A Personal Observation: Each Course Tells Me What to Want

[Peter Pallotta]

I've been trying to compile my list for the "Whip it Out" thread, and I'm having a hard time even selecting my favourite 25 courses out of the 70 or so I've played, let alone trying to rate/rank/order them.

I've been wondering why the process is so challenging for me, and I think I have a possible answer, i.e. the trouble is that each course "tells me" what I like on a golf course -- but when I think of all the courses together I discover that I like a lot of different things, and then find that I'm not sure what I like most! 

The courses I'm using to give a few examples (at random) won't mean much to anyone outside of Ontario-the GTA, as they are all public courses and for the most part on no one's radar, but:

Copper Creek, a Doug Carrick design in his pleasing "Golden Age Lite" style, gives me from the first hole to the last good conditioning and wide fairways and much variety/options and classic architectural principles and several good scoring opportunities. I like all those things.

Lakeview, a Herbert Strong course from the 1920s, run as a Mississauga muni, is just a treat for its true golden age feel/playability and its compact routing/easy walkability and its quick greens and its little bit of quirk. I like all those things too.

St Andrews Valley,  a Rene Muylart course, is routed over a rolling and sometimes dramatic landscape, and it is a difficult course -- hard but fair, as they say.  I find I like lovely topography and a stern test of golf as much as the next fellow.

Copetown Woods, from our own Dick Kirkpatrick, is a favourite of just about everyone I know who has played it. In a very understated and flowing and natural way, Mr. Kirkpatrick has draped 18 fun and interesting holes over what used to be a 200 acre broccoli farm. It is the course I think of whenever I hear the term "playable for all level of golfers" and when people talk about providing value for the money. I like fun, especially when it comes at such a modest price.

Westview is truly a mom and pop operation -- indeed, the course was laid out by the owner, former farmer and first time architect Pops Nesbitt. It is certainly a very solid course, but what makes it stand out for me is that it has a few golf holes that are really special/unique, and that I've never seen anywhere else, e.g. a 215+ yard Par 3 with a reverse redanish green. I am happy with a succession of good solid holes, but I really like (and most remember) the standouts.

So, there is my dilemma. I just picked 5 courses out of my potential top 25, and I have no idea how I would rank them because each of them is characterized by/makes manifest different main qualities, but they are all qualities I like! In order to rank them, it feels like I'm not so much trying a hole-by-hole "match play" as having the qualities go "head to head".

Do I like "Golden Age Lite" aesthetics and playability most? Maybe I like a compact and flowing routing and classic greens better.  On the other hand, I know I like a stern test and dramatic topography, so maybe I should make that the top criteria. At the same time, who wouldn't say that having fun on a golf course isn't a top priority? Or maybe I would forego many of those qualities in order to get a few truly unique and memorable golf holes.

I simply can't decide which of my "likes" I like best.

Man, now I know why I have never tried to rate or rank courses; I don't know how you guys do it.

Peter   
   

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:


I assume you don't have much trouble rating Crystal Downs above most of the courses you've named.


Rankings are silly and subjective, but they get even more silly and subjective once you move down the scale and try to name the best courses in your state or hometown.  Generally, you'll be comparing a bunch of courses that are 5's [or 6's, or 4's, depending on where you live] against one another ... and there is little to separate those courses EXCEPT subjectivity.


The more interesting phenomenon is that around most cities, the general level of architectural quality tends to settle around a couple of courses that are well-liked.  If those courses are 4's on the Doak scale, then everybody thinks a 4 is all they need, and nobody tries to build something better ... but if somebody DOES come along and build something better, then the bar is raised ... nobody is going to build a 4 anymore, and all of the old courses will start to modify their bunkering to mimic the more successful course.  [This is why nearly every bunker in Chicago looks the same, regardless of who designed the course.]


The good thing about this phenomenon is that when Alister MacKenzie goes to Melbourne and shows them what 9's and 10's look like, the bar gets set very very high, and you get the kinds of courses that it actually makes some sense to rank.

[Tim Gavrich]

Rankings are silly and subjective, but they get even more silly and subjective once you move down the scale and try to name the best courses in your state or hometown.  Generally, you'll be comparing a bunch of courses that are 5's [or 6's, or 4's, depending on where you live] against one another ... and there is little to separate those courses EXCEPT subjectivity.

Interesting you say this, Tom. I have always thought that it's less of a fool's errand to debate the best courses in a relatively finite geographical area than to try and determine whether or not Pine Valley is better than Cypress Point, or whether or not National Golf Links is better than Oakmont - a debate that has been playing out over the years in the magazines. At that incredibly high level, I am inclined to basically say all those courses are, in the most general sense, equally amazing, and made different mostly by their environments. You can (and we do) split hairs for pages and pages - and we do, and that's perfectly fine - but I'd argue that for most golfers, the most important architectural distinction to make is among courses that you might play most often. Those would be the courses in your geographical vicinity.


I may be biased this way because I am in the business of advising traveling golfers on a) where to go on golf trips, and b) how to choose which courses to play, but I'm most interested in a binary scale of golf course rating, where a 0 is a course you aren't interested in playing more than once, and a 1 is a course you are interested in playing multiple times in a given period of time, be it during a 5-day vacation or a few decades, if you're choosing a home course. Sure, you could extend this out a ways to say a -1 is a course you would never play under practically any circumstance, and maybe a 2 would be a course you'd be happy to play to the exclusion of all others, but there are relatively few of these courses. The 0/1 scale is the meat of it, and I think educating people on how to tell the difference encourages them to vote for good golf course architecture with their wallets, which will help strengthen the product that's out there.


