Voting Closes 10/4: World's Greatest Courses Ballot

[Ian_L]

Hi All,

You may remember late last year there was a rather lengthy thread asking members to nominate courses they considered to be one of the top 100 in the world ( http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,37695.0.html ).  We now have a total of 412 courses to vote on  (using the Doak Scale) to achieve a final list of the world's greatest 100 courses.  It would be greatly appreciated if you could follow the link below and take a couple of minutes to complete the survey.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cGZwM2RuNE9XTHVkRE5oZWM0dFFmUVE6MA

Special thanks to Tom D for his help compiling a list of international courses, as well as Jonathan for his statistics help.  Thanks also to everyone who made comments on the process.  Feel free to continue the discussion below.

More information on voting:
-Please vote only on courses you have played.
-Vote only in the range of 5-10 (to avoid voter manipulation)
-Make sure to complete page 2 of the ballot.  If you need to access only page 2, you can find it at http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=cGZwM2RuNE9XTHVmSm50UWx3bmpfWmc6MA . BUT, make sure to complete page 1 first.
-Use your GCA user name to avoid duplicate entries.  Your vote will remain confidential.


NOTE: This is not an official GCA activity, nor has it been endorsed by GCA.com .  Thanks to Ran for allowing me to conduct this experiment.

I will be bumping this thread every so often so everyone has a chance to vote.


EDIT: A word document is now attached if you would like to print and fill out the ballot before voting.  The ballot is three pages long.

[Ian_L]

More specifics:

There will actually be two lists created.  The first will give equal weight to all voters, while the second will give more "experienced" raters a higher weighting in the poll.  In other words, if you have played more courses, your vote will be worth more.

[Sean Walsh]

Ian,

Is the Ballyliffin listing for Glashedy or The Old?

[Matthew MacKay]

When will the survey be closed?

[Donal Breasail]

Fair Play Ian ,looks like a very lenthly process .I 'm looking forward to seeing the final lists.

[Dieter Jones]

Ian, I just read the bit about only voting in the 5-10 range. If you have played a course and genuinely feel it is a 4 at best (as I do with a certain course in Kensington) - should I not vote at all for that course or give it the mark i feel it deserves?

[TEPaul]

Why in the world would I consider that list to vote on the 100 greatest golf courses since it doesn't even have the great Fernandina Beach Municipal GC on the ballot!?

[Anthony Gray]

  How do you get to page 2?

  Anthony

[Gary Slatter]

great effort.  Like Anthony I can not get page two to load.

[Scott Warren]

If you click submit on page one you get a link to page two.

[Gary Slatter]

please publish the link to page two as now I can't get back to it without during page one again.

Unfortunately like Dieter I also feel there are a few courses that I have played on the list that should be less than five.  I see that these will will be discarded.

[Jason Topp]

When this is done I would be interested in seeing the range of number of courses played.

[Tom_Doak]

Ian:

I did cast my vote, and I hope it will remain somewhat confidential, or I'm going to have a few ticked-off clients!

I would recommend anyone posting set aside at least a half hour to do so, it takes a while.  In fact, it might be a very good idea to post a full listing of the courses which somebody could print off and fill out by hand first if they want to weigh their votes before casting them ... the software does not seem to allow for modifications once you've submitted the vote.  That wasn't a problem for me, because I'm very familiar with the Doak scale and have rated most of these courses before, but not everyone here is used to participating in rankings.

[Mike Benham]

... somewhat confidential ...

Like pregnancy, you either are or aren't ...

[Tom_Doak]

Mike:

It's one thing for people to see how many courses I've voted on ... it's another for them to see how I rated every one of them.  And I'm guessing I would hear a lot more squawking about my votes than you will about yours.

But, you're right, it's either confidential or it isn't, and I probably should have waited to vote until I found out the terms.  I just promised months ago that I'd participate, so I did.

[Kalen Braley]

Mike:

It's one thing for people to see how many courses I've voted on ... it's another for them to see how I rated every one of them.  And I'm guessing I would hear a lot more squawking about my votes than you will about yours.

But, you're right, it's either confidential or it isn't, and I probably should have waited to vote until I found out the terms.  I just promised months ago that I'd participate, so I did.

Tom,

If it makes you feel any better, I voted as well, so if we're both out'd I'll be feeling the pain too! 

[George Freeman]

Ian,

Do you plan on posting the entire list of outcomes, on top of just the top 100?  It would be interesting to see where all these great courses fall.

