NGLA not in the top 50 in the 80's

[JC Jones]

Per Mr. Urbina on the Golf Magazine through the years thread.

Did anything significant happen to the course in the last 30 years to vault it to its current ranking or is it a matter of the raters being more educated now?

[John Kavanaugh]

The rumor during the 1995 US Open that Crenshaw called over to play and was denied vaulted the course to Augusta like status.  I do believe that was also my first exposure to Shinnecock's fancy pants neighbor.  That is your rater education in a nut shell.

[Tom_Doak]

JC:

National is in a lot better condition than when I first saw it in 1980.  A lot of credit goes to Karl Olson, who went there in 1986 [right after he'd finished being the set-up man for the Open at Shinnecock].  Indeed, some credit should go to the Open at Shinnecock for putting National back on the map and forcing them to shape up a bit.

I'd like to think my book had a bit to do with National's resurgence as well.  In the 80's it had been dismissed as too easy, too quirky, too many blind shots ... of course, the GOLF DIGEST definition of "great" was all about difficulty and fairness back then.  There weren't many people nominating National in the top ten, for fear of being labeled unserious; but once I did, I think others were emboldened to admit they really liked it, too.

P.S.  In the early 1980's, GOLF DIGEST had Cypress Point in the "second 50" courses in the USA, as well.  Again, too short and quirky for their tastes.  It is people's tastes that have changed, more than the courses in question.

[Anthony Gray]

JC:

National is in a lot better condition than when I first saw it in 1980.  A lot of credit goes to Karl Olson, who went there in 1986 [right after he'd finished being the set-up man for the Open at Shinnecock].  Indeed, some credit should go to the Open at Shinnecock for putting National back on the map and forcing them to shape up a bit.

I'd like to think my book had a bit to do with National's resurgence as well.  In the 80's it had been dismissed as too easy, too quirky, too many blind shots ... of course, the GOLF DIGEST definition of "great" was all about difficulty and fairness back then.  There weren't many people nominating National in the top ten, for fear of being labeled unserious; but once I did, I think others were emboldened to admit they really liked it, too.

P.S.  In the early 1980's, GOLF DIGEST had Cypress Point in the "second 50" courses in the USA, as well.  Again, too short and quirky for their tastes.  It is people's tastes that have changed, more than the courses in question.

  It seems that those preferences also dictated golf course design. What changed the trend?

  Anthony

[SL_Solow]

I think it is important to remember that when Golf Digest began its ratings, it was titled America's Toughest Courses and a large part of the rating was based on length.  the more sophisticated system and the expanded panel evolved over the years.  But it has always placed a significant weight on difficulty or "resistance to scoring".  As a long time reader I have seen tastes evolve.  In the 80's, difficulty was a very important component.

[Anthony_Nysse]

Mr Olsen cut down THOUSANDS of trees, long before Oakmont and other courses got credit for it. He opened up vistas and allows the winds to dry the turf out, letting it play like CBM envisioned it to.

[Peter Pallotta]

JC - good topic.  The evaluation of golf course architecture (the theory and practice and underlying assumptions) has been on my mind again for a couple of days since JWL's good and interesting posts on how he evaluates design and why he never posts his top 10 lists (and also on the difference between evaluating a golf course and evaluating the quality of the design/work of the architect.) The old Fundamental Principles vs Personal Tastes discussion, with the nuance that differing sites (re the former) and the influence of raters (re the latter) bring to bear.  

Peter

[Mike Benham]

You can also thank/blame Al Gore for creating the internet ...

[jkinney]

JC:

National is in a lot better condition than when I first saw it in 1980.  A lot of credit goes to Karl Olson, who went there in 1986 [right after he'd finished being the set-up man for the Open at Shinnecock].  Indeed, some credit should go to the Open at Shinnecock for putting National back on the map and forcing them to shape up a bit.

I'd like to think my book had a bit to do with National's resurgence as well.  In the 80's it had been dismissed as too easy, too quirky, too many blind shots ... of course, the GOLF DIGEST definition of "great" was all about difficulty and fairness back then.  There weren't many people nominating National in the top ten, for fear of being labeled unserious; but once I did, I think others were emboldened to admit they really liked it,

P.S.  In the early 1980's, GOLF DIGEST had Cypress Point in the "second 50" courses in the USA, as well.  Again, too short and quirky for their tastes.  It is people's tastes that have changed, more than the courses in question.

Tom- In 1984, when National wasn't even in Golf Digest's top 100, I wrote an article for a Denver magazine CLUB TIES (long since defunct) on the courses in the