[Rich Goodale]

Barry Schwartz, in his book, "The Paradox of Choice" says the following:

"...when comparing the qualifications of people who are bunched at the very top of the curve, the amount of inherent uncertainty in evaluating their credentials is larger than the measureable differences among the candidates."

Now just change the word "people" to the words "golf courses" (or films or hotels or wines or Miss America contestants, or applicants to Cambridge, etc.) and you can see how futile it is to say definitively that Cypress Point is "better" or "worse" than Seminole (or even Spyglass or Dallas National).

Vive la difference......

[JESII]

Question then, Mr. Farnsworth Goodale...

Where do you draw the line of distinction?

As Tom Doak recommended with his Confidential Guide? Is it in some other manner? Surely the merits of Cypress as opposed to Spyglass are worthy of discussion, no? Perhaps over a pint (or three) in the northern regions of Scotland...

[Jeff_Brauer]

"...when comparing the qualifications of people who are bunched at the very top of the curve, the amount of inherent uncertainty in evaluating their credentials is larger than the measureable differences among the candidates."

When owners are comparing gca's, they often write the rejection letters saying "there were five great candidates, it was a difficult choice"  Those who study such presentations will tell you that in reality, while all five candidates had equal credentials, only one, and maybe a second to some degree, jumps out at them in the interview as really connecting and understanding their needs.

If we try to translate that to courses, then I suppose that its true that we deep down, emotionally, know which course "jumps out at us" if comparing two or more.  I suppose there is a scientific explanation for it, but I call it gut feel.  

The rankings are really a summary or compilation of thousands of "gut feels" and not some statistical comparison of any particluar golf course features, no?

[JESII]

Yes!

[BCrosby]

R. Farnsworth -

I share your deep skepticism about rankings. I may be even more skeptical. Golf courses - like women, wine and opera - aren't the kinds of things that are suitable to being ranked with any kind of mathematical precision. To go further and base your ordering on tiny fractional differences is simply farcical.

That does not mean that a sentence like "Cypress is a better golf course than Spyglass" is not meaningful. There are differences in quality as between courses. But those differences can't be reduced to mathematical formulae (please note the correct but little used plural form) that have any meaning. Things get even loonier when those same mathematical formulae are used to make fine grain distinctions between courses of similar quality.

Bob

P.S.  For the philosophers in the room, it strikes me that the urge to give number values to the features of a course in order to use those numbers as a basis for comparing courses rests on some old philosophical traditions. It is a reductionist notion. Reductionism used to be what people thought science was all about. That is, you reduce the unique features of a physical thing into a common language (usually math) in order to measure it and compare with other physical things on an apples to apples basis.

That works pretty well when you want to compare, say, the salinity of one glass of water with another. It's an awful methodological model for comparing Cypress Point with ANGC.  

What I am saying is that the ranking game is not a bad idea just because it yields nutty results. (which, of course, it does.) It is a bad idea because the whole enterprise rests on some nutty assumptions.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Its natural to want to compare things.  I suspect the first top ten list came out when there were a dozen courses in America......It just gets more complicated when there are 17000 courses as compared to when there were 17, 170, or 1700, and hence the math.

For all the philosphers in the room, I say we should remember the real reason rankings exist.....its to sell magazines, nothing more, nothing less. The real math is in determining how many, if any, more magazines get sold when the rankings come out, or how many golf course ads get sold.

[Doug Ralston]

Hehe;

My course rating 'method' is much too simple to have meaning to anyone but myself. I is generally just a sense of how much I do NOT want to be driving out of the parking after a round. While this 'method' offers absolutely no objectivity, it does allow ME to recommend to others, and compare their reactions with my own.

What I try NEVER to 'keep in mind' is what others have already done about rating that particular course. That is the dire wolf that devours your experience with expectations!

Doug

[Andy Troeger]

For all the philosphers in the room, I say we should remember the real reason rankings exist.....its to sell magazines, nothing more, nothing less. The real math is in determining how many, if any, more magazines get sold when the rankings come out, or how many golf course ads get sold.

Jeff,
True, but if magazines sell because of these course ratings, then that must been that a significant amount of people enjoy reading them and have an interest in the results  

[Adam Clayman]

Jeff, Is there evidence the justification is for mag sales? Or is it Ad sales?

The discussion of controversial courses on the lists are justification enough. In my miind.  Without which this site may have never been conceived.

