In the summer of 2015, when the golfing fraternity were waiting to hear who would win the bidding process for the 44th edition of the Ryder Cup, Golf Marco Simone owner Lavinia Biagiotti had visions of a Ryder Cup ceremony at the Colosseum in Rome. “What if we could have our greatest tenor of the moment singing Por ti Volare?” she asked.
Italy defeated Spain, Austria and Germany in the bidding process, and on 14 December 2015, Biagiotti’s course was declared a Ryder Cup venue. As for the situation today, the course has just hosted the first of the three Italian Opens to be held at the venue ahead of the 2023 match.
The course has undergone a complete redesign in the past few years and, as expected, the players had a mixed bag of opinions during this year’s Italian Open. On the one hand, there was plenty of praise for the condition of the greens. On the other, there were a few complaints about the elevation changes on the site overall, with the undulations on a couple of the putting surfaces accorded an unfavourable mention of their own.
As Francesco Molinari has said, tweaks to the course – and he cannot see that too many of those are necessary – can be made at any point. However, what can’t be tweaked are the players’ emotions when they find themselves at a venue boasting views of St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. It either moves them or it doesn’t. And the unmoved might want to take heed: The next captain – maybe Henrik Stenson, maybe Lee Westwood – might not be too keen to have them in his side.
One Italian Open competitor who sees the bigger picture is England’s Eddie Pepperell. He told Golf Digest that the course had clearly been built with the Ryder Cup in mind.
“They’ve thought about the fans, he said. “I’ve never been of the opinion that a Ryder Cup course has to be spectacular, it just has to be a great spectacle. The course has enough of that.”
Molinari is obviously a tad biased but he felt an inordinate sense of pride during Italian Open week. Pride in the course itself and the quality of the greens, and pride in the views it has to offer.
“It’s a truly amazing venue for a Ryder Cup,” the 2018 Open champion said. “To be honest, I can’t wait for everyone to get here and see something of our very special city. Spectators are going to love it.
“Growing up, I dared to dream of playing in the Ryder Cup without ever picturing that the match could be in Italy during my career. So it presents a very special opportunity for me and a wonderful time for Italian golf.” (As promised by Guy Kinnings, deputy chief executive officer for the European Tour and its Ryder Cup director, Molinari and other Italian players are receiving regular updates on progress.)
The story of Marco Simone is pretty special in itself. It was in 1965 that Delia Biagiotti, grandmother of Lavinia, purchased the derelict 11th century Marco Simone castle and its surrounding 160 acres. Lavinia’s parents, Laura and Gianni, restored the castle, which today is seen as the best-preserved example of a 15th-century palace in the area.
“The restoration of Marco Simone’s castle,” Laura Biagiotti once said, “was like a madness that took me and I followed gently.” The next step was prompted by the couple’s golf holidays in Gleneagles, Scotland. Determined to have a golf course of their own, they called in the Fazio family of architects and Laura, who studied literature and archaeology before fashion, contributed a few ideas of her own.
“My parents had this passion for golf, this passion for the area and this passion for each other,” the club’s owner explained in 2015.
Meanwhile, to cite just another example of what the course has in store, the seating arena embracing the first, the seventh and the 16th holes has a touch of the Colosseum about it.
Gianni Biagiotti would die of leukaemia in 1996, two years after his beloved course held an Italian Open which, for the record, was won by Eduardo Romero.
Dave Sampson and Jeremy Slessor from European Course Design are the architects involved in the course makeover. Sampson, who attended the recent Italian Open, said nothing had wowed him more on his first visit than the views from the 12th green and 13th tee, the highest points on the course. Pre-empting the question, Sampson volunteered that spectators will be up there with the players. “Far from having to stay down below, they’ll be sharing in the experience,” he said.
So carried away was Italian Golf Federation president Franco Chimenti when we met for dinner in 2015 that he promised sunshine when the match is held. We can hardly hold him to that but, had the event been this year, his prediction would have been 100 percent correct, what with temperatures of up to 27 degrees Celsius and only a slight chance of rain.
Meanwhile, in the event of any more complaining about the hilly nature of Marco Simone, someone should pack the relevant players off to Spain’s Finca Cortesin, home of the 2023 Solheim Cup. Though the course proved a fine test for the Volvo World Match Play Championship from 2009 to 2012, it is nonetheless one of those up-hill-down-dale venues for which spectators, let alone players, would do well to start getting into training.
Top: The 44th Ryder Cup will be played at Golf Marco Simone.
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