Hermitage

Par 28 over 9 holes places Hermitage firmly in executive territory — a layout built for quick, precise golf rather than the grinding attrition of a full-length course. Short irons and wedge play dominate here, which makes it an ideal warm-up ground, a holiday round, or a setting where beginners can work through a bag without the intimidation of long par 5s stretching to the horizon.

Portoferraio sits on the northeastern tip of Elba, the Tuscan island where Napoleon Bonaparte spent his brief exile in 1814. The island draws visitors for its clear Tyrrhenian waters, rugged granite hills, and the kind of unhurried Mediterranean pace that makes a 9-hole round feel exactly right. Elba's terrain is hilly and wooded, and any course here exists within a landscape far more dramatic than the scorecard suggests.

Golf on an island like Elba is never purely about the game — it's about the setting, the light off the sea, and the novelty of playing somewhere most golfers will never find their way to.