Golf Digest on NYC newsstands with Top 100

[Matt_Ward]

Clint, et al:

Either magazines operate in the real time world -- or simply draw a time line for admission -- make it 3 years and then they become eligible.

Still the elevation of Sahalee has me totally baffled -- do raters really know what it is they are doing.

[Jim Colton]

Matt,

  I don't know if GD has a hard and fast rule in place, but the shift may be driven by the fact that Whitten is now the one-man wrecking crew for evaluating new courses.  So before they probably encouraged raters to go out and see new courses in order to have some sample size for Best New, but now that same level of urgency isn't there.

[Matt_Ward]

Jim:

The issue w Digest is having way too many people involved -- the ratings have now become like a Zagat's guide. You can't have a top 100 if places like Kingsley is not included -- that's a big time omission and frankly I have yet to hear from anyone who sees its omission as being OK. I can list other situations as well.

Ron is a very capable guy -- no issue there. My issue is with this big time group that rarely seems to be seeing what is really good and what is being missed.

[Sean Leary]

Matt,

Its omitted because it didn't get the score needed. Should they include it just because? Look, a couple of very low scores can effectively tank a course rating, can it not? So if most of the panel scores it "appropriately" but with a few low ball scores for whatever reason, that could drive it out of the Top 100, no? Its the average, not the mean.

[Matt_Ward]

Sean:

GD makes the assumption all raters are equals -- they are not.

[Sean Leary]

Sean:

GD makes the assumption all raters are equals -- they are not.

Agreed. All rating panels are flawed. Other than you being a one person rating panel, how would you propose getting it right so that the Kingsley's of the world don't get screwed?

[John Kavanaugh]

If Kingsley is so great why is it so cheap and still looking for members?

[Bill Satterfield]

GD's waiting period is now down to just a year or two, but the big thing is getting enough panelists to the course to qualify.  I believe it takes 45 panelist visits to qualify for the Top 100 list, 25 panelist visits for the Top 100 Public list, and 10 panelist visits for the Best in State Rankings.  Those visits are accumulated during an eight year period.  Therefore, for this newest survey, ratings turned in by panelists during 2009 and 2010 replace the ratings from panelists entered during the 2001 and 2002 survey period.  That transition each survey can account for a certain amount of movement depending on conditioning standards, remodels, changes in the rating criteria, etc.  

While the rankings will always have surprises to people and their personal preferences, taking the average of 45 (minimum) panelist opinions is a pretty healthy average to take.  If you look at the history of the Top 100 vs the Top 100 Public list, the Public list has a lot more movement and inconsistency due to the averages being taken from a smaller sample size.  There may be a lot of GD panelists, but I do think it is beneficial that they pull their data from a larger sample size.

[C. Squier]

If Kingsley is so great why is it so cheap and still looking for members?

Worthy of it's own thread.

[JC Jones]

If Kingsley is so great why is it so cheap and still looking for members?

Worthy of it's own thread.

I've started a couple.

[Anton]

WOW! Who would think that a club like Kingsley would or should be left off the Top 100 because it is affordable to the masses and hasnt filled out its membership roster?  What is the world coming to?

  I've been looking in to joing that "cheap and still looking for members club".  Just got a membership packet in the mail. 

[K. Krahenbuhl]

WOW! Who would think that a club like Kingsley would or should be left off the Top 100 because it is affordable to the masses and hasnt filled out its membership roster?  What is the world coming to?

  I've been looking in to joing that "cheap and still looking for members club".  Just got a membership packet in the mail. 

Or is he saying it's cheap with open spots because it isn't actually a Top 100 caliber course?  That's how I read it.

[John Kavanaugh]

If I knew the answer I would not have asked the question. 

[John Kavanaugh]

Tony,

Are you a rater?  If you are and join Kingsley I will send you $100 to pay for gas money.  That would be a dollar for every time I have heard a rater say they would join a club if only...

If you are not a rater and join Kingsley I'll buy you a years subscription to Golf Digest.

Join up, golf needs more members.

[Anton]

oooooooooooohhhhhh I see.  I'm not a rater.  I did play a number of times with some around the Mid-Atlantic states (at Wyncote in 98, Jasna Polana in 99, and 4 yrs ago at Hamilton Farm)

  Why would I want $$$$ from you or a GD subscription?  There is no point to that bet at all and I won't dignify that with any further response.   

 Just wondered how the price of a course had anything to do with ratings?  Or how many members it had? 

[John Kavanaugh]

I simply have enough trust in the Chicago golfer and the free market to balance things out.

[JC Jones]

I simply have enough trust in the Chicago golfer and the free market to balance things out.

at some point the schtick becomes the man and the man becomes the schtick

[Matt_Ward]

Sean:

In today's viral world yoiu don't need a Cecil B DeMille production with all these folks marching around as raters. Many of them are far from national raters -- mainly state and regional types at best. No problem in having home people rate home courses in their respective states but a savvy guy like Whitten could easy cull a truly "national" panel of no more than 50-100 tops. From that you would get more astute comments and a better sense of what really is "great." Digest needs to do an overhaul because with each ratings results the credibility gets lower and lower.

Bill:

Like I said to Sean -- all raters are not equals. That may be so when you have "one man - one vote" but it's hardly true at all when it comes to panelists. Far few are anything more than state / regional raters at best.

The issues of all these procedures means whatever course gets the "horde" of people to play it can likely see a huge spike in its ratings. This happens way too many times for the flavor of the times course(s) which go real fast because of the newness factor.

