The European Senior Tour returns to Golf Club Udine in Northern Italy next week for the seventh edition of the Senior Italian Open presented by Villaverde Resort. Here’s everything you need to know as the Senior Tour returns to continental Europe…
Rewind
In just his seventh event on the European Senior Tour, Welshman Stephen Dodd emerged victorious with a one-stroke win over compatriot Phillip Price.
The 50 year old, who made his debut at The Senior Open Presented by Rolex, carded a level par final round of 71 adding to his scores of 69-64 to finish with a nine under par total.
Price made his over-50s debut at Golf Club Udine and finished in second place on eight under, one stroke ahead of Sweden’s Magnus P Atlevi and Switzerland’s André Bossert.
The field
Italian golf legend Costantino Rocca is one of ten former Ryder Cup players in field, and the five-time European Tour champion will tee it up alongside Barry Lane, Ronan Rafferty, Jarmo Sandelin and José Rivero – who all also represented Europe in golf’s greatest team event.
Philip Golding, winner of last week’s Travis Perkins Masters, will go in search of his third title of the season after adding to his Swiss Seniors Open victory at Woburn.
Lane, who carded a Senior Tour record low round of 60, 12 under par, as he won the Willow Senior Golf Classic, will be bidding for his third triumph in the space of 12 months.
Two-time Senior Major champion Roger Chapman is also in the field, as well as 12 players who have won on the Senior Tour in the past 15 months.
The course
Founded in 1970, Golf Club Udine is situated against the backdrop of the Carnic Alps. English architect John Dering Harris and Venetian Marco Croze prepared a draft plan for the first nine holes, and Croze went on to complete the design in 1995 as he added an additional nine holes to the 73 hectare site.
In 2013, Club President Gabriele Lualdi appointed agronomist Fulvio Bani to restyle the golf course which is more than 6,300 yards in length. The course, which plays to a par of 71, has a number of signature holes – namely the par five 15thhole which has trees on the right, while the green is protected by a lake.
The 16thhole is perhaps the most interesting on the course, an up-hill par three. The tee shot is played blind as players only have the top of the pin as reference.
