The Lake Garda Italian Seniors Open

Palazzo Arzaga

October, 10^th –12^th

The Italian Seniors Open changes its name becoming “Lake Garda Italian Seniors Open” moving from Venice to Arzaga, one of the finest golf resort in Europe located at Lake Garda. The most important Italian Tournament for golfers “over 50” is at its fifth edition and seems to maintain a strong relationship with the golf tourism, so well appreciated by the players themselves, who like to spend their leisure time visiting places, historical buildings and monuments in the area where they are playing.

In 2007 the event joined the Italian Pro Tour schedule, a list of competitions directly managed by the Italian Golf Federation (including the Italian Open organised in collaboration with the European Tour) through the Italian Professionals‘s Tournaments Organising Committee, led by the chairman Mr. Donato Di Ponziano, a world renowned golf professional, who is entrusted with many prestigious assignments in the golf industry at international level. The Italian Golf Federation’ s goal is to give to each tournament an high technical content and a vast visibility through the media to rise the perception of the golf game in Italy.

The Organising Committee signed a partnership with the Lake Garda Golf Courses Association, which represents seven golf properties located around the lake. This year the Italian Seniors Open will be held from the 10^th to the 12^th of October on the Championship Golf Course of the Arzaga Golf Club which is part of the Palazzo Arzaga Hotel SPA & Golf Resort estate. The competition consists of 54 holes, with no cuts, according to the European rules, and a prize money of € 200,000. The winner’s share is € 30,000. 

The golf course, designed by Jack Nicklaus II, will represent a hard test for all the talented competitors, even for many who were leaders in the European Tour during the past, such as Costantino Rocca, who started his Senior Tour career last year, winning two competitions and a final second place in the money list, after the English Carl Mason.   

Both of them will be among the leaders of the tournament, together with other good players like the Welsh Ian Woosnam, who just joined the Senior Tour and won a Masters in 1991 and has been Ryder’s Cup Captain in 2006, Sam Torrance from Scotland, another former Ryder’s Cup Captain who won the third edition of the Italian Seniors Open and two titles of the Italian Open, and the Spanish Josè Rivero. The field goes on with Gordon J. Brand and Nick Job, both Englishmen, the Australian Stewart Ginn, the Scottish Bill Longmuir, the Argentinean Luis Carbonetti and the Italian Giuseppe Calì. All of them can compete for the final victory.

Simon Owen (New Zealand), together with his wife, will come back to Italy to defend the title he won last year. Owen went on record saying that he was really affected by the beauty of the Italian landscape. He usually tends to arrive some days earlier to tour the area and certainly will appreciate not only the wonderful countryside but also the many historical, artistic and cultural sites around Lake Garda. No to forget the nearby golf courses, that are one of the big drives of the local tourism.

Not only Owen, but also all other participants will enjoy the understated luxury of the XV century built Palazzo Arzaga, a countryside villa superbly transformed into an five stars hotel, which preserves the authentic “Renaissance” atmosphere, due to a masterly work of restoration.