Bill, let me point out something I have said upteen times -- when you have a separate person rate course "A" and another person only able to rate course "B" -- you have little cross comparisons of a similar kind involved. Consensus findings don't produce solid meaningful results -- they simply produce this hodge podge of different courses being lumped together. One other thing -- too often there is a clustering of courses siimply because of "name" and 'status" associated with them. Some may argue that the top 50 are bulletproof but frankly I think it's more of a genuflection by too many people to "name" courses than anything else.  ANGC is classic example #1 in that regard. You can throw Sahalee in that category too.

[Jim Franklin]

A couple of things. I played and rated Sahalee in the last rating period and I am stunned that it rose that much. I thought my rating alone would drive it out of the Top 100. GD does a thing with "outlier" ratings that if a panelist rates a course too far off up or down from the majority that that rating will not count. I wonder how many outliers Sahalee has?

Each course needs 45 panelist visits so I am sure RCCC did not get that many. As for Friars Head, they finally received 45 visits, but it took 5 years. Who knows when RCCC will get 45, but if I had to drop everything and play any course in America, that would be it. As for Kingsley, I am stumped. I loved it, but I have talked to a few panelists that did not. They did not like the fall offs on #2 and #9 among other things. Personally, I thought they were pretty interesting. How it is not top 3 in Michigan is beyond me let alone #16 or whatever it currently is.

[jeffwarne]

A couple of things. I played and rated Sahalee in the last rating period and I am stunned that it rose that much. I thought my rating alone would drive it out of the Top 100. GD does a thing with "outlier" ratings that if a panelist rates a course too far off up or down from the majority that that rating will not count. I wonder how many outliers Sahalee has?

Each course needs 45 panelist visits so I am sure RCCC did not get that many. As for Friars Head, they finally received 45 visits, but it took 5 years. Who knows when RCCC will get 45, but if I had to drop everything and play any course in America, that would be it. As for Kingsley, I am stumped. I loved it, but I have talked to a few panelists that did not. They did not like the fall offs on #2 and #9 among other things. Personally, I thought they were pretty interesting. How it is not top 3 in Michigan is beyond me let alone #16 or whatever it currently is.

It takes 45 visits? really?
That could take many years unless a course is actively promoting itself to raters (which makes it a different kind've place anyway...but I digress)
a lot could change over the 5-15 year period that may take.
If raters 1-10 played a course in 1995 and the 45th rater saw the place in 2011, are those 16 year old votes still relevant?

Or if a course had 35 raters over 2-5 years rate it highly it would be left out?  yet a course that held a "raters day" (say during a nearby major) that attracted 45 who rate it  not as highly could get in

Explains a lot about Friar's Head-which has been a glaring omission for years

[Andy Troeger]

Jeff,
It takes 45 visits, but ratings are only good for 8 years.  A highly rated course with 35 ballots gets left out as I understand it. Golf Digest does not permit any kind of official "raters day" for a number of a reasons.

I've been saying for years that Friar's Head wasn't on the list because of a lack of ballots given that raters can't call and ask to play. I'm glad it finally got to 45. I would guess that places like Rock Creek and Gozzer Ranch will make it eventually--hopefully raters will go out and play them both.


Jim,
I think you actually liked Sahalee better than I did!

[Matt_Ward]

Jeff / Jim, et al:

The silly cumbersome process is more bureaucratic than anything else.

One can streamline the process and get more current / up-to-date info that really reflects greatness.

The "45 rule" is just another example of how out of touch things can be,

In real time -- Kingsley is a top 100 course -- those that don't see it -- really need to get orientated on what
superior golf can be. The same holds true for Rock Creek.

When a magazine creates an army of people -- 90% of whom are primarily state or regional based -- the "national" outcomes is less likely to be really something of value.

We all live in a viral world -- years ago one would need that many panelists -- that's not the case now. GD believes more raters produces more coverage and results. In fact, the opposite is happening.

[John Kavanaugh]

Matt,

The last thing the world needs is another blog. Digest has the balls to go old school by sticking to only 100 courses and updating once every two years.  It's a magazine, lets celebrate that we can read ink on dead tree while we still can.

Have any of you been to your local library, Walmart or pharmacy and looked at a magazine rack lately?  Walmart has moved the rack away from the prime placement near the groceries over to the graveyard of $5 DVD's.  My local library dismounted the periodical section for a bank of computers.  I won't touch magazines in the pharmacy after they are fingered by sweating addicts whose only joy left in life is conning the system for prescription meds.  Despite all that, and not mentioning my distaste for the rater system, I still prefer this ritual of a biennial list of only 100 courses to someones blog or twitter no matter their travels and/or qualifications.

Of course, as you all know, my other passion besides golf is the theater.  There is nothing like waking up in New York and reading the latest reviews in the Times with ink in hand.  I check out all the blogs, follow the twitter accounts and do the Google from my lair in Illinois, but it just ain't the same.  Digest is the last bastion of top 100 lists created by ordinary people with nothing more than an opinion.  Who knows, they may even be right.

[Sean Leary]

Matt,

The Golf Mag list does what you mention. Of course that is mainly architects, pros, industry people etc, that don't get to tons of courses, so they really can only do a Top 100 and not state lists for example.

Andy and Jim,

The Sahalee thing doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. With CB on the scene, you would think that a lot or raters like yourselves with national portfolios would get to see it and nullify any local bias. For it to rise so much is almost incomprehensible. As Pete Ferlicca mentioned above, it probably doesn't make my Top 5 in WA.

[Jim Franklin]

I do not know what the perfect system is. I like being part of the GD system, but see the flaws in it as well, but each system has there own flaws. I like the 3 options. And I have seen some of the minor golf mags and blogs that rate courses and those are the most ridiculous things I have ever seen. While I do not agree with GD's #1 or the fact that Sahalee is ranked and Chambers Bay isn't, I will stick with GD's version.