Argentario Golf Club

Few Italian golf destinations combine architecture and landscape as dramatically as this one. Argentario Golf Club occupies the Maremma coast of southern Tuscany, where the scrub-covered hills above Porto Ercole tumble toward one of Italy's most storied stretches of Tyrrhenian coastline. The course was designed by architect Arnold Palmer and opened in 2007, sitting within the broader Argentario Golf Resort & Spa development. Palmer's design works with the natural contours of the macchia mediterranea — the dense, aromatic scrubland of rosemary, cistus, and wild herbs that defines this part of the Maremma — and the routing takes full advantage of elevation changes that deliver panoramic water views on several holes.

The course plays to a genuine championship standard, demanding precision off the tee through corridors framed by the indigenous vegetation. Errant shots disappear quickly into the macchia, making course management as important as raw distance.

Monte Argentario itself is a peninsula that feels half-island, connected to the mainland by narrow causeways, and the surrounding area draws a discerning Italian and international crowd. The Maremma's wild, unhurried character — a world away from Tuscany's more tourist-worn hill towns — gives this round a sense of privileged escape that the region does better than almost anywhere in Italy.