Should ratings be based solely on shot value, strategy and options ?

[Brian_Gracely]

So Shivas, in essense you're saying that LACC (North) is the greatest course in the world because it's ranked in the Top 100 for it's golfing prowess, and because it's adjacent to Heff's Mansion?  

[Mike_Cirba]

Why isn't anybody answering my hypo?  I'll admit it -- I'd rather play Pine Meadow or whatever if I got to watch 7 holes of extracirricular dual X chromosome activity than Shoreacres without it any day of the week.  

Shivas;

Simply because your hypothetical is preposterous!  

If that type of activity was happening adjacent to seven holes anywhere, anyone who would be thinking about course comparisons at the time would either be dead or a madman.  

[Brian_Gracely]

So Shivas, in essense you're saying that LACC (North) is the greatest course in the world because it's ranked in the Top 100 for its golfing prowess, and because it's adjacent to Heff's Mansion?

[ForkaB]

Rich,

You seem to be arguing for the temporality of options and inpermanance of shot values.  

Given that an option that might exist for one player doesn't necessarily exist for another, or even that an option that exists for one player on one day at a particular moment in time might not exist an hour later, is a perceived option that isn't realistically viable or feasible really an option?

You got it pardner!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ed Getka,

Then why isn't Old Head ranked in the top 10 ?

Andy Hughes,

You're still missing the concept.

Let me try to explain it differently.

Four golfers can play a golf course differently, but, for each, there may be only one practical line of play, one strategy, one option, even though the golf course can offer four or more practical lines of play, strategies and options.

Rich Goodale,

Reread Shivas post in the context of a man who sings the praises of Medinah to the nth degree.

Shivas,

Who would you select as raters, based on your criteria, and what would be the categories for the rating criteria ?

[ForkaB]

Pat

Reading shivas' posts is torture enough--re-reading them is beyond the pale.

[TEPaul]

"Unless, of course, you understand that shot values, strategies and options are all relative and experientially based (particularly in terms of time dependency)....... "

Rich:

Did you actually say that or was Pat channeling through you??

I don't know what's going on with the way Pat describes things recently. I think perhaps he read a few paragraphs of Max Behr or something and has come down with a bad case of grandiloquence!

[ed_getka]

Patrick,
  If you will look back you will see that I said your listed criteria should be given the most weight IMO. Old Head doesn't meet those criteria, based on what everyone has posted about it. Thus it has no business in the top 10, and is not. For me if a course doesn't meet your criteria, the best views in the world are not going to help. I may see Old Head one day but there are at least 500-600 I plan on seeing before that.
   I can assure you that I would much prefer hiking up in the Sierra Nevada, than trekking halfway around the world to see a mediocre course with great views.

[THuckaby2]

I ought to have learned by now to stay out of other people's fights... but....

Those who believe there are 500-600 courses more worth seeing than Old Head... and for whom perceived strategic shortcomings make it not worth seeing at all... need to see it, and play it, themselves.  If that's a bad golf course than I am Abe Lincoln.  Oh, it is horribly overpriced... and it sets a horrid precedent the way it screws the locals... and perhaps its strategic values are less than other nearby courses...

But it is also the single most amazing golf course I have played on this planet. I'd play it again tomorrow just for the shock and awe involved there.  If I was rich, that is.  

And that has to count for something, one way or the other.

Now back to your battles on how courses should be rated....

 

[Sean_A]

I think Shivas has it right.  Trust others to develop informed opinions.  Trying to make a science of this stuff is silly.  It is not science.  If anything, architecture is much closer to art, treat it as such.

Ciao

Sean  

[Dan King]

Patrick_Mucci
Should a golf course be rated solely on the values it presents, in the form of shot values, strategy and options ?

Sort of depends on your motive. If your motivation is to make the ratings even less meaningful than they already are, then yes that would be a really good method.

If you were only rating on those three values would there really be any reason the golf course has to exist in the real world? Wouldn't is be easier, cheaper and better to develop cyber courses rather than real courses. Would a golf course on real land stand a chance against a decent cyber course?

