[David Stamm]

.....different from what you consider the best you've played? Are your favorites not neccesarily the very best you've played?

[Ken Moum]

The problem in your question lies, as it commonly does, in the definition of best.

I am a short-hitting, crooked, eight handicapper with a pretty darned good short game.

I like golf courses that let me find my tee shots and play them up in the vicinity of the green--where I can practice my true craft.

So, I like 6,000-yard courses with wide fairways and not too many trees or deep rough. And if I am allowed to be picky, I want small greens that lie comfortably on the land--not too many goofy mounds around them and please spare me the artificially elevated variety.

So some of my favorite courses aren't what you'd call great. But I really like Albuquerque CC, and it's not great. I also like Winfield (KS) CC, where I played today, and no one is going to mistake it for greatness.

Others might be great, Brora for instance.

Dornoch is supposedly great, but I didn't "get" it on the one play--it's just too damned hard. But then I was playing like a puke and may have been influenced by my incompetance.  But I played Brora a day later and loved the place.

So, most of my favorite courses aren't great, and I suspect a lot of the greats would leave me unimpressed.

K

[ed_getka]

"k" nailed it. It is how you define best. My favorite course is Sand Hills, but I would say the best course I have played is Royal Dornoch. I define best as a course that tests all aspects of your game fairly equally. I break it down into tee shots, approach shots, short game, and putting demands. I find RD to be the course that bests fits my criteria. Sand Hills I find is a little too forgiving off the tee (although not this year after all the rain).
   I think in general when speaking about best courses there needs to be some criteria given otherwise it is too subjective. It will be subjective as it is, but without parameters it just seems more so. For example, if asked what the best championship course is it is not uncommon for Shinnecock to be picked. For best set of greens I would pick Crystal Downs. Most inspiring setting I would pick Fishers Island. The course that most captures the sould of golf is North Berwick. The course that should be studied for a week for all aspiring architects would be NGLA.
    What I find most useful, and what is one of the best things about this site is knowing people and their likes and dislikes, and they know mine, so when they rave about a course I have a good sense of whether it is a course I want to see.

[Sean_A]

While my idea of best courses overlaps with my favourites, the two groups are very different.  For instance, I have never seen two better courses than Merion and Ballybunion, but I don;t think they would make my favourites list.  Why?  Because so many of these courses are so good, that being the best doesn't really matter.  They are good enough for me as in I don't need any better.  So I begin to look at other factors which I really enjoy about a day out.  Consequently, I view my favourites as much more important than the best.

Ciao

[Anthony Gray]

  David,

 Great point. My favorite is Cruden Bay but it is not the best course I've ever played. I could never be a rater because I value fun over quality. As a high to midhandicapper I do not like to feel beat up after a round of golf so North Berwick and Prestwick with the quirk and playability rank high with me.

  Anthony

[Cory Lewis]

I don't think I can add much to the great responses above, but I will say that my favorite courses also tend to be the ones with the best experience, obviously the course has to be great, but it's no concidence that my top 3 favorite courses are all courses I played with my father.  In terms of the "best" courses I've played, while all 3 would be in the top 15, I don't think 2 of them would even be in the top 10 of the best courses I've played.

[Wade Whitehead]

To me, "favorite" means a course I'd want to play every day; "best" means great by GCA standards.

For me, the lists overlap nearly entirely.  For most players, though, I think they diverge quite a bit, if not altogether.

WW

[Mark Pritchett]

Great thread. 

A few of my favorite places are probably not considered "great" or necessarily the "best" courses I have played, but are the ones I would be more than happy to play on a regular day to day basis.

Aiken Golf Club comes to mind, Chechessee Creek as well.  Low key, walkable courses in a pleasant setting are hard to beat! 

[David Stamm]

To me, "favorite" means a course I'd want to play every day; "best" means great by GCA standards.

For me, the lists overlap nearly entirely.  For most players, though, I think they diverge quite a bit, if not altogether.

WW

WW, this is what was thinking as well. I wanted to see how others would define favorite vs best, and for me, this definition is what I had in mind.

[Kirk Gill]

I know that I have a great affection for some of the courses I grew up playing, even though they're not any anyone's list of greatest courses, even locally. Getting to play better courses, learning about architecture and the game definitely informs me about the shortcomings of those old favorites.......but a couple of them are still among my favorites. The familiarity and the history still speak to me. Of course, I still live in same metro area where I grew up, and I'm not regularly playing "GCA Standard" best courses. If I moved across the country and started playing the best courses on a regular basis, I don't know if I'd feel the same way about the old faves.

[Mark Bourgeois]

To your original question, David: no. My favorite courses are the best; however, were I incapable of independent thought then I could always fall back on the paint by numbers and spoon feeding so helpfully supplied by the golf marketing magazines every two years, and delivered to my address: No. 1 Plato's Cave.

Mark

[Jud_T]

I would say my favorites would be a subset of the best...I may prefer a quirky fun unique course, say Prestwick, to a higher rated course, say Carnoustie.....and then there's the occasional off the run gem, say Tamarack in Greenwich (by the way a great old Charles Banks course), that I really like but would fall outside my "best" list.

