Golf Mag Top 100 US & World - 2011

[Michael Taylor]

Scott,

 So I guess you're not  interested in a game the next time I'm in Aus?

In all seriousness I can see your point (sort of). It does seem that the raters are putting more emphasis on physical beauty than you might think seemly...    And that just seems so out of whack with the rest of planet's values...  

I guess it proves however that the raters don't have a Greg Norman bias, since he has been the consulting architect since it began it's rise up the rankings a decade ago... now if we could pull off a MacKenzie-style loan of Tom Doak while he's in Australia consulting with RM, I would expect that NSWGC would be in the top 20 by 2021.

--

Anthony,

Unfortunately the board have no plans to change our consulting architect. And I've spoken with the Pres about some upcoming changes, which I could not disagree with more.

One proposed changed (which hasn't been announced yet), is to add sandy wasteland down the left hand side, and to bring in the water hazard on the right to narrow the driving zone. Apparantly the wasteland is going to go down a significant portion of the left hand side..

[Tom_Doak]

On my way back from Europe today, I picked up a copy of the September 2011 GOLF WORLD, which has its own ranking of the top 100 golf courses in the world.  It's almost like a parallel universe.

Some of it looks like they were copying the GOLF Magazine list [which of course, they couldn't have, since both came out at the same time].  The newcomers to the GOLF WORLD list were remarkably similar to the GOLF list:

Old Macdonald #58
Lost Farm #71
Ballyneal #73  [guess it wasn't there before]
The Prairie Club (Dunes) #74  [!]
Diamante #75
Chambers Bay #90
Mission Hills (Lava Fields) #93
Yas Links #95

But the one interesting omission is Castle Stuart ... apparently not as highly regarded in its own neighborhood?

The rest of the list is a mish-mosh.  By my count there are 18-20 courses on this list not on the GOLF list, most of them in Europe [Les Bordes, Golf National, Royal Zoute, Noordwijk] and the UK and Ireland [Saunton, Gleneagles, West Sussex, Alwoodley, Formby, Doonbeg] ... oh, and South Africa, as Fancourt and Leopard Creek are both in the top 40.  There are only 36 U.S. courses [including those new ones!], and many are ranked much lower than you are used to seeing them ... Prairie Dunes and Crystal Downs 56-57, San Francisco Golf Club at 80, and Baltusrol and Olympic in the 90s.  There must be a few staples that missed the top 100 altogether, but I'm too tired to sort through them right now.

The odd thing about the list is that they don't say exactly how they arrived at it -- just that they "combined our own GB&I and European rankings with similar lists from the USA, South Africa and Australia, " and "invited contributions from noted golf travel writers, photographers and regional experts."  So apparently it is something of a cut and paste effort, where raters were not comparing courses directly at all.

[Michael Goldstein]

I have a feeling there is not the same rigor with the UK list.

Is lava fields the first course from China to make a world ranking list?



 

[Tim Bert]

In music, the big record sellers are always the top rated bands. I find myself wondering why golf course rankings are so askew from other fields, in that how much play a course gets from the paying public (obviously, private side is a bit different) doesn't figure in the rankings.  It wouldn't be a perfect system, but if 40K in a market choose one course, and only 20K pick another, how could the lesser played course be rated higher by the "elites?"

I think someone already answered variability of price which is an obvious reason # of rounds alone doesn't work.

More importantly, I haven't seen a rating panel yet that was assembled with the task of identifying the "most popular" golf course. They are tasked with defining the "best" golf courses. I'm not going to opine on the merits of their results, just pointing out why your comparison is different. I view the ratings as more comparable to the Oscars or the Grammys than the Weekly Top 40 or the Weekend's biggest money makers. The summer blockbuster was designed for the masses and it is going to make the most money and have the biggest audience. But it isn't always the best movie according to critics, although it is possible it is.   If the goal of every architect and owner was to maximize the number of rountent en this system would work fine.