[JNC Lyon]

Ron M, what do you want for Crag Burn?

Also, can we pick up courses off waivers?  If so, I'll pick up Eastward Ho! and drop Seawane.

JNCL

[Sean_A]

Also, can we pick up courses off waivers?  If so, I'll pick up Eastward Ho! and drop Seawane.

JNCL

What?  I wait patiently for scaps and you want to take that from me???

Edit - yes, I caught Kalen's pick of Barnbougle - heavy sigh.

Ciao

[Kalen Braley]

19. Jim Colton Doak - Barnbougle, Rock Creek, Sebonack

[Ronald Montesano]

J to the N to the C...I'm a humble man, born of humble parents, living within humble means.  I'm not one for wheeling and dealing...I like my lineup the way it is.  I got my WNY-Westchester-Long Island trio from the least likely of sources, GCA's favorite golf architect, his Trentness.  However, I do appreciate the inquiry.

Did you see the place they teed them off at Merion on hole #14...the strip of putting green?  How cool was that?  At Crag Burn, they've added a back tee on #10, directly beneath the flagpole.  I think it makes the carry to the fairway about 230 and makes the hole about 480 as a par four.  Also very cool.

[Tom_Doak]

I may not be too busy, but I'm not so idle that I have time to rate all those picks!

Why don't you use the ratings in The Confidential Guide as a starting point?  Probably 50-60% of the courses chosen were rated.  Then you could see what the average rating was for each guy's picks, and just list the courses that were unrated.

I'll go over the first round and see what it looks like.  I already know that County Down + Muirfield + Royal Dornoch = 29 and that will be pretty hard to beat for Round 1.

[JNC Lyon]

Ron M.

I did see the back tee on 14 at Merion.  I also remember seeing the back tee at Crag Burn last year.  I think that gives the Crag Burn routing a better flow with mid-length four => long four => short four, rather than mid-length four => mid-length four => short four.

People don't realize how much of a test Crag Burn is.  I feel like it could host a national amateur event at any time and take no prisoners.  The course only keeps getting better.  The best part is, it still has tons of variety.  Good late round steal.

[Jim Colton]

Tom,

  Feel free to send me all of your Doak scale ratings on courses built since the book was published, and I will fill out a spreadsheet with the total.

  You can't blame a guy for trying.

  Jim

[JNC Lyon]

I may not be too busy, but I'm not so idle that I have time to rate all those picks!

Why don't you use the ratings in The Confidential Guide as a starting point?  Probably 50-60% of the courses chosen were rated.  Then you could see what the average rating was for each guy's picks, and just list the courses that were unrated.

I'll go over the first round and see what it looks like.  I already know that County Down + Muirfield + Royal Dornoch = 29 and that will be pretty hard to beat for Round 1.

That is definitely a good starting point.  However, the qualifications for the fantasy draft are different than the Confidential Guide rating criteria, no?  The fantasy draft criteria from Mr. Colton stipulate that an entrant's set of courses will be the courses he plays for the rest of his life.  I have multiple courses that probably rate in the 6-7 range on the Doak scale that I would pick to play for the rest of my life over a 8-9 rating.  I am sure many people would rate courses like St. George's in Toronto or the Ocean Course over Oak Hill's West Course.  However, I would choose to play the West Course for the rest of my life over those two.

Neverthless, it will be cool to see how the courses pan out.  I guess it just was not the object of my draft to select courses that were already rated highly, by the Doak Scale or otherwise.

[Mac Plumart]

We certainly could use the Confidential Guide as a starting point, but may I suggest adding in the following...

Add in the ratings of Golfweek, Golf Digest, and Golf Magazine for the last 4 years and time-weight the results giving more precedent to the more recent ratings.  Then run a regression analysis to see where these course would project to be over the next 5, 10, 20 years...as one of the criteria for picking courses was to find ones we could play for the rest of our lives.

After the regression, we could have an algorithm based approach that could be employed for courses which could fall off the top 100 over the given time period.

Once the regression and algorithm is run, that should yield both reliable and consistent results to determine the winner.

The bottom line is simply this...if you don't have a group of courses designed by Tibetan Monks or crazy yaks...YOU LOSE!!!!

What do you guys think?!?!?

[Tom_Doak]

My unofficial tally for Round 1:

Eric Smith clearly won with 29 points.
Jaeger would have been second with 28, except I can't count Shinnecock as a Macdonald course, so that's 18.
Jim Colton had a clear 27 points.
Jud T. had 26 ... but he choked on Palmetto, if he'd taken Royal Melbourne he'd have had 30!
JC, Alex and Patrick also scored 26.
Mac and Kalen each had 25, giving Kalen the 10 for Shinnecock even though the commissioner disagrees.
Ron had 24.
Ben 23.

I have never been to Bulls Bay, Teugega, or Banff  so I could not put a total on the selections from Jay, JNC, or Rob ... but even if all those courses are 10's, which I really doubt, none of them could have broken 26 points.

