An Italian Open with a Ryder Cup view

The 78th edition of the Italian Open will be staged at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club on September 2-5, 2021, two years before the Rome venue plays host to The Ryder Cup.

It will be the seventh time that Italy’s national open has been played in the Eternal City and the second at Marco Simone, which previously hosted in 1994.

Italy was awarded The Ryder Cup, originally due to be played in September 2022 and rescheduled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, in December 2015, with a successful Italian Golf Federation bid led by President Franco Chimenti.

It will be the third time golf’s greatest team event has been played in continental Europe, following Real Club Valderrama in Spain (1997) and Le Golf National in France (2018).

Marco Simone is undergoing an extensive renovation in preparation for The 2023 Ryder Cup and ahead of next year’s Italian Open, which takes place four weeks after the Olympic Games in Tokyo and three weeks before The Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.

First played in 1925, with the previous editions in Rome hosted at Acquasanta (1950, 1973, 1980), Olgiata (2002 and 2019), and Marco Simone (1994), the Italian Open has been an ever-present on the European Tour’s schedule since the Tour’s inception in 1972.

Its list of past champions includes Major Champions Tony Jacklin (1973), Billy Casper (1975), Bernhard Langer (1983 and 1997), Sandy Lyle (1984 and 1992), Greg Norman (1988), Graeme McDowell (2004) and home favourite Francesco Molinari (2006 and, 2016). The last edition in October 2020 was played at Chervo Golf Club in Brescia and won by Englishman Ross McGowan.