Reading any single person's ranking of the best courses in the US or world is usually kind of silly -- they are either going to stick pretty much to the status quo, or they will seem very odd, often because of the places they HAVEN'T been.
I recently re-read the 1939 ranking which Tom MacWood produced a while back ... it has been reprinted in "A Disorderly Compendium of Golf", by Lorne Rubenstein and Jeff Neuman, now in bookstores everywhere. The list of courses itself is fascinating (and not just for Foulpointe at #10, but not as fascinating as the panel which numbered 17 people as follows:
Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Robert Trent Jones, Joyce Wethered, Glenna Collett Vare, Bernard Darwin, Grantland Rice, Edward (Duke of Windsor), William D. Richardson, Arnaud Massy, Percy Alliss, Joe Kirkwood, Tom Simpson, Charles Alison, D. Scott Chisholm, and Hans Samek.
I do wonder how many of them had played in Madagascar -- possibly Hagen and Kirkwood had put it in as a joke.
P.S. to Tyler -- The private Lasker's course in Chicago was #23 on this list as well.