. The set of par 5s is very good, the par 3s are dramatic and 5 of them require mid or long irons. The par 4s are also challenging due to their sheer length, strategic delicacies, elevation changes or narrowness combined with small targets.

Hole 12 is one of the great mid length par 4s I’ve played. It’s about 340 meters. The drive has to be kept short of a big beautiful water hazard left. It has to be artificially made, but you couldn’t tell. A small patch of sloping fairway on the right leads to the back to front sloping green, perched against a natural hill with pine trees and with a small false front. It is stunningly beautiful and my signature hole apart from hole 18 which you’ve seen on photographs.

The bunkers on the course are very small, deep, beautifully shaped and highly distinctive. They did not resemble any bunkers I have previously seen. Overall, the shaping of the course was of a very high level. Naturally provided for most of the feautures, but also some extravagantly dug green complexes.

Villa d’Este will still be a great golf course in 100 years. What golf needs is more courses like this. The course will never bore you, the clubhouse is great and you’ll be round for 18 in three hours easily if your a member and don’t have the time to spend the entire day at the club as I would recommend any first timer. However, that is just what the members and their families seemed to do when I was here on a sunny September Sunday.

So much for this declaration of love, admittedly I have one major concern with regard to this course and that regards the state of the greens due to poor tree management. Too many trees are standing right next to the greens, taking all the sunrays and water away, and leaving most of the greens absolutely exhausted. Some greens were very soft while others were dried out and firm. They were visibly unhealthy and three greens on the back nine had seemingly just died already. You could make a sand castle on most of the green and astonishingly it was still in play. I did not let this define my experience but I do hope that these problems will be addressed in the very near future as this course deserves way better.

MO

Played Villa d'Este on a hot August day this year and what a treat it was. Everything is close together, from the elegant club house to the range to the first and tenth tees. The range is perfectly fine for warmup and there also seems to be a fully kitted out training studio. You then walk down towards the first tee, which is a longish downhill par 5 - quite a gentle opening hole. The second then takes you uphill again (not easy) before going behind the club house for holes 3-9. Those holes interloop at times and there are a number of par 3s. These are nice holes but nothing too special. All the special treats await you on the back 9. Holes 11-18 are truly outstanding with wonderful views and great routing. It's basically an 'in and out' routing bringing you back to the club house. Holes 16-18 are a special treat and a wonderful way to finish your round.

After the round the wonderful terrace invites you for lunch or a cold drink, with a view to the 18th.

If you're in Milano or the area around the lakes, Villa d'Este is much recommended.

What a golf course! I played the course in April and it was in very good condition. From the moment you enter through the gate, you can see that this is all high quality. The place is quite a bit outside of Como with great views of the surrounding mountains (although no view of Lake Como). There are big old trees that surround every hole. The clubhouse is very nice and has a lot of class. The course design is great, no weak hole; I can easily remember almost every hole. The first 9 play mostly above the clubhouse, the second 9 below. In my opinion the finishing stretch from 12 to 18 is particularly strong with a mix of very interesting holes. The signature hole is the 18th which is slightly uphill to the majestic clubhouse above the green. The course is built on sandy soil, has quite steep elevation and practically every hole is surrounded by trees which add a lot to the difficulty of the course and it doesn't play short at all. The greens are not that much undulated, but there are very nice bunker complexes around the greens. All in all a great experience and it comes with the great Italian flair.

I played the Villa deste golf course in early april a year ago. The course was open to guests from the Resort - Villa D'este which is about 10 miles away. They have a reasonable number of caddies. Despite being early april the course was in good shape and was of moderate difficulty. The views were sensational and i could still see the snow capped mountains - Italian/swiss alps a few miles away. While the course is not that long- it does not need to be especially for a mid handicapper. Overall a good experience. However, I did warm up at the range- hitting of a matt- not sure if this was due to the timing - first week in april or whether it was routine. In any case the overall experience was excellent.

It may measure fairly short but you won’t find it easy here on the wooded hillside near Lake Como. A number of testing par threes and a variety of interesting par 4s and 5s makes for an enjoyable round where all the holes have a distinctive character. A nice easy start driving downhill to a wide fairway is not really a true reflection of what is to come. The second plays uphill to a green perched on a slope and then it is across the driveway to a very tough series of five holes, marked by three difficult par 3s. The course then opens up a little to two nice par fours before you head back into the woods for some testing challenges. I played the course in the July and it was hot and humid, although the fairways had been watered to create nice playing surfaces. The greens were in good shape if a little slow. All in all enjoyable and the clubhouse is awesome.