In a statement, the Italian Golf Federation said it mourned the death of “a young athlete who embodied passion and authentic values".
"In this time of great sorrow, our thoughts go out to his family and all those who loved him,” they said.
The news came as authorities warned that identification of other victims could take days due to the severe nature of the burns.
The blast occurred at around 1.30am at the Le Constellation, a bar popular with tourists in the Valais region of southwestern Switzerland. Revellers were gathered at the venue to ring in the new year when the fire broke out.
While officials said it was too early to determine the fire's cause, investigators have already ruled out that it could have been an attack.
Where did the blaze take place?
The blast occurred at around 1.30am on Thursday at Le Constellation, a bar popular with tourists in the luxury ski resort of Crans-Montana, in the Valais region, southwestern Switzerland.
The community is in the heart of the Swiss Alps, just 25 miles north of the Matterhorn.
With high-altitude ski runs at around 3,000 meters, Crans-Montana is one of the winter sports centres of Switzerland's Valais region, drawing winter sports enthusiasts from across the world.
How New Year celebrations turned to tragedy at Swiss resort bar
Around 40 people have been killed and about 100 are injured, most of them seriously.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, the commander of the Valais cantonal police Frédéric Gisler said authorities expect several foreign nationals are among the dead.
Sixteen Italians have been reported missing, while around a dozen more Italian nationals are being treated in hospital, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Thursday.
Swiss president Guy Parmelin also confirmed many of the victims were young people, with hospital directors confirming patients as young as 16 were being treated.
Switzerland begins the arduous task of identifying victims
Swiss investigators today set about the painful task of identifying the burned bodies of a blaze that engulfed a crowded bar and killed around 40 people at a New Year's Eve party in the upscale Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana.
So severe were the burns suffered by the mostly young crowd of revellers in the Le Constellation bar that Swiss officials said it could take days before they name all the victims of the fire that also injured 115, many of them seriously.
Parents of missing youths anxiously issued pleas for news of their loved ones as foreign embassies scrambled to work out if their nationals were among those caught up in one of the worst tragedies to befall modern Switzerland.
"The first objective is to assign names to all the bodies," Crans-Montana's mayor Nicolas Feraud told a press conference. This, he said, could take days.
Mathias Reynard, head of government of the canton of Valais, said experts were using dental and DNA samples for the task. "All this work needs to be done because the information is so terrible and sensitive that nothing can be told to the families unless we are 100 percent sure," he said.
Athena Stavrou, Rebecca Whittaker & Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
