Golf Holidays in Sardinia

Sardinia’s golf reputation rests on two names, and they could hardly be more different in character.

Is Molas, near the town of Pula about 30 minutes from Cagliari, is a 27-hole complex whose championship 18 opened in 1975, with a later nine, the par-36 Yellow course, added by Franco Piras. The big course has hosted the Italian Open four times, in 1976, 1982, 2000 and 2001. Baldovino Dassù won the first of those, Mark James took the 1982 title and Ian Poulter the 2000 edition. The 5th is the hole locals warn you about: out of bounds left, a tree in the fairway and a concealed stream guarding an elevated green. Water then crowds the card again at 9, 10 and 12 through 14.

Pevero is the glamour ticket. In the late 1960s the Aga Khan picked the peninsula between the bays of Cala di Volpe and Pevero as the setting for the island’s first course, and Robert Trent Jones, working with Ron Kirby, threaded the holes through granite outcrops and juniper scrub, with Corsica visible across the water on a clear day.

“By 1972, his vision was realised when an 18-hole, 6717 yard layout… was opened for play to much critical acclaim.”

Top 100 Golf Courses on Pevero

Golf Magazine has ranked Pevero among the 50 best courses in the world, and the 1978 Italian Open here tells you plenty about its teeth: Dale Hayes won with 293, still described by the club as the highest winning score on the European pro tour. The back-to-back water holes at 6 and 7 and the 182-yard 17th over water are the famous shots, and the short par-4 16th is dedicated to James Bond, a nod to The Spy Who Loved Me filming at the Costa Smeralda resorts.

The island runs on a classic Mediterranean calendar, and the golf seasons are spring and autumn. Average daytime highs in Cagliari, the airport for Is Molas, reach 20°C in April, 24°C in May, 28°C in September and 24°C in October. Olbia, the gateway to Pevero, tracks almost identically at 23.7°C in May, 27.6°C in September and 23.5°C in October.

• March and April: 17 to 20°C, quiet tee sheets, the odd shower in the north (Olbia carries around 55mm of rain in April) and the Maestrale wind still blowing. Pack a jumper for the first tee.
• May and June: arguably the sweet spot. 24 to 28°C, long days, rainfall down to 20mm or less, and the sea warming past 21°C by June.
• July and August: hot. Cagliari averages 31.6°C in July and 32°C in August, sirocco winds can push peaks past 40°C, and inland Sardinia recorded 47°C in July 2023. July is the driest month of the year (just 3mm of rain in Cagliari), so early tee times work, but these months belong to the beach.
• September and October: the classic window. Highs of 28°C easing to 24°C, and the sea still at 24°C in September and around 22°C in October, so a post-round swim is entirely realistic.
• November to February: mild at 14 to 19°C and playable on the right day, but this is when the rain arrives (December brings about 100mm at Olbia) and the Maestrale blows hardest from October to April.

For context, Cagliari averages around 11 hours of sunshine a day in July against 4 or 5 in midwinter, and the whole year sees only a little over 400mm of rain, most of it falling outside the golf months.

Which airport you want depends entirely on which course anchors your trip. For Is Molas, fly to Cagliari (Elmas). Ryanair runs the workhorse direct route from London Stansted, about 2 hours 45 minutes in the air, and British Airways adds a seasonal Gatwick service from July to October. The transfer south to Pula is short: roughly 37km down the coast road, about half an hour by car, so allow 35 to 45 minutes door to door to the resort.

For Pevero, fly to Olbia (Costa Smeralda). At least eight UK airports have direct seasonal routes: Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, Heathrow, Bristol, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Manchester. Flight times run around 2 hours 30 minutes from London and Bristol and closer to 3 hours from Edinburgh. Porto Cervo is about 30km from the airport, half an hour in normal traffic and nearer 40 minutes in the July and August peak.

Our Sardinia packages are ground-only as standard, so you book the flight that suits your airport and we handle everything from the arrivals hall onwards. If you’d rather we arranged flights too, they’re an optional add-on with ATOL protection, and every booking is financially protected through PTS with IATA accreditation behind it. Two admin notes for 2026: the EU Entry/Exit System is now live in Italy, so UK travellers register fingerprints and a photo at the border on first arrival (free, nothing to do in advance, just a little extra queue time), and your passport needs to be issued less than ten years before travel with at least three months left after your planned departure from the Schengen area.

For the south coast the answer is simple: stay at Is Molas Resort Hotel, right on the golf outside Pula. Sleeping where you play means no transfers on golf mornings, 27 holes on the doorstep, and Pula’s beaches and the Roman ruins at Nora ten minutes away for the afternoons. A typical trip runs from 3 nights with 2 rounds up to 7 nights with 4 rounds, bed and breakfast, with tee times pre-booked before you fly.

Sardinia packages are priced on enquiry rather than published online, because island rates move sharply between May and August. Tell us your dates and group size and we’ll price the whole trip the same day. If you want Pevero on the itinerary, we book the golf there and shape the northern leg of the trip around your dates and budget; fair warning that Costa Smeralda prices in high summer are serious, so September often buys the same views for considerably less.

Here is the honest bit. Sardinia has only four full-length 18-hole courses, Is Molas, Pevero, Is Arenas and Tanka Golf Villasimius, within roughly a dozen golf facilities of all sizes across the whole island. For most golfers that makes it a two-course trip built around Is Molas, with Pevero as the bucket-list round, rather than a seven-round marathon. August compounds the point: tee sheets and beaches are at their busiest just when the heat peaks.

That shape suits some travellers perfectly. Couples and mixed groups who want proper golf in the morning and a proper beach in the afternoon will struggle to do better anywhere in Italy, and it works beautifully as a second Italian golf trip once you’ve played the mainland circuits. It suits less well a society that wants a fresh course every day; for that, browse our Italy golf holidays, which cover far more depth around Rome, Lake Garda and Tuscany. Travelling on your own? Our guide to solo golf holidays in Italy explains how we handle single travellers.