I Lauri

Montefiore dell'Aso sits in the Marche region of central Italy, a small hilltop town in the Ascoli Piceno province looking out toward the Adriatic and back toward the Sibillini Mountains. This is agricultural Italy at its most unhurried — terraced vineyards, olive groves, and rolling clay hills that shift color with the seasons. Golf in Le Marche exists well outside the country's better-known resort circuits, which means courses here tend to serve a local and regional membership rather than international golf tourism.

I Lauri — "the laurels" — takes its name from the laurel that grows naturally across this part of the Adriatic coast. The layout works through hilly terrain that would have demanded some creative routing, and the landscape almost certainly provides views that a scorecard will never capture. Whether the design is tight and tree-lined or open to the wind off the Adriatic will depend on which parts of the property the 18 holes occupy.

For visiting golfers, the draw is less about prestige rankings and more about the particular pleasure of playing somewhere genuinely local — a club embedded in a region that still feels like it belongs to the people who actually live there.