Before you write to the club
Nearly every course in Italy accepts visitors, and outside the big resort names you will rarely fight for a slot. What clubs do ask for is a handicap certificate: bring a digital copy of your federation card or a letter from your home club, and keep it on your phone.
Weekdays are wide open almost everywhere. Saturday and Sunday mornings belong to members and club competitions: plan visitor rounds on weekday mornings and you will play in peace.
The booking itself
Resort courses take online bookings like anywhere else in the world. Member clubs still live on email and phone: a short message in English, your handicap, your preferred date and time, sent about a week ahead in high season, is all it takes. Answers can take a day: that is normal, not a refusal.
If your trip runs on a tight sequence of tee times, cellars and spa slots, book the golf first. Tastings move easily, tee times less so.
The calmest golf in Italy is before eleven.
What it costs
As a rule of thumb, an 18-hole green fee at a good regional club sits well below what you would pay in the Algarve or in Scotland, and resort courses price at the international standard. Twilight rates exist almost everywhere: ask, because they are rarely advertised.
The unwritten rules
Dress code is real but reasonable: a collared shirt and tailored shorts will pass everywhere. What Italian clubs genuinely care about is pace: keep your place on the course and nobody will ever bother you.
In July and August, do what the locals do: book the first slots of the morning, then spend the hot hours where this whole site suggests, in the water or in a cellar.
The longest drive between stops on our measured Maremma itinerary. Golf, cellars and thermal water fit in one unhurried trip.
See the itinerary →