[cary lichtenstein]

For all the philosphers in the room, I say we should remember the real reason rankings exist.....its to sell magazines, nothing more, nothing less. The real math is in determining how many, if any, more magazines get sold when the rankings come out, or how many golf course ads get sold.

Jeff,
True, but if magazines sell because of these course ratings, then that must been that a significant amount of people enjoy reading them and have an interest in the results  

Me thinks that it is not to sell magazines, but instead to sell advertising and get the ad revenue, and the developers pay for the advertising and the pr to increase the value of their golf course or development or housing or all of the above, so at the end of the day...it's all about money...it's all about the money.

Probably the group of people who seek out the best courses that magazines rank is tiny compared to the group of people that develops are trying to attract.

[Rich Goodale]

Mr. III

Subjectively

Mr.  BCrosby

"Cypress is a better golf course than Spyglass" is meaningful in only a trvial, personalized way.  It gains a little more meaning if attached to an individual (e.g. Tom Doak) or a group of inviduals (e.g. Golf Digest Raters), but not really much unless the corollary:  "..........because......" is added and elaborated upon.

There are far too many "Just because!" posts and far too few "......because......." explanations on this website.

RF

[BCrosby]

"Cypress is a better golf course than Spyglass" is meaningful in only a trvial, personalized way.  It gains a little more meaning if attached to an individual (e.g. Tom Doak) or a group of inviduals (e.g. Golf Digest Raters), but not really much unless the corollary:  "..........because......" is added and elaborated upon.

R. Farnsie -

A sentence being meaningful is a pretty low threshold. It is a sentence that has meaning but conveys little information. It needs more to be useful.

My point is that you aren't going to advance the information ball by attaching number values to things.

Bob

[Kalen Braley]

I think the rating system and such goes far beyond just trying to sell magazines.  If that were the case, then why all the top 10 and top 100 lists that are made on this site on an almost weekly basis??

I think this goes to the root of human nature on a much more primal basis.  We are competitive creatures who are constantly sizing up everyone and everything to gain an advantage or at the very least understand where we fit into the grand scheme.  Its no different that your ancient primal tribe where the biggest brute runs the show and everyone else knows thier place and gets the scraps.  At its very root, its a one off of a surivival mechanism.  We compare and contrast to one up the competition.  Its tapping into this same "drive" that allows us in the end to get money which in turn gives us better access to food, women, healthcare, status, and ensuring our DNA is propogated.

So I would claim, we do it because we can't help ourselves to not do it.

[Bryan Izatt]

Yeah, I'd agree that the ratings are silly from a "science" point of view.  But, they certainly serve as fodder for discussion and debate.  Seems natural for people to want to rate things, and then go to the mat (or war) to defend that their beliefs, expressed in their ratings, are "right".

From a science or mathematical or a statistical point of view, I guess you could say that, if the rater group was demographically representative of all golfers, then the results of the ratings might be numerically accurate within 5%, 19 times out of 20, in representing what the view of the population is.  Lots of social sciences do statistics that way.  However, in course rating I suspect that the rater group is not representative of the whole, and in the end the rating of any criteria is more of a gut reaction than it is a measure of some quantifiable attribute.  How can you quantify aesthetics or ambience, for instance.  It's in the eye of the beholder despite any set of criteria.  

And to make it worse it seems likely that many raters are rating based on one or a few plays.  Like looking at women (for us men, or men for the women out there) the first look is often colored by infatuation.  True love developing over time.  But, when were infatuation or true love ever scientific?

[Jeff Doerr]

Would it help is the numbers were posted for those ranking 101-500?

In Golfweek's last rankings #100 was
Classic - Canterbury (OH) - 6.58
Modern - Rustic Canyon (CA) - 6.68

Would it help to know that "Course X" had a rating of 6.34 and was in a tie for #223 on the Modern list?

It is interesting the on the current GW scale...

Classic

6.58 = #100
7.58 = #31
8.58 = #13
9.58 = #2

(if you added about .5 and rounded you might be close the the Doak Scale)

Modern

6.68 = #100
7.68 = #19
8.68 = #3



Just some food for thought...


Cheers, Jeff

[Mike Nuzzo]

Farnsworth,

If you gave 17,000 people a 100 question test and 2 scored 100 and 2 scored 99 is there a relative difference between those 4 as compared to the mean (which was 50)?  Relatively speaking they are way better than the others.

The test can't measure the difference between the two 100s.  One tester could be way better than the other.

The test better be perfect to measure the difference betweent the 99s and 100s.  All the question better be correct.

