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[Paul Thomas]

  But, that means a really good ranking of 1,000 courses just can't be done.  Nobody has seen them all, or even close.

i hereby volunteer to do so....of course i will need financial support so anyone interested please contact me directly....

[Ulrich Mayring]

I use the term "world class" in a broader way, for me it is about the top 2% of all courses. And I did not pull that number ouf of thin air, it is what you need to get into elite organisations such as Mensa (being among the top 2% performers). So "world class" is pretty far removed from a Top 100 list.

A Top 100 list would be the 0.3% best courses in the world. That is such an absurd level that I believe no one could ever play enough courses to make up a credible Top 100 list by himself.

About the dominance of older courses over newer ones: it does not seem surprising to me. Go into any museum of art that is not specialized, but has a broad collection from anything mankind has ever produced. You will find that at least 90% of the exhibits were made by old, dead guys. That is simply a function of time and mathematical probability.

Now, I do realise that the history of golf architecture is a tad shorter than that of art in general. So statistically we should expect more modern courses in the Top 100 than we routinely get in the various rankings. But a dominance of older layouts is absolutely to be expected.

In addition to that I wouldn't rank courses younger than 10 years in any Top 100 list, because a certain amount of longevity is an important part of the vetting process. No chef gets three Michelin stars right out of the gate, he has to work his way up from 1 and 2 stars, even though his cooking may have been 3 star level to begin with. Hype is always a factor and it takes a few years to die down.

Ulrich