Dan King

I have begun to rate golf courses by the number of balls you need. For instance if a course is a one-ball course, assuming it has all the usual features, I think it's a great course. But a 12-ball course I think is rubbish. That's my basic criticism of Jack Nicklaus courses. They are very much like the man himself, very serious and lacking in humor.
 --Peter Thomson

[Patrick_Mucci]

Shivas,

Who would you select as raters, based on your criteria, and what would be the categories for the rating criteria ?

Well, Pat, I'm not sure that I'd establish rating criteria, per se.  I guess I can see some arguments for it, but then again this all boils down to personal preferences, so who really cares WHY people like what they like.  All that matters is that they DO.

With that, I'd probably try to pick guys who care enough about the game and its history to have studied the evolution of golf courses and the philosophies behind the evolution.  If they've done that, I wouldn't really care what their preferences are, whether it be classical vs. modern or penal vs. strategic or quirky vs. ballstriking test or whatever.  It would just be important to me that they understand what they're looking at and playing.  And, given that, if they're SOOO wowed by the views at Old Head that they want to rank it highly despite its strategic shortcomings, then so be it.  At least it was an informed decision, based on what they liked, whatever that might be.  I'd also want them to be able to play a little.  I really woudn't care about their handicap so much as I'd want them to be able physically to hit the shots that would allow them to fully appreciate the shot values the course offers.  

That's a pretty nebulous answer, or rather, NON-answer.

I'd appreciate it if you could be specific, after all, Brad Klein has been specific.  He's formulated criteria and selected a broad spectrum of raters throughout the country.

I'd like to see the specifics of your program.[/color]

[Patrick_Mucci]

Rating criteria are essentially restraints on the free market of preferences.  If a guy likes playing LA North because he gets a woodie just thinking about what's on the other side of the fence, and that makes his round more enjoyable and he likes the course because of it, well then, that's just the way it is.  He likes La North and there's not a damn thing anybody can do about it.

With each individual providing their personal impression, without any standards, guidelines or criteria your rating system would be a joke.

Rater A:  I liked it
Rater B:  I played lousy, I didn't like it.

Question to Rater A and Rater B:
Why did you feel that way about the golf course ?
Answer:  I dunno, I just did.

That sounds like a hell of a system.[/color]

[Doug Siebert]

I was going to jump in and defend Old Head but Tom Huckaby beat me to it, and did it quite well.

Why is it that people seem to have it out for that course?  Is it because of their treatment of the locals against the tradition of public spaces in GB&I, is it the fact that the land is so amazing that they feel consensus world #1 course could have been built there if some GCA favorites like C&C or Doak had a shot at it or is it sort of based on the same reasoning why I'm not a big Tiger fan, because it(he) was overhyped so much based on unlimited potential that you just gotta kinda snicker when he it(he) turns out to not be perfection defined after all.

[ed_getka]

Doug,
  I haven't been to Old Head, but I would be interested in what you think is so good about it? Also, what courses that have been done by the "favored few" would you rate it higher than? What UK courses that are highly regarded here would you put it ahead of?
   For a UK comparison that I could relate to please put these courses in order of your opinion of them: Old Head, Murcar, Dornoch, Cruden Bay, TOC, Elie, North Berwick. Please base the comparison on the golf course primarily, as views aren't a factor that elevate a course for me.

Patrick,
   See how easy it was for Shivas to acknowledge a point you made. I promise we won't think less of you.
 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Shivas,

You system would be at the mercy of those who played well, as well.

And, your system lacks any definable criteria or methods of intellectual expression.

Ed Getka,

It's easy for him to acknowledge my point, I'm correct  

When someone makes a good point, I too will acknowledge it.

But, the waiting is hell.

[ed_getka]

Doug,
  Also, is Old Head worth the steep green fee? I will never play Shadow Creek for $500, because even though it is a pretty good to great course, by all accounts, it is not worth it to me. What would you consider a reasonable green fee for Old Head, for the quality of golf you get there?

Patrick,
   I'm patient.

[THuckaby2]

Ed:

Stepping in for Doug, which seems ok given he was just echoing what I said for the most part....

