Ivrea, Italy
In a soccer-mad country, golf is low on the sporting agendas of the average Italian sports enthusiast. Any golfer will tell you that this is unimportant – if there is a golf course, there will be plenty of enthusiastic golfers, more if there are great courses. Italy has more than 200 courses and Biella is acknowledged as the best. Built in 1957 it was the twelfth course in Italy at a time when there were only 43 golfers in the country with a handicap below eight. Created by British designer John Morrison, the course was inaugurated in 1958, gaining immediate fame. Morrison made clever use of the existing terrain and the layout is heavily wooded, and traverses great undulations, humps and hollows. Streams and ponds are entwined with rocky outcrops and the constant banks of trees to produce a stern examination, but one that is as beautiful as it is challenging.
The signature 16th hole captures the essence of Biella; the high ground is the starting point for an exquisite hole, but also provides amazing views of the Alpine foothills and the magnificent woodland of the Piedmont landscape. A 493 m par five, the hole doglegs right from the drive in an area protected by a single fairway bunker on the right. An elevated oval green is guarded by three bunkers at the left front and rear of the green. Take a camera; the shot of the snow covered Alps behind the green is one for your trophy wall.
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