- George

[Rich Goodale]

Good work, Ian, although I agree with Tom that it would be more user friendly if one could print out the list before trying to tick all the boxes.  Another comment is that while your initial post says to rate only courses you have played, the questionnaire says to also rate courses you know well.  I voted on the latter basis, including Augusta, which I have not visited or played but "know" well, as well as a couple of other courses I have walked but not played.  A few other comments:

1.  I think that individual ratings should be kept confidential unless the rater agrees to them being made public.
2.  In this light, I also think that raters should have the right to change their ratings for individual courses, given that some of them (i.e. me) have not really looked at all of the courses as holistically as I probably should have.
3.  Finally there are several courses I have played which are "top 100" material (i.e. 8+ on the Doak Scale, IMO) but which are not on your list.  There should be a facility for adding such courses and having them rated.
4.  I'll be playing at least 5 of the courses on the list for the first time over the next month or so.  Can I add my ratings for these once I have played them?  Grouping this with 2 and 3 above, I think the system should be dynamic rather than static.

Cheers

Rich

[Sean_A]

3.  Finally there are several courses I have played which are "top 100" material (i.e. 8+ on the Doak Scale, IMO) but which are not on
Cheers

Rich

Rihc

Ian went through a rather long nominating process that was quite extensive to come up with nearly 500 courses world wide.  Doak questioned the need for this many and you want to add more?

Ciao

[Peter Pratt]

I agree that individual votes should be kept confidential. No one would really care about my votes, but they would about some folks', especially the architects. They may decline to participate, and that would be a loss.

[Ian_L]

Here is the link to Page 2 of the survey: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=cGZwM2RuNE9XTHVmSm50UWx3bmpfWmc6MA..

Sean, I will have to look this up, I'll have your answer in a few hours.

Matt, I have not decided yet when the survey will be closed.  It will depend on when participation eases off.  You shouldn't expect to see results for at least a few weeks, however.

Dieter/Gary, I would recommend giving the course a 5.  I realize this isn't ideal, but it's likely that if you are giving a course a 5 or lower, it won't make the top 100 in the world anyway.  In a previous survey we had several instances of members giving courses like Pebble, Pacific Dunes, etc. a 1, so this is an attempt to mitigate these effects.

Tom and everyone else, I will be the only person who sees your name by your results in the ballot.  You can rest assured I will not share this information with anyone else.  I meant to mention this in the survey instructions, but I must have forgotten.

George, I will likely post the top 150 or 200.  After that, the results become rather meaningless since we can't vote a course less than a 5.  If you would like that info I can certainly provide it to you, however.

Rich:
1. Your results will remain confidential.  The user name is required simply to ensure that users do not vote twice, and track users if a mistake is made.

2. Feel free to contact me by personal message if you would like to change your votes.  I can delete your previous ballot and you can submit a new one. If you only need to change one or two votes, I can just go in and edit it manually, since I have your user name.

3.  Unfortunately there's really no way to add courses to the ballot once the voting has started.  As Sean said we had a nomination process earlier, and I'm sorry the courses you are referring to were not nominated.

4.  Same as 2, I can add them for you if you contact me personally.

[Ian Andrew]

Well done Ian - that was easy to do and easy to use. I can't wait to see the results.

It reminded me of how much more I want to see! At least my Australian Trip this year should solve some of that....

Tom's suggestion of a half an hour is about right.

The "Other" Ian

[Mark Bourgeois]

Here is the link to Page 2 of the survey: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=cGZwM2RuNE9XTHVmSm50UWx3bmpfWmc6MA..

Dieter/Gary, I would recommend giving the course a 5.  I realize this isn't ideal, but it's likely that if you are giving a course a 5 or lower, it won't make the top 100 in the world anyway.  In a previous survey we had several instances of members giving courses like Pebble, Pacific Dunes, etc. a 1, so this is an attempt to mitigate these effects.

Ian, there's a falacy in here. The problem is not outliers but the yardstick.

Don't use averages like the mags do, use the mode instead. This is a truer representation of what you are trying to accomplish. You will get a clearer picture of what the *group* thinks.

Please give serious consideration to this approach - it will let everyone give whatever score they want!

Mark

[Ed Oden]

3.  Finally there are several courses I have played which are "top 100" material (i.e. 8+ on the Doak Scale, IMO) but which are not on
Cheers

Rich

Rihc

Ian went through a rather long nominating process that was quite extensive to come up with nearly 500 courses world wide.  Doak questioned the need for this many and you want to add more?

Ciao

Sean, for what its worth, there are courses not listed which are, in my opinion, worthy of consideration.  But they have no hope of getting the requisite votes, so I didn't bother to nominate or second any of them.

Ed

[Tom_Doak]

Rich G:

I am dying to know of any course which is an 8 on the Doak scale and didn't make this ballot.  Please post your thoughts here, or in a separate thread.