“Golf doesn’t have huge awareness in Italy,” says Guy Kinnings, the DP World Tour’s Ryder Cup director. “It’s the 16th most popular pastime. What’s the legacy we want to leave? We want to improve that.”
It won’t be easy. According to a survey of the world’s golf courses by the R&A, one of the sport’s governing bodies, Italy has just 321 golf courses to entertain its population of 60 million, a sub-par ratio compared to mature golf nations such as England, which has 2,270 courses serving roughly the same number of people.
But according to Gian Paolo Montali, Italy’s director general of the 2023 Ryder Cup project, the plan does not start by building more courses—first, Italy needs more golfers. Montali wants 120,000 registered players by 2027, up from the 87,000 who called themselves golfers in 2015, when Italy did the unlikely and fended off bids from Germany, Austria and Spain to land the coveted event.
The Ryder Cup Trophy is pictured during Day Three of The Italian Open at Marco Simone Golf Club in Rome, Italy.Montali also wants more golf tourists in Italy. “A person visiting Rome stays two and a half days,” he says. “When players come here to play golf, they remain here for four and a half days. If the institution understands this and Italy becomes a golf destination, it will have a very significant impact for the country.