Golf in Lazio & Rome: Courses, Wine & Spa

Golf around the capital

Lazio’s golf is really one cluster around Rome, with four different places to sleep. Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Rome North hosted the 2023 Ryder Cup and is the region’s headline course. Golf Nazionale in Tuscia, a 31km drive from central Rome, is the home of the Italian Golf Federation and hosted the 1991 World Cup. Olgiata Golf Club has two World Cups (1968 and 1984), the 1964 Eisenhower Trophy and several Italian Opens on its record. Rome City and Castelli Romani add no signature course of their own, Parco di Roma and Castelgandolfo Golf Club Resort are convenient rather than iconic, but from either base the same handful of courses, Marco Simone, Olgiata and Circolo del Golf di Roma Acquasanta, sit within half an hour.

Wine an hour away

Tuscia has the region’s serious cellars: Famiglia Cotarella in Montecchio makes Montiano, a Lazio IGP Merlot, Palazzone makes Orvieto Classico Superiore just over the Umbrian border, and Colli Cimini makes Greco di Vignanello. Around Castelli Romani and Rome North, the wine is Frascati country: smaller, visitable producers such as Cantina Gaffino, whose Cesanese IGT Cardinale Etichetta Blu you can taste on-site, and Vini Fontana Candida. Base yourself in Rome City and the serious cellars, Castello della Sala (Antinori’s white wine estate above Orvieto), Cotarella’s Montecchio, and Frascati, are all roughly an hour away rather than a short drive.

Tuscia’s thermal water

The thermal offer in Lazio is concentrated almost entirely in Tuscia. Terme dei Papi in Viterbo has been a bathing spot since the Middle Ages, the popes among its early guests, and it sits above a string of free sulfur pools around the city. Elsewhere in Lazio the spa is urban rather than geological: Livia Wellness & SPA inside a Rome hotel near the Vatican, and QC Termeroma, a wellness estate by Fiumicino airport that both Castelli Romani and Rome City can reach in half an hour.

When to go, and which base

April is the best month in Tuscia and Rome North, October in Castelli Romani, and, a little unexpectedly, June in Rome City itself. Choose Tuscia & Viterbo for the thermal water and the Federation’s home course, Rome North & Sabina for Marco Simone and Olgiata, Rome South & Castelli Romani if the coast is part of the plan, this base also reaches Nettuno’s Agro Pontino, Casale del Giglio’s wine and the Castelgandolfo course, and Rome City if you want to sleep in the historic centre and treat the golf, wine and spa as day trips.