[Kalen Braley]

David,

This is a good question and for me it sort of falls into that hypothetical kind of category.

If I was well off, and could afford it, and had the kind of job that would allow it....

...I would live in Bandon and have the resort courses be my "home" course.  Then perhaps I'd join a few clubs and travel around playing other top notch courses as opportunities became available.

So in my ideal/fantasy world all my favorites would likely be the highest rated ones.  But such is not my reality so my "local favorites" are the best ones that are closest to me here in Utah.  But it still doesn't mean that I like the locals "better" than a few other courses I've had the opporuntiy to play..its just that its not practical to play them very often and I've been lucky to do so on special occasions.

[Kevin Pallier]

"Favourites" for mine conjour a very personal taste / emotion to which one need never defend.

 "Best" IMO can be a different beast as it's normally tied to an interpretation / ranking of criteria such as "quality" and that alone opens a panacea of debate / opinion.

Some of the "best" courses I've seen aren't my personal "favourites"

[C. Squier]

Great question.  My 3 favorite courses are Garden City GC, Shoreacres and Maidstone.  Yet they aren't the "Best" I've played, or play at. 

[Jud_T]

Clint,

love the props for shoreacres! agree that favorites are courses that somehow become your best friends...Best are important aqui
antances...

[TEPaul]

Are your favorite courses..........different from what you consider the best you've played? Are your favorites not neccesarily the very best you've played?"


DavidS:

I would say yes to both questions, and I would say the reason is I have never exactly considered just my own game when I try to consider what really great golf course architecture is in the sense of "Best." Some of this is why I believe in what I call "The Big World" theory. The only real problem with the Big World theory is one could never do the "best" for every level of golfer on some single golf course, in my opinion! This is just another reason why I have never liked rating and ranking as we know it!

And to take it to perhaps the ultimate consideration, I don't understand why so many, even on here, continue to say they do not feel qualified to analyze or critique golf course architecture! Why not? Are they in some way incapable of explaining what THEY like? 

[Wade Whitehead]

.....different from what you consider the best you've played? Are your favorites not neccesarily the very best you've played?

Yes.

Pine Valley may be my favorite golf course, but I've never played it.

Crump Cup here I come, one day, I guess.

WW

[Jud_T]

I would say playing a course would be a prerequisite for it being your favorite...

[Ben Sims]

I think the word "favorite" can connote some sort of experiential component to the assessment.  Whereas "best" should try to be objective in that regard to better assess the features on the ground. 

If you were to ask me what my "favorite" golf course is, you would receive a different answer than my "best" answer.  Favorite for me involved more than just the quality of the GCA.  It involved features I have a soft spot for where others don't, it involved sequencing, it involved the walk, it involved the caddies, the turf, etc.  The best I ever played was based solely on how well the golf course provided strategic fundamentals--bunker positioning, width, green shape and contour--to the golfer, and the "smoothness" and naturalness with which those fundamentals were carried out.   

I think the trick for most of us is to find that one "wardrobe to Narnia" that provides an experiential and objective quotient that makes it your favorite and the best.  I'm told by those that know that there are only a dozen or so golf courses in the world that attain that lofty mark.

[Kirk Gill]

I'll compare it to movies. Most of the time, if you ask someone for their favorite movie, you'll get something watchable and perhaps either an easy entertainment or something that captured attention at a certain time in their life. You might even get a comedy. If you ask them what the best movie is, the answer is typically more serious, loftier, and something that perhaps aimed higher, and succeeded. Think Oscars.

Is it the same with golf courses?

[ed_getka]

While my idea of best courses overlaps with my favourites, the two groups are very different.  For instance, I have never seen two better courses than Merion and Ballybunion, but I don;t think they would make my favourites list.  Why?  Because so many of these courses are so good, that being the best doesn't really matter.  They are good enough for me as in I don't need any better.  So I begin to look at other factors which I really enjoy about a day out.  Consequently, I view my favourites as much more important than the best.

Ciao

Sean brings up a really good point about the best courses being so good that to label any one of them as "the" best isn't really meaningful. There are probably 10-15 courses that could comfortably fit into a discussion of best courses in the world. To parse out which one is "best" of that lot begins to become subjective and personal bias enters in, so I agree that there is no one best course.

[Sean_A]

Ed

Honestly, so many of these courses we get to play are easily good enough to fulfill me in terms quality GCA.  In truth, the best courses are wasted on all but a few golfers who are wise and good enough to enjoy and have a chance to rise to the challenge.

Ben

Objectivity is a waste of time in deciding the best courses.  What that really boils down to is group consensus.  The proof of subjectivity is in the pudding.  I can dicker and dither over which are the best 10 (whatever number) courses and come up with slightly different responses depending on the day, but my favourites don't change nearly as much. Both are just as subjective as the other.   

Ciao 

[TEPaul]

It seems to me (from reading this thread) that the drawback to discussing favorite courses (or what is "Best") is that too many feel ultimately some consensus of opinion should be reached or arrived at. What is wrong with letting complete subjectivity reign and letting consensus of opinion be damned?

[Ally Mcintosh]

Favourite links course: Lahinch
Favourite inland course: Woking

That's today's answer. I may change my mind tomorrow.

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