No magazine evaluation "test" is even close to perfect.

So in some respects it is futile, but I still think I know which 100 is the better tester.  

I agree while the treehouse has great knowledge, it could do a better job of communicating.

Cheers
 

I guess you are thinking it is a bit like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal...  the more closely you measure position the more you effect the momentum.

The Farnsworth Uncertainly Principal.

Everyone can go back to work now...

[Rich Goodale]

Mike

Even the College Board admits to only +/- 3-4% "accuracy" (so your 800's on the SATs could have really only been 770's...).  My guess is that in your example, that particular test showed no statisticly significant difference between the 4 people scoring 99 or 100.

The trouble with ranking golf courses is that it's not a mulitple choice exam, and regardless of how the questions are set up, no course in the world is anywhere near perfection.  They all have their faults, just as do wines, works of art and applicants to Cambridge.

To me, at least, analyzing each's particular charms and weaknesses in a relative sense is more enlightening and interesting than in applying any sort of mathematical symbols than > and <.


<<<see emoticon to the left.

[Matt MacIver]

I think "reviewing" anything is much more art than science, as in the end it comes down to the eye of the beholder.  And while I'll listen to (most) opinions on GCA, I'll filter out and categorize the ones I respect the most.  

Looking back on my own personal ratings I recently discovered that I like courses with some hills to them -- hilly on a 7 out of 10 scale.  AGNC is a great example -- I like that level of hilly-ness (query: is AGNC a 7/10 for all courses; I really don't know).  But if some raters own personal compass on hills is biased at 2/10, we're not gonna jive and I'm going to think less of his opinion, or rating.  

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:  I've heard both Whitten and Klein demure that their rankings are only to "sell magazines" but when I was at GOLF Magazine the editor insisted that they didn't sell any more newsstand copies of the ranking issue than any other.  I think the magazines do rankings to sell ads, to increase the stature of the magazine (if people are referring to the GOLFWEEK ranking then others want to subscribe to GOLFWEEK), and not incidentally to make contacts for the editors to gain access!

Rich:  When I wrote The Confidential Guide, the Doak scale ratings were really sort of an afterthought ... a way to temper my reviews so I could write disparaging things about the 12th at Pebble but still give it a 9, or write nice things about one or two holes at a mundane course but still give it a 4.  Naturally, though, the numbers attracted much more attention than my actual reviews.

[Dan Kelly]

Even the College Board admits to only +/- 3-4% "accuracy" (so your 800's on the SATs could have really only been 770's...).  

ForkaForkaB --

And yours could've been 832s!

Wouldn't surprise any of us one little bit.

[Mike Nuzzo]

How about this example...

A golf course can be equated to the value of a diamond.

While many wouldn't see much more value in a flawless diamond as compared to a Very Very Slightly Included version, they do cost substantially more.

They are unique.

I'd also guess that the flawless diamond does have a few atoms out of place.

[Rich Goodale]

Great analogy Nuzzers!

The punters pay huge price premia (like that plural Mr. BCosby?) for something which is only of marginally more intrinsic value.  Why?  Well, scarcity, of course, which relates diorectly to Schwatrz's theory of "The Paradox of Choice."  Lacking any internal value compass, people who are afreaid of making the "wrong" choice will opt for the "premium" brand, if they have the moolah, raegardless of what they really think it is worth, realtive to the competition.

[JMorgan]

So Rich, what do you think Barry Schwartz would suggest regarding all of these course choices -- what strategy would provide less stress and more happiness?  (I haven't read THe Paradox of Choice, but I picture a guy in therapy because he'll never get to play at all of those private, top ranked courses, which are continually changing -- not to mention all of the newly ranked public choices that are bombarding him.)  And is course rating at all correlated with happiness?

I wonder how course development could change with a better understanding of a golf consumer's decision-making process.   I am continually surprised by the number of courses -- not to mention, "best new x" courses -- that close after only a few years of operation.  

[Rich Goodale]

James

I picture those Russians who took the great risk of crossing the Iron Curtain in the 1980's and then became psychotic because they coudn't deal with the fact that there was more than one brand of soap.  And then.....

....after they had finally taken the plunge and chosen Palmolive they read a review in their local paper that Dove was in fact "better" .....

........kinda like some GCA afficionado who spends his or her hard earned cash to play Pebble and then gets told that he was wasting his money by some rater or other spolisport.....

<<<<<<<(please view emoticon to the left)

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()