Ultimately, Tom, what's the most important debate: whether your Rock Creek Cattle Company or your Dismal River course is superior, or whether someone should play your Legends - Heathland Course a couple times (to get some different hole locations on those massive greens) during their next Myrtle Beach trip? Yes, the answer is probably different depending on the venue - GCA or the greater golf community - and I recognize that, but I think there is definitely some value in parsing courses that may not rate a 6+ on the Doak scale, especially if they're ultimately going to compete with one another for business and therefore influence over what golfers think passes for good golf.

[Sean_A]

Pietro


I find it much easier and far more interesting to converse in terms of favourites because I don't need to back up my opinion and can instead focus on what is important to me.  Sure, once you get down the list a piece things disintegrate, but thats okay.  Whenever conversations of best come round I think its important to take on board what others think...and I find that unsettling because the main focus tends to be on big, brawny courses.  It seems like if courses don't meet the codified modern norm than there is usually a qualifier attached (ie best course under 6500 etc). 


Perhaps you are having a hard time discerning your favourites is down to not being totally or nearly sold on any of the courses you played?


Ciao

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks for the responses, gents.

I didn't start the thread to (again) highlight the truism that rankings are subjective. What interested me was grappling with the subjectivity of my own subjectivity!

Tom, Sean - you make a point that I hadn't considered, i.e. that the challenge isn't trying to rank the many "qualities" that I like, but is the challenge inherent in comparing/ranking a whole bunch of 4s and 5s (which describe the majority of courses I've played).

And, yes, it was very easy to put Crystal Downs way out in front as No. 1.  The trouble started with No. 2....

[Joe Hancock]

The trouble started with No. 2....

That's my observation every time the grandkids are at the house.....

[Dan Kelly]

Sorry, Joe. Now you have to share my signature quotation space.

[Joe Hancock]

Sorry, Joe. Now you have to share my signature quotation space.

The company is good; I'm OK with it! Besides, I have years and years at the bottom of your posts, whereas Tom is the newcomer. It is he that has to prove himself worthy of that space for the long haul.

(Smiley omitted as a professional courtesy)

[Ken Moum]

Peter, I think you've identified the real problem with selecting favorites.... of anything.

I like sweetish Scotch and only discovered it because someone gave me a bottle of Aberlour. So that was the standard.  Now I know about Glen Rothes, Balvenie Doublewood, etc.

But if you ask me to tell you which is my favorite, I might just say Aberlour for no other reason than it was my first.... 

Like your courses, I find them to be much too closely bunched to make a list from top to bottom.

I have a friend who hasn't played many courses, and who sometimes asks me about my favorite hole on a given course. I finally realized that I don't think like that. I can tell you which ones I DON'T like, but a favorite... nevermind.

I'm a Midwesterner who grew up on a nine-hole course in northern Minnesota, playing hundreds of tournament rounds on all the nine-holers in the vicinity. Then I got to play some "decent" golf courses in other parts of the country.

A bit later I discovered GCA.com and managed to plan a trip to Scotland in 2006.

All that changed my perspective in a number of ways, but now having been back twice, with more than 60 rounds of Scottish golf under my belt I still can't figure out how to arrange courses in any order. 

With the possible exception of LOVING Brora Golf Club.  (And  know why I like it, but it's so different from anywhere else I've played I just let it stand alone.)

To be honest, I find a lot of the "great" courses to be so difficult that I can't imaging playing them every day.

So, I pretty much have given up trying to make a list.

I don't suppose that helps you with your dilemma, but there it is.

[Sean_A]

Thanks for the responses, gents.

I didn't start the thread to (again) highlight the truism that rankings are subjective. What interested me was grappling with the subjectivity of my own subjectivity!

Tom, Sean - you make a point that I hadn't considered, i.e. that the challenge isn't trying to rank the many "qualities" that I like, but is the challenge inherent in comparing/ranking a whole bunch of 4s and 5s (which describe the majority of courses I've played).

And, yes, it was very easy to put Crystal Downs way out in front as No. 1.  The trouble started with No. 2....

Pietro

To some degree courses are like music in that you can retain a very high opinion of a course/song even though it may not be your flavour of this particular month.  Guys talk about being happy playing this place or that for the rest of their years...not me...even though I am quite content with my favourites I still want to play around. Consequently, I still find it difficult to name one favourite...I think if these things in groups and that group changes from one mood to another.  For a while now my favourite group has revolved around eight courses, but even the diversity displayed in these eight leaves me wanting. And of course I am very hopeful other courses will join that group.   Ask me in a few months..who knows, others might get a mention and they may even be courses I know fairly well.

Ciao 

[Thomas Dai]

Wondering to what extent course preferences, rankings or whatever phrase folk wish to use, changes over time?


For example, whilst tee-it-forward might sometimes be an option, it isn't always so are there courses folk think less highly of now than they once did due to the length of the holes or the length of carry's off the tee as each player has got older and shots shorter (or the opposite for a junior/younger playing getting longer)?


Are there courses that have gone up or down in folks estimation due to changing maintenance practices, the terrain the course plays over or the equipment the player uses?



Atb

[Bill_McBride]

My personal standard is different.  I assign a higher level depending on the memorability of the course in question.  For example, I played two rounds on one day at Muirfield and remember each hole as if it were yesterday.  Ditto for The Old Course, NGLA, North Berwick, Pacific Dunes, Crystal Dunes.   By contrast I am real vague about Bandon Dunes and parts of Old MacDonald.  My very personal ratings are adjusted accordingly.