A little over a century ago, the owners of Lake Como’s Villa d’Este hotel noticed an opportunity. Many of its guests—which included authors, composers, various royals, and stars of stage and screen—were avid golfers, but they had nowhere to play when visiting the tony Italian resort.

To fix this, the proprietors built Circolo Golf Villa d’Este, an 18-hole course inspired by the era’s best English clubs and opened it in 1926. Though a subsequent generation of the hotel’s leaders decided to sell the course in the late 1970s, the present ownership more recently had the opportunity to buy it back—just in time to celebrate its 100th anniversary. The move was motived not by personal desires but rather by the chance to make teeing off a more seamless experience for today’s golfing guests.

“I should say that I do not actually play golf. It is a sport I still experience as an observer,” explains Guiseppe Fontana, president of the board of directors of Villa d’Este S.p.A., in an email. “But perhaps this is precisely what makes it so fascinating to me: Golf is one of the few sports lived entirely in nature, in settings of almost cinematic beauty.”

Despite the tranquility of its setting, 30 minutes away from the main hotel on the shores of Lake Montorfano, Golf Villa d’Este was designed to challenge golfers at every level—including the pros. The property, known for its narrow tree-lined fairways, held its first major tournament in 1928. It also originated and has hosted the Targa d’Oro, a national competition, 80 times, and 12 Italian Opens, too.

Now, Fontana says, the challenge is to honor a century of achievement while making sure the club succeeds for the next 100 years. To that end, he has embarked on a series of changes to enhance the experience without dramatically altering the property’s look or feel—investing in sustainability initiatives, for example, and refining the course’s infrastructure—as well as methods designed to attract younger golfers. Take its internal golf academy, which now provides group lessons and open days for the curious yet uninitiated. “It offers a welcoming and contemporary entry point into a place rooted in a century of tradition,” Fontana notes. “It allows young players to experience the club’s values while feeling that they belong to its future as much as its past.”

All these ideas will collide during a two-day celebration of Golf Villa d’Este’s centenary, scheduled for June 20 and 21. It will be open to the club’s formal members and a few select invited guests—even those who only watch the game from the sidelines.