With the silly season of annual course rankings upon us, with some of the lists and rankings drawing extreme ridicule, and even the whole process of ranking "the best" drawing some sarcasm, it occurred to me that one list we might all agree on, down to the number, would be a list of the "Ten Most Important" golf course designs.
"Most Important" would be defined as "Having the most influence on how other courses were subsequently designed, having the most influence on how the game is played, and having the most effect on the game as we know it today."
I dare say that this is a list that is pretty easy to draw up, in comparison to any of the "Best" or "Greatest" lists now in circulation...
My list of The Ten Most Important Golf Courses:
1. The Old Course
2. Prestwick
3. Royal Dornoch
4. Cypress Point Club
5. Augusta National Golf Club
6. National Golf Links of America
7. Oakmont Country Club
8. Yale University Golf Club
9. Sand Hills Club
10. Tournament Players’ Club – Sawgrass
Coincidentally this week, I might concede that the most controversial part of the list is the omission of Harbor Town, which is a favorite on other "most important" lists I've seen. I used to think that Harbor Town was a "most important" design. It may be a "most important" course for Pete Dye, but I don't think it makes this list.
But here is the one-line rationale for all of them:
1. The Old Course. Is any explanation needed? The home of golf, the model for Old Tom, the origination of 18 holes, the one immutable influence for every importantat golf course designer in the history of golf course architecture as we know it.
2. Prestwick. The home of The Open. The original championship golf course. The original living encylcopedia of golf course "architecture." Prestwick is listed with a very deep bow of appreciation to North Berwick, incidentally. It would not bother me a bit to find a place for North Berwick on this list.
3. Dornoch. Dornoch=Donald Ross=About 10,000 courses designed by Ross, or wannabe Ross.
4. Cypress Point Club. The glorious meeting of land and sea gave us the glorious meeting of Alister MacKenzie and Robert Tyre Jones, Jr. See, ANGC.
5. For better and worse, Augusta defined American golf for the last half of the twentieth century. Oceans of green. Fast, fast fast putting surfaces. Acres of unreal blooming azaleas. Golf courses stretching from 7,000 yards toward 8,000 yards. Not to mention, annually hosting the most influential golf tournament or our time. Only pride of originality places Augusta behind CPC. Augusta, for all its evolution and current disagreeability, could well be #2 on this list.
6. The National. The first great American Golf Course, the spiritual center of the birth of golf in North America despite 100 competing claims. The American travelogue of Scottish golf, and that idea of itself became a model for the rest of American golfing history.
7. Oakmont. The model for big, brutish American Country Clubs. Length. Splashy bunkering. (Would you care to subsititute Pine Valley? Be my guest, except that for all of its obvious merits, I don't think Pine Valley has anything like the visibility and influence as Oakmont.)
8. Yale. Is this controversial? I'd think not. The original "mega-project." The taking of dumpy, inhospitable swampland around New Haven, and, in the biggest dollar-amount project golf had ever known (and ever would know, for decades to follow), transformed it into a MacDonald/Raynor work of art. Even if the course itself did not become an influential model, this 'project' certainly did. Americans would, thereafter, build a golf course ANYWHERE.
9. Sand Hills. From before the time it opened, the most influential design work to kick off the 21st century. (Starting about seven or eight years before the century did.) Surely, every great course "built" since Sand Hills ("built" in quotes since there wasn't much building), from the Bandon courses to Sebonack to Friar's Head to even the new/ancient Askernish, probably owes something to the idea of Sand Hills, if not the course itself.
10. TPC Sawgrass. Why can't Pamela Anderson be on a list of "most influential beauties"? This is what Stadium Golf is. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less. This might not have been the first Stadium Course. It's the one that has stuck, though. Golf architecture cognoscenti might sneer, but this is what people the world over really think about in terms of "tour golf."
I've left off some great courses. Pinehurst. (See, Dornoch.) Pebble Beach. (See, CPC.) Shinnecock Hills. (See, NGLA.) Chicago GC. (Ditto.) Winged Foot. (See, Oakmont.) Muirfield, N. Berwick, Troon, Turnberry. Royal St. George's. (The first great residential/golf evelopment? I'd love to find a place on the list for RSG.) Merion. All of the great Tillinghast courses. The LA triumverate of Riviera, Bel Air and LACC. The desert courses. The Melbourne sandbelt courses. All great. All important.
But those courses didn't have the influence of the ones I've listed, for the reasons stated. By the way, I seemed to recall a similar thread on this subject matter, but "search" didn't find anything for me. I know there'll be some disagreement. This is the 'net, after all. But I think this kind of list merits a lot more studied agreement than a "Best" or "Greatest" list.