Rapallo

Few Italian Riviera settings put a golf course in quite this position. Rapallo sits above the town of the same name on the Ligurian coast, where the terrain rises sharply from the sea into wooded hills that force the layout to work with — and sometimes against — the slope. The result is a course that demands creativity and footwork in equal measure, the kind of place where the views across the Gulf of Tigullio regularly compete with the golf for your attention.

The club itself is one of the older golfing institutions on the Italian Riviera, and the course carries that heritage in its bones — tight, tree-lined corridors, undulating ground, and a par of 70 that signals a design more interested in precision than pure power. Length is not the primary challenge here; position is.

Rapallo the town is a short drive away, a proper Ligurian resort with a medieval castle on the waterfront, good seafood, and the easy pace of the Italian coast. Playing golf here feels embedded in that wider experience rather than separate from it.