BBQ System et.al. at GOLF Magazine

[redanman]

Hopeless.

BBQ System used for sompiling the Topp 100 you can play, etc is also in the new GOLF magazine.  BBQ?  Bang for Buck Quotient.  THE 100 point scale* *(subject to editorial adjustment - seriously) uses six factors to rank said courses.

Price?!?!
Slope
Conditioning
Pace
WOW  factor (PBGL=10)
Aesthetics or some such rot (didn't buy the mag, just read in Wegman's)

Certainly for the Golf Magazine's mass-market crowd, slope ought to be negatively weighted.  

Does anyone except a rules puke (or persons outside this or S&M boards) really understand slope and its implications for the 18+ handicapper?  

Pebble Beach was given a 3.7 (out of 5 not 10) pace rating (Don't show me a 3.0 2 or god forbid a 1 (Honey, may I have that gun to stick in my mouth, please?)

Also, the definition section of architecture and course terms included:

Cape (mis-defined) as the tee shot not the hole
Redan (Holding up #7 Shinnecock as a good example)

and my favorite

Riveted bunkers.  Rivited.

It's a long uphill battle.


 



(Sorry Scratch, I love ya, man )

[THuckaby2]

I was wondering when someone would comment on this month's Golf Mag.  It truly is a gold-mine of architectural misinformation.

As for the BBQ though, hell I kinda like it.  Oh yes, it's pretty silly, both in the definitions and in some of the ratings... Good lord yes, if Pebble gets that pace of play rating, what must a place that one can actually play fast on a normal day get?

But anyway, I've always thought "bang for the buck" would be a good thing to try and compile... it sure as hell does matter to the vast majority of golfers.  So I give kudos to Golf Mag for making the attempt.

And I'm sure they will tweak this over time and get it right.  For now, it is a good try and I'm glad they are doing it.

TH

[Evan Fleisher]

I was all excited that Golf Magazine had come up with a way to determine which clubhouses out there served the best ribs and pulled-pork sandwiches, but to my dismay...

...try again GM!!!  

[Mike Vegis @ Kiawah]

I believe all of the numbers for this rating come from the rankings of golfcourse.com, a site put out by Golf Magazine (aka - golfonline.com) that strictly focuses on individual golf courses...

[Scott_Burroughs]

I believe all of the numbers for this rating come from the rankings of golfcourse.com, a site put out by Golf Magazine (aka - golfonline.com) that strictly focuses on individual golf courses...

That sounds like they're using the readers' online votes as criteria, thus making it just like GD's Places to Play guide, which is readers' votes.

[THuckaby2]

Yes, it is "revetted."

Now as for the rating system, redanman I think yours works great for ratings in general.  All of those things do matter.  But if we really are going to make this a bang for the buck list, well then price has to matter more than 10%.  I'd do it like this:

0-30 for architectural excellence
(no one cares that much about architectural excellence outside of people who do it for a living and readers of this forum.  That being said, it is the crux of the whole thing.  So make it 30.)
+
0-15 for conditioning
(that does matter.  Bad conditions make it hard to have fun, great conditions make it hard not to have fun.)
+
0-25 for price
(bang for the buck, remember?  Less bucks ought to be given huge weight.  We need to also make this somehow relative to other courses around... That is, extra points for being 50% or less of local CCFADs, etc.)

+
0-10 for playability/pace Heck use: slope (10=<130, 0=>130), I'm pretty certain it will be a logarithmic plot
+
0-10 for scenery (Including cart girls? 10 for busty redheads, 0 for Russian shotputters on steroids?)
+
0-10 for Intangibles such as scenery, service, single malt selection....
_______
100 max

Whaddya think?

[George Pazin]

Ultimately, the person doing the rating matters a lot more than the criteria. Me, I like my redheads long and lean.

I like both Bill and Tom's lists, though ultimately I'd only want to evaluate architecture and price, with maybe a small element for conditioning. I guess I'd probably like to at least see the pace stuff, too, though I don't know if I'd include it in a rating.

[THuckaby2]

Thanks Tom,
(If you look carefully, I have a 20 point scale for price!)

now if someone else will join in........we might have a  discussion  

Aha, so you do.  So we be closer than I thought.  In any case, I do like the system!

TH

[A_Clay_Man]

In the "Matt Ward Scale" thread, Herr Doak questioned "the list" that the critic or ranker ( for TP ) often uses.

Is it me, or are these not the same kind of stuff.

Honestly, what does the single malt selection have to do with anything? (I suppose, I have become accustomed to the no public drinking laws, that are pervasive in this Mormon dominated region.)

But even conditioning should'nt effect the quality of the golf course built, or layed-out. If it did, why should we all be so accepting of punched fairways and greens? Temporary obstacles, that's all they are.

Where's the short-game interest? Shaping and contours?  The recoverabilty aspects? The flow and variety? These are the not so intangible intangibles that I have found on great courses.

It's on the one's that don't know they're great, or act like they're great, where Bang means something to this buckaroo.