Can't say whether Old Head is worth the steep green fee for sure, because that is so personal and subjective.  Let's just say I had no great reticence paying it, because I was there ONCE and was not gonna put a price tag on my good time.  If I was going to Ireland all the time, I'd likely not want to pay it bloody well often, that's for sure.

I'd say a reasonable green fee for Old Head is to just make it the same as Ballybunion, Lahinch, whatever.  They are ALL pretty damn expensive for visitors now, but what the hell you get to play, so "reasonable" is hard to figure.

Making it cost more than those courses seems unreasonable.  And I'm pretty sure it does.

But in any case, Old Head remains among the most spectacular golf courses on this planet, and just needs to be seen.  And it's not all about the views, though those are incredible.  There are a LOT of fun golf shots to be faced there, some that you won't find anywhere else.... like the tee shots on 2 and 3 and 12 and 18 from the tips, just off the top of my head, working from 5 year old memories.. not many other places where one could die falling off a tee.  Steady with those swings and keep that balance.  

Those who complain about lack of strategy, architecture, whatever at Old Head need to refocus their priorities, I think.  OK sure, maybe if Doak were allowed to do the course, it would have come out better.  But calling what's there anything but great, well... I gotta wonder what game one plays.

TH

[Patrick_Mucci]

Shivas, et. al.,

The GOAL of the ratings is determined at the outset by the criteria for each category.

I don't mnd the ratings, I just disagree with some of the results.

[Doug Siebert]

Ed,

Once again Tom Huckaby pretty much said what I was going to -- I think we are of like minds WRT Old Head.

I think you are off base if you ask me to compare Old Head to TOC North Berwick, et al on just the golf course and not the setting.  That's like the "how good would Pebble Beach be if you transplanted it to a field in the middle of nowhere" threads you see here from time to time.  I don't deny that the setting is part of it, but even if you don't believe setting is important this is probably about the most spectacular setting you can imagine.  It makes Pebble Beach or CPC look like they ARE in the middle of a field by comparison.

Given how extreme the penalties for being offline obviously are on some of the holes, and the course's precarious perch so high up in one of the windiest parts of one of the windiest countries around, I think its a pretty good accomplishment just to make the thing playable for all levels of player.  It makes wide look narrow, narrow look wide, gives you confusing stuff (like the bunkers on the inside of #4's dogleg recently discussed here) that can act as "stay away" for higher handicaps playing from the up tees from one angle, or act as an sighting line to tempt better players from the angle of the tips to perhaps foolishly attempt to cut the dogleg over the cliff.  Maybe its because I was playing back by myself and my dad and a couple other members of our group were playing a couple sets up and just seeing what their shots looked like versus mine, and hearing their reactions to various features versus how I saw them really brought this out for me.

Just for grins, of the courses you named I've played Dornoch, TOC and North Berwick.  I'd put TOC first, North Berwick second if you go purely by the golf, Old Head second if you allow setting to enter into it, and Dornoch last.  Though before the GCA RD membership contingent skewers me, I hasten to add that I only played Dornoch once, in 1991, and didn't really think it was all it was cracked up to be.  Perhaps because there wasn't a whole lot of wind, and I'd played eight days in a row by that point and sometimes get a pretty good swing going when I do that.  I just tore the place up, and if I could have putted would have finished under par since I had makeable birdie or eagle putts on nearly half the holes.  I tend to knock down courses that I don't find sufficiently challenging, but I'm planning to revisit it on my next trip to Scotland.  Anyway, it was a LONG time ago, on my first overseas visit, and if I'm about a 4 in architectural knowledge today I was a 2 then, so maybe Dornoch boosters can just believe I was too stupid to recognize greatness, and might even be correct

Of the courses I played on last summer's visit to Ireland, I'd rate them:

Ballybunion Old
Lahinch
Old Head
Tralee
Waterville
Killeen
Mahoney's Point (but I have no idea how this is on anyone's list of places worth visiting in Ireland, and think its 18th being in Tom Doak's "all scenic 18" just has to be a misprint that will be corrected if he ever does a new edition of the CG )