Jim:
I support your efforts and, again, thank you for the time spent. This was all in fun.
I'm not really concerned about any one course or designer as few, if any, in the field have seen all of the candidates, and certainly never under the same conditions. Since you mention DR, lets use it and explore a bit further. How many people have played it at all, and how many have played it recently? Should recent players have a higher curve? Would things change if more people had played it, or played it today? Would its placement have increased or decreased? Can a golfer separate apples from oranges? How many follow the herd? The answer to all is "who knows" - that's why this and all other ratings are subjective and all in fun. Unfortunately, many use ratings in marketing and both magazines and clubs certainly use ratings for commercial purposes. Fact is, in many cases, ratings do little to drive or demonstrate economic success and, these days, that may be more important than anything.
No golf ratings are scientific. Rather, they are emotional and subjective. There are no player statistics to compare like in baseball, or basketball. All courses are different - thank goodness. The only thing important is that individuals like what they like, and individuals like being liked. Most people won't fully agree on what they saw looking at the exact same thing at the exact same time. I've long held that the rating "game" has really hurt golf, as people put others down due to a silly "my course is better than your course" arguments due to subjective ratings. Who wants to "bother" to play something not in the "in crowd" - who wants to help "promote" such things. Some owners (like us) are stubborn thinking our club is "worth" more and limit access to people and ignore the real and current market conditions. How many "exclusive" clubs are filling play today with "limited play" from outsiders? I know of quite many, and we are included. Part of our vision is making our place accessible to all but, like it or not, economics plays a part of the business today - a very, very big part. Tons of our "guests" come from, or are heading to, Sand Hills, Prarie Club, Ballyneal, Awarii, Wild Horse, and Bayside - I think that is cool and wish we would be smart enough to develop this better - here too, stubborness is in the way. I was a member of the Snake River Sporting Club - absolutely outstanding course, fun, completely economically unviable, now closed. Now unrated. No more fun.
Some places like Sand Hills were category changers like Ping with cast/perimeter weighted irons, Taylor Made with metal woods, and Callaway with expanded heads. As Ely Callaway once said...in the end "we sell toys" and "we sell fun". Anyone (besides Eric Smith) still playing a tour spoon? Big or Great Big Bertha? Eye 2's?
I very much agree with J.C. as to perceived conflicts, but believe subjective results among friends, like any other rating, must be taken with a grain of salt. Did Michael Jordan get a few calls? Probably. Is this a definitive vote?...nope.
Here is my take - Tom Doak is an outstanding designer, quite arguably the very best of this era. He is also good friend of mine and has started a course for us, so please assume my comments are biased. We chose Tom to do our new course due to his character, artisitic ability, body of work and, yes, commercial value. We are very pleased to have Tom and Don and we are underway. Will our new course crack a rating? Will it be "better" than anyhing else? Given the results herein published, with Tom presumably in their pocket, why did Ballyneal not choose Tom, or Bill and Ben, for their second course? Why not Nuzzo, DeVries, or the other dozen terrific designers out there? If you want another Doaklike course, why not Doak? Do I believe Tom's help here helped lead to the result?...nope. Am I suspicious of Colton's affiliation with Ballyneal?...nope. Tom's courses are just cool, and thats cool. I see no grand conspiracy.
Jim - I simply wanted to see the full list to see what places received respect but were eliminated due to low turnout. I'm a big fan of Cinderella - I like underdogs and hidden gems. I'd never even heard of Ellerston. I hope to someday get an invite to play Wolf Point (Don!!!). Was surprised the Pete Dye Golf Club wasn't well received - hard to get on, bad design or another compelling reason?
Let's take the results and all ratings for what they are, and celebrate the great courses and a great game. Thanks again to Jim and Tom.