Best New

[Derek Dirksen]

Craig, Did you make it up to Tulsa to play Patriot this year?

[Chris_Blakely]

How is Manitou Passage GC in Cedar, MI on the list??

All they did was build a new clubhouse and rename the Kings Challenge course!!!  And to top it all off, the renamed MP is NOT better than Sequoyah National!!!

Chris

[Jason Connor]

I think the biggest surprise to me was Nicklaus' Harbor Shores coming in all the way down at 32.  This must be a bit disappointing to Whirlpool / the Senior PGA Championship.

I'm thrilled to see The Patriot so high.  Capt Dan and Prof John Rooney are a great family and I'm very happy to see their course so well received.

I grew up near Lodestone and heard rumors of such a course but I had no idea it was open!  I played the other course there (Wisp) a lot when I was younger.  It's really a weekend getaway for people from DC (and some from Pittsburgh) and real estate prices have to have crushed that development like so many others.

[Joel_Stewart]

I wonder why Jones name is on The Patriot?  Like Chambers Bay, Jay Blasi did most of the work, if not all of the work.

[Sven Nilsen]

A.  Has anyone here played Shooting Star?  I've seen the site and am utterly surprised at its place on the list.  It must be a blast to play.

B.  For those that have seen any of the Chicagoland courses (the 2 in Elgin, Harbor Shores, Chicago Highlands), do you agree with the placement?  I've played HoE and HS, and think HoE is a better "course," although I think the best holes at HS are better than the best holes at HoE.

C.  I find it interesting that you have to go 10 deep before you find a course built on the east side of Old Man River and only one of those courses is on the Pacific coast.  If folks think Bandon is remote, try getting to Driggs, ID or Eureka, MT.

D. DMK is quietly sneaking up the list of big name architects.  Look at the top 5, that's some heady company.

E. Does Dan Hixson have anything in the works to try to top his success at WV?

[Adam Clayman]

I would guess that this would be viewed as a very disappointing debut for the Prairie Club to have both courses fall outside of top ten new???  I haven't played the courses but given all the hype and conversation about them, I would have expected them to come in a bit higher.

Tim, I'm on the other end. I'm thrilled where they are on the list. As I assume they are.

This hype you mention, was it all on gca?

I don't, or didn't see it that way.

Lehman should be really happy, imo.

[Tim Bert]

Adam

Primary sources were GCA guys whether the threads here, some blog reviews, etc.   Also just my "sense" from the web site and the many promotional emails I've gotten from the club was that they fully intended to have one, if not multiple, top 100 courses (just one guy's perception).  Based on the starting point I just don't see that being a likely outcome now, at least for Golfweek. I guess we need to see the top 10 new lists from Golf and Golf Dgest and see how they do there.

If the Prairie Club is pleased with this result then I am happy for them. I think it is a fine position; I just thought they were shooting a little higher.

[Scott Warren]

I keep reading that the golf industry is in the toilet, but there were enough new courses built in 2009-2010 that a magazine can select the best 40? That seems a lot, even in a market as big as the USA.

Or were most of these courses largely developed before the bubble burst?

[Richard Choi]

CommonGround is 18 

Their average would put them right outside the top 100 Modern List, pretty high on the state-by-state list I'm assuming, and if it's considered a "municipal" course that would put it at #7 in the country behind Torrey Pines and TPC Scottsdale and ahead of Harding Park...nice company to be in.

Pretty good for a five, eh???

Actually, the GW rating is pretty similar in scale to Doak scale and CG got 6.04. So, it is pretty much where it should be. Just goes to show 5 or 6 on these rating scales are pretty darn good.

[Rob Rigg]

The Hanse site at Prairie Club is all world - no doubt in my mind that PC will be firmly on the map when they open it up (whenever that is).

If you look at the site DMK had to work with at Huntsman and the site Lehman's team had at Prairie Club you would absolutely assume that The Dunes Course would be #2 on the list and HS would be #15 or whatever.

The PC is a really cool place to visit and I don't think it is any more remote than Driggs, ID - but man, I wish The Dunes was as special as it could have been. It is a good course, but that land is AMAZING. The Pines is also a good track.

Huntsman Springs was a flat bland waterlogged site in an amazing setting that is now a solid course - especially when you consider the housing component.

Kidd often get's panned, or maybe just ignored, on GCA but he is very talented and has learned from "mistakes" in the past at The Castle and Tetherow (a track I really love that continues to evolve and improve). Huntsman is definitely a shift from the edge back towards the middle, but not all the way there by any means.

[John Kavanaugh]

When this list was posted without the ranking numbers to the 100th decimal point it reminded me of a Sports Illustrated swim suit issue, this much up close detail is a bit too much like Penthouse.  It's like I feel sorry for everyone involved except the photographer.

[Jonathan Cummings]

I'll bet if you look at the financial timeline of each of these ventures you'd see that the planning and financing started well before the bubble bursted.  I know that's true with TPC Potomac and Lodestone - probably true with them all.  Follow-on lists are likely to be much shorter.  JC

[Tommy Williamsen]

What jumped out at me, were all the top  ranked courses in the west. 

[Craig Van Egmond]

Craig, Did you make it up to Tulsa to play Patriot this year?

Sadly, no.  $150.00 is kinda steep for us okies.   You still working in Korea?

Joel,

    Last I checked, Jay was still collecting his paychecks from RTJ Jr.  

[Derek Dirksen]

Craig, I understand the $150 mark.  Back from Korea on break in between jobs.  Yes, Jay Blasi did just about everything at the Patriot but Craig is right that he does still work for RTJ.  Bobby and Bruce visited the site a ton of times but they really did nothing but PR work for the most part.  Bobby's changes were very very minor.

[Matt_Ward]

It's funny how the "best new" can be stretched out to a far longer time frame.

When does "new" become "existing?"

[Tom_Doak]

Well, I've got one course in first place and one in 18th, and I am just as proud of the course that finished #18.  Guess that means that the Best New rankings are going away just as they have reached the point of being meaningless, at least to me.

Still, it's the numbers on the right that are the only ones which count.  If you use them for comparison to the current top 100, you can tell that not many of these new courses are likely crack the top 100, and only at the bottom of that list, except for Old Macdonald.  In fact, Common Ground at 18th is the same distance from the #6 position, as Old Macdonald was from the course that finished second.

[Matt_Ward]

Given the limited real "new" courses coming from the States now and for the foreseeable future it might be best for this type of category to be placed on the shelf. If something is considered "new" from more than a year ago then frankly it's really mixing and matching courses from beyond a year's time frame.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Given the limited real "new" courses coming from the States now and for the foreseeable future it might be best for this type of category to be placed on the shelf. If something is considered "new" from more than a year ago then frankly it's really mixing and matching courses from beyond a year's time frame.

Golf Digest will not be ranking best new courses.  Instead Ron Whitten will preview courses that have and will be opening.

[Bill_McBride]

I keep reading that the golf industry is in the toilet, but there were enough new courses built in 2009-2010 that a magazine can select the best 40? That seems a lot, even in a market as big as the USA.

Or were most of these courses largely developed before the bubble burst?

Bingo!