ROME, ITALY | Castello Marco Simone, which is perched on the hills that surround the Eternal City, was, during the 16th century, home to the father of astronomy, Galileo Galilei, who would sit high in the stone tower at night and peer up toward the stars.
Last Friday, the current owner of the castle, Lavinia Biagiotti Cigna, was also gazing up at stars but these were of a golfing variety.
Above her, on the raised first tee, Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm prepared to unleash the opening blows of the 44th Ryder Cup. Behind them packed grandstands echoed the Coliseum, the moon lingered on the horizon and Biagiotti Cigna wiped a tear from her eye.
It was her mother, Laura Biagiotti, founder of one of Italy’s leading fashion brands, who purchased the property in 1980. “The castle was waiting for me,” she said. “Its restoration was like a madness that possessed me.” The elder Biagiotti later added the golf course and targeted a Ryder Cup house party before she died in 2017. “I am my mother’s only daughter and this was our dream,” Biagiotti Cigna said after watching that goal reached last week.
A Roman Ryder Cup had been confirmed in 2015, and soon afterward the Italian Golf Federation invited me to the country to learn more about preparations for the then-distant clash.
As a celebration of the Italian way of life, the recce was an absolute triumph.
I was wined and dined to excess, felt consistently underdressed among a host of astonishingly glamorous people, and chatted merrily to Giacomo Crosa, an Italian sporting legend who regaled me with stories about competing in the 1968 Olympic high jump competition.
But as a reconnaissance mission, it was downright disastrous. My every attempt to discover anything about arrangements for the big match were somewhat akin to fishing for sardines with hands basted in butter.
As the trip neared its conclusion, I was increasingly aware that I needed to write something to justify the lavish hospitality, and yet my pursuit of information continued to be rebuffed with repeated wafts of many elegant hands.
A chat in the afternoon became one at dinner, then after dinner, then in the bar, then in the morning, then at lunch, then after lunch, and so on and so on.
“I need something to write about,” I cried to the lady organising the shindig, with more than a hint of desperation. She smiled gloriously, shrugged insouciantly, and whispered throatily: “You need to live la dolce vita!”
Anglo-Saxon Europeans always have been a bit sniffy about their Latin cousins, suspicious of their love of the good life and wary of their capacity to complete big projects. After that particular trip, I was more sniffy than the congested American team would be during the match itself.
And yet I was wrong to be so sceptical.
The hints had been dropped for a while. For example, Marco Simone had hosted the last three Italian Opens, and while some had their doubts, others noted it would permit 50,000 fans splendid views of the action and allow match-play golf to thrive.
The city flourished, too. Fans flocked through the Forum to the real Colosseum wearing Ryder Cup merchandise and fancy dress while the players, wives and girlfriends walked down the Spanish Steps, and through ancient streets, to dinner.
But modernity can be meddlesome: Just as multinational companies have homogenised city centres the world over, so modern golf courses struggle to retain or reflect local identity.
The 2018 Ryder Cup near Paris was French but not that French, with a course, Le Golf National, that was situated in a nondescript new town and had more or less non-existent backdrops.
Proud Frenchman Thomas Levet, veteran of the 2004 match, was not alone in wishing it had more local flavour. “It feels more like a London Ryder Cup dropped into France,” he told me. “The Coca-Cola is from England, the staff are from England, the music is American, the food on the course is American.”
Marco Simone achieved its primary aims in working inside the ropes for the golf and outside them for the fans, but in its secondary targets it was equally successful because it looked, sounded and felt Italian.
At dawn last Friday morning, it was not only the golf that prompted nerves then, but the rising sun answered all questions of the host.
The peaks of Monti Simbruini were shadowy and dark in the distance, small villages clinging to the lower slopes, its typically Italian architecture providing the local vibes that Paris had lacked.
For its soundtrack, France had turned up the volume with bland dance music pumped out by an overzealous DJ. Italy, in glorious contrast, preferred Giacomo Puccini, specifically his 1924 opera Turandot and the iconic aria Nessun Dorma sung by tenor Freddie De Tommaso.
“None shall sleep, none shall sleep,” he sang (in Italian), ending with the epically appropriate lines: “Set stars! Set stars! At dawn I will win! I will win! I will win!”
It set a high bar for the European galleries, and the endless Olé-olé-olé-ing didn’t really maintain such standards, but the tone had been set.
Of course, there were difficulties. Shuttle buses, for example, both public and media, revived notions of la dolce vita coming first and organisation trailing in fifth, but shuttle-bus chaos is a golf tournament constant. It occurred one week earlier at the Solheim Cup in Spain. It happened in France, in Wales in 2010 and in the U.S. on multiple occasions.
All Ryder Cup roads had led to Rome, and the Eternal City delivered.
E-MAIL MATT
Top: Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Rome provides 'la dolce vita' to the Ryder Cup.
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