Hi Mark. Hope you're doing well.
I'm one of a few that does rankings for Golf Australia magazine (which generates a more accurate list IMHO), and also Aust Golf Digest. There are several things I'd immediately change with the way AGD goes about it's rankings, as they undermine the integrity of the result. The criteria is one of them but as Rich stated, many panellists stray from this, I'm sure.
The drought was a factor for some. I was under pressure from several quarters to downgrade RM for example due to it's poor conditioning. Some of those thoughts were valid, as RM seemed to manage the drought worse than others. Their greens sufferred for a time, where they were so poorly conditioned that the course really just wasn't herself. Square yards of fairway were bereft of grass less than 6 months ago. The drought is obviously responsible for this, and the Club has done great work in securing more water for the future. But when in a given ranking period, the Clubs on the same page of the street directory are presented in better condition, and one of them is a $20 public course, what does one do?
I take your point, and Mike is correct too. RM's architecture is that far ahad of anything else here it's not funny. Architecture should be the be all and end all when considering course quality, and no water shortage diminishes that in the long-term.
As an aside (and an interesting point to consider when asssessing course quality) a friend counts the number of shots to play at a given course, which cause him to day-dream or salivate with anticipation in the day(s) prior to playing there. It's a subjective kind of measure, yet when you list courses in brackets of whether they provide 0, 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16+ such moments of eager anticipaton (even on the drive to the course) you start to get a reliable ranking of course quality.
Matthew