[Paul Richards]

When Tom Doak said:

> The yearly golf course rankings are a barometer of what is in fashion right now.  Fashion changes.  Orange is so LAST year, and so are certain architects.


You are very correct.  

However, do NOT underestimate the ORANGE.

The Fighting Illini have painted Champaign in a sea of ORANGE.

It is this year's color, hardly last year's.




ILL   -    INI    !!!!!!!!!!!!!



 

[Paul Richards]

John Cullum:

When I read drivel like yours, it makes me want to spend even less time on this fantastic website;

> All I am saying is that for 2/3s of the rater corps, the top 10 reasons to be a rater are:

1 free golf
2 free golf
3 free golf
4 free golf
5 access
6 free golf
7 access
8 access
9 ?
10 ?

>And I dont think they know either, so you may as well put free golf down there too.



FYI, as a member of one of America's Best golf courses, I am already paying for my golf.

Playing other courses for 'free' is hardly free.  Between airline tickets, hotels and rental cars, not to mention the time, I get to play 'free' golf.  However, I have found that very few of the 'free' rounds I get to play are on courses anywhere near on par with what I have already paid for.

Free golf is far down the list for me.  In fact, it is anything but free.

Furthermore to whomever mentioned it earlier, having paid $300 to play Cascata out of my pocket and having paid about $5000 to play Pebble Beach for two rounds, sometimes being a Rater doesn't make for 'free' golf.

 

[Tom_Doak]

Pat:

Why would Ken Wynn recuse himself?  Think of how many members of Seminole are on the GOLF DIGEST panel ... and they're the ones who complained the loudest about Shadow Creek.

Paul R:

Good luck to the Illini.  Another "orange," Syracuse thinks they have a good team, too.

Michael Moore:

Yes, attitudes toward golf architecture do change, and the rankings certainly reflect that.  They might change even more if the magazines didn't all try to stabilize the rankings by various means [most notoriously, GOLF DIGEST awarding "tradition points" based in part on their previous rankings].

However, the inclusion of so many new courses so early, many of which fall out of the rankings completely five years later to make room for the latest wave, DOES call into question the meaningfulness of the rankings a bit.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Doak,

Because it's a clear conflict of interest.

Barry Von Gerbig was the one who howled when Shadow Creek made its ranking splash.  I'm not so sure about other member's involvement

Raters should be precluded from rating a course where they are a member, or any course that they, or a family member has a vested interest.

It doesn't matter if it's Seminole or Shadow Creek.

[John_Cullum]

Paul Richards

The fact that you are a member at a fine club does nothing to change my reasoning.

Everyone likes to travel. If you can subsidize your golf excursions with comps, it makes the budget alot easier to swing. It probably knocks off anywhere from 75 to 200 dollars per day.

Most of the raters are in it for free golf and access, and if you think otherwise your lyiing to yourself.

Also, where did I ever say there was something morally wrong with getting a gig that gets you free golf and access.

I find it most revealing that raters are so defensive about this.

[John_Cullum]

Paul Richards

Just a little further drivel:

I have hosted a few raters at my home course, and I totally enjoyed having them. I hope they can come back and I hope to host some more.

They get to enjoy free golf, and I get to meet new people from far away places. Its a good deal for both of us.

Hell, I'd be lying to myself if I didn't admit I envy them somewhat.

Now repeat after me: "there's nothing wrong with free golf." Say it 3 times while clicking your soft spikes together.

[Paul Richards]

John

>Most of the raters are in it for free golf and access, and if you think otherwise your lyiing to yourself.

While some are, most I have met are not.

>Also, where did I ever say there was something morally wrong with getting a gig that gets you free golf and access.


Which part of paying for a hotel and a rental car and food etc is free?  


>I find it most revealing that raters are so defensive about this.

I am not defensive about it.  It just gets tiring to read this same b.s. each year after a list comes out.  This year its you writing it.  Go to the archives, last year someone else, etc etc blah, blah, blah.

The fact is that I spend a lot of time seeing other courses when I am already paying for my membership at one of the best courses anywhere.

Nothing free about that.

I'm done.

[Brent Hutto]

Tom Doak - I agree that a spurious high (or low) ranking will change an average rating and associated ranking.  This is especially true if you throw one in if you have a low number of samples.

But there is an easy and widely accepted practice on how you recognize and address your outliers - delete them!

An easy, widely used and wrong practice is more like it.

Unless you have some reason for thinking that a piece of data is invalid (other than its value relative to other observations in the same dataset) you are cheating by deleting "outlier" observations. The accepted practice is to use an analysis technique that is robust to the presence of a few observations with very large or very small values.

People will naiively decide to use a simple arithmetic mean (average) in situations where it may be misleading. Then they notice that their simple average is highly influenced by a few observations. So immediately they want to delete those observations in order to make the average look right. In fact, the problem is that their simple summary statistic is a lousy way to analyze that dataset and they need to read a book or hire a statistician to choose a more appropriate summary statistic. But it's easier to throw out the data that you don't like.

The absolutely simplest improvement one can make in that scenario is to use the median of ratings as the summary statistic rather than the arithmetic mean rating. That is even easier to calculate than the average and avoids 99% of the problems that so-called "outlier" observations cause in the interpretation of averages.

[John_Conley]

Bumping this thing so I have a chance to read it.  Missed a week.

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