Mark - well, I guess there's no saving this puppy.
Thanks for that detailed post -- to me (the anti-Tufte) it seems a comprehensive data-set, and excellent for that. (RP - thanks for introducing me to Tufte; I wikipedia-ed him this morning.)
I'm trying to see what would happen if we took the 'subjective' out of golf course architecture review/analysis. And, Lyne and Bob C -I don't mean that in the way a Joshua Crane might, i.e. he never seemed to let his right hand know what his left hand was doing; he tried to eliminate subjectivity via his rankings, but introduced that very thing (his own subjectiivty) through the categories he chose and in the relative weight he gave them, IMHO.
Believe me, I understand the value of subjective experience of a golf course/golf course architecture; that is my way, in fact. But a golf course is an objective fact - it can be measured; the actual/objective playing of it by wide range of golfers can be mapped (via Mark's graph, including the Kirk Effect).
If we are so determined to forever keep talking about "great architecture" and "Number 1 courses" and to obsess over creating the "best of" lists, might not the golf architects and the courses themselves be better and more accurately served by focusing on this objective graph/map? (At the very least, it might temper the breathless enthusiams or corrosive negativity that comes with the written/subjective version-- though I won't even argue that this is a good thing...)
And, so mapped, might we just find that the 'objective' architecture (and the objective playing experience that it engenders) of the best courses by designers so apparently diverse as Fazio, Moran, Mackenzie, Nicklaus, Dye, RTJ, Doak, Ross, Devries, Brauer, Ross etc. etc, has a lot more in common than our changing and subjective 'tastes' would suggest?
Peter