Maremma

Grosseto sits at the heart of the Maremma, the wild coastal strip of southern Tuscany that for centuries was written off as malarial swampland before being drained and transformed into some of the most quietly dramatic agricultural land in Italy. The region resists the polished postcard version of Tuscany — there are no vineyard-clad hillsides here so much as wide, flat plains meeting the Tyrrhenian coast, with the Uccellina hills and Monte Argentario rising unexpectedly from the horizon. Playing golf in this landscape means playing somewhere genuinely raw and unhurried.

Without documented specifics on the course's architecture or ownership, what can honestly be said is that an 18-hole layout bearing the Maremma name carries real regional identity. The terrain around Grosseto offers a mix of coastal pineta — the umbrella pine forests characteristic of the Tuscan shore — open agricultural plains, and scrubby Mediterranean macchia, any of which could shape a course's character profoundly.

Southern Tuscany remains a quiet corner of Italian golf compared to the showcase resorts further north or along the Adriatic. That relative obscurity is part of the appeal — a round here arrives with the unhurried pace the Maremma itself tends to enforce.