[THuckaby2]

Adam:  this is obviously all in the eye of the beholder. I have absolutely no doubt that what you find worthwhile will be a whole hell of a lot different from the scales redanman and I are putting forth.  But of course, if either of us based it on what we personally like, the scales would be VERY different also.

I think we're trying to base this on what Joe Q. Public values and finds important.

And to that end, I kinda like these scales.  But of course them remain very imperfect.

TH

TH

[Dan Kelly]

But of course them remain very imperfect.

Oh, them do, do them? Says whom?

[THuckaby2]

 

Oh man, that was a good one.  Me's thinks them's are good criterias.

 

[A_Clay_Man]

Bill- I wasn't picking on the scotch (saints be praised) it could've easily been the busty cart girl. Point being, it wasn't about the golf.

I think we're trying to base this on what Joe Q. Public values and finds important.

TH- This is worth exploring further. Do you mean Joe Q SixPack public golfer, or the single malt crowd? Or the hickory swingin sheep ranch frolicking mega eccentric golfers?

Because Jeff, Joe Q sixpack golfer does'nt really see that far, to appreciate a vista. Especially since he really likes not paying for a cart, but the archie just made him climb 150' to get to see something he's bending over trying to catch his breath, not seeing. Ala Pete Dye's course in Carmel, where he came back to fix it for a buck. Carmel Valley ranch, that's it. He didn't fix the 11th. That's for sure!

[THuckaby2]

Adam:  I gather you take it there is no such thing as an "average golfer"?

If so, you make a great point.  We all do look at golf differently, that's for sure.

BUT... I remain convinced that there are far more golfers to whom conditions, cost and frills are important than there are those for whom architecture trumps all other considerations.  This rating system attempts to consider the issues important to that majority.

As for the CVR example, well, you lost me there.  But I enjoyed reading that!

TH

[George Pazin]

Unless one is specifically targeting and stating that the goal is to give the average golfer what they want, I totally disagree with the idea that the ratings should reflect this notion.

[THuckaby2]

Unless one is specifically targeting and stating that the goal is to give the average golfer what they want, I totally disagree with the idea that the ratings should reflect this notion.

What if that's exactly what I am trying to do?  Would that be a bad thing?

I can't see many people being against a high "bang for one's buck".  Can you?

TH

[pdrake]

Maybe that is how they come up with Pebble's green fee.........3.7 pace rating per $100 = $370.  Close to what they charge!  

[George Pazin]

If that is your goal, no, there's nothing wrong with that.

That is not the same thing as giving people a high bang for their buck. You seemed to imply weighting non-architectural elements more because that's what Joe Six Pack is looking for. I'd rather see a ranking that is telling Joe where he might want to spend his dollars, if he is looking for a good, fun, interesting golf course. Leave the other elements to the travel guides.

[THuckaby2]

If that is your goal, no, there's nothing wrong with that.

That is not the same thing as giving people a high bang for their buck. You seemed to imply weighting non-architectural elements more because that's what Joe Six Pack is looking for. I'd rather see a ranking that is telling Joe where he might want to spend his dollars, if he is looking for a good, fun, interesting golf course. Leave the other elements to the travel guides.

Well George, look at the percentages... the things that are outside of the golf course proper are given pretty low weight even in my system.  I just don't agree that they should be given no weight at all, for anyone really, but particularly for Joe Sixpack.  Ambience, amenities and the like do matter - they can make a good golf experience great, or make what should have been a good golf experience bad, on the other extreme.  But to say they don't matter at all... well... of course if we are judging the merits of the architecture of a course, they don't mean shit.  But that is NOT what is being measured here. I'm trying to measure bang for the buck.

See, what I'd like to do is most definitely try and give Joe a guide to where he'd find a good, fun, interesting golf course.  But I'm also gonna let him know if at said course there's also other cool stuff he'll get, or service, or whatever.  And then if he also gets that other stuff at a low price, well voila, you have a great place at which to spend one's dollars and time.

Please understand also that unnecessary, over the top frills that cause a course to cost too much would get NEGATIVE points here... By that I mean, if you have a great, fun course with an over the top mega clubhouse, it's most likely going to mean much higher green fees, and so the points for cost will be much lower....

But if you have the same thing, with a cool library in it and a great bar with a great view, many beers on tap, friendly atmosphere AND a low green fee, well... people need to know about it, because such a place would be very special, and ought to get credit for so being.

Perfect examples are Rustic Canyon and Lost Canyons, in SoCal.  Rustic has no frills, LC is nothing but frills.  LC will get some points for having such frills, but they will be overwhelmed by the loss of points in the cost category, such that in the end, Rustic will beat LC BIG time in the overall score.  But I'd publish the individual category scores, so that for those who care more about frills and less about cost or architecture (and such people do exist), well they know where to go, regardless of the overall score.

Does this make better sense?

TH

[THuckaby2]

One more thing:  I'd also publish all details of the ratings also, so that people who DON'T care about frills, well, that part is easy to factor out and they can weigh things accordingly.  I'm not exactly clear how to do this, but I'm sure someone smart could set up the math to make it easy to see how the scores shake down with and without certain categories included.

TH