I have been to Pacific Dunes, Ballyneal, and Old Macdonald, and I can't say any more than that ... but I would guess it put Tim somewhere in the top half, anyway.

[Ben Sims]

Tom,

Two eights and a seven I'm guessing--back in '91-'92.  Would those three Raynors still score there today?

[Sean_A]

Well, I won't use the Confidential Guide because that is someone else's opinion.  Plus, there are some 20ish courses listed that are really the musts with the others falling away into good sidekicks or ones I don't care about even if they are very good - there is just too much good stuff on the table to be expected to eat it all. 

For my money and time, I think Jud, Dell, Rob, Jim, and Eric have the strongest sides.  I would have to look into more deeply before I could figure out the best side, but a cursory look tells me its between Jud and Dell.

Ciao

[Kalen Braley]

My unofficial tally for Round 1:

Jaeger would have been second with 28, except I can't count Shinnecock as a Macdonald course, so that's 18.

Mac and Kalen each had 25, giving Kalen the 10 for Shinnecock even though the commissioner disagrees.

Vindication at last...I can finally rest peacefully after several sleepless nights!!   

[jeffwarne]

surprised to see nobody picked Rees Jones with
Sleepy Hollow
Palmetto
Bethpage
The Country Club
among others

I mean if Tilly gets credit for Sleepy Hollow(which has been restored in by Hanse in McRaynor style) and Mackenzie credit for Palmetto(he grassed the greens in 1932ish)

[Tom_Doak]

Ben:

Yeamans Hall was a 5 in The Confidential Guide back in 1991.  After reading that, they hired somebody to fix the greens, and now I think it's a 7 ... some people would say 8.  But none of the courses you listed were 9's, and no amount of restoration would put them there.

[Ben Sims]

Ben:

Yeamans Hall was a 5 in The Confidential Guide back in 1991.  After reading that, they hired somebody to fix the greens, and now I think it's a 7 ... some people would say 8.  But none of the courses you listed were 9's, and no amount of restoration would put them there.

Word.  I guess I did much better in round 2.

[Jim Franklin]

No one picked Ross' Northland CC? Wow.

[Bill Brightly]

I actually started scoring the picks with the Confidential Guide, but that is a lot of work  so I stopped...

So my picks are:

#1 Jaeger
#2 Hodgdon
#3 Jud
#4 Colton
#5 Smith

[Jud_T]

Tom,

I agree that Palmetto was a choke.  The pick was made very hastily without enough thought.  Although I think it is the kind of place I wouldn't mind having in a stable of courses to play for the rest of my life.  I was interested to see your comments on Yeaman's Hall Club.  I wonder how other courses that have had significant tree removal or renovation work done since the Confidential Guide originally came out would fare today.  Lawsonia and Skokie are 2 that come to mind...

[Anthony Gray]

  Whoever picked Simpson and Cruden Bay should be declared the winner.

  Anthony

[Tim Bert]

My unofficial tally for Round 1:

Eric Smith clearly won with 29 points.
Jaeger would have been second with 28, except I can't count Shinnecock as a Macdonald course, so that's 18.
Jim Colton had a clear 27 points.
Jud T. had 26 ... but he choked on Palmetto, if he'd taken Royal Melbourne he'd have had 30!
JC, Alex and Patrick also scored 26.
Mac and Kalen each had 25, giving Kalen the 10 for Shinnecock even though the commissioner disagrees.
Ron had 24.
Ben 23.

I have never been to Bulls Bay, Teugega, or Banff  so I could not put a total on the selections from Jay, JNC, or Rob ... but even if all those courses are 10's, which I really doubt, none of them could have broken 26 points.

I have been to Pacific Dunes, Ballyneal, and Old Macdonald, and I can't say any more than that ... but I would guess it put Tim somewhere in the top half, anyway.

There's no way you think my courses average out to less than a 9 on your scale, so you can call me top half, but I'm in the top 3!

[Jim Colton]

Tim,

 I'm prepared to give you a 29 or 30 for Rd. 1.  Surprised no one picked the Doak's course on the Moon.

[Jay Flemma]

Why dont we also score with the GCA.com top 100 we did last year?

[Mac Plumart]

In all seriousness, for those of you with an interest in "scoring" this draft it would be very interesting to score it using four or five different sources.

#1--The Confidential Guide
#2--Golfweek
#3--Golf Digest
#4--Golf Magazine
#5--This GCA.com 100, if it exists...I wasn't a member then.

This should yield different winners and should show some patterns, trends, biases amonst the major rates.  There is also the Golf Blog 100 and The Top 100 Courses in the World internet site...I am sure you've all heard of it, but if not I can get you the website.

These different lists of winners should lead to more discussions, criticisms, and trash talk all revolving around golf course architecture.

FYI...I am not goofing around on this post, this is a "for real" thought.

[Alex Miller]

It seems to me that perhaps the easiest way to do this would be to have every player rate the competitions 1-14 in their own opinion.
Then we tally those up and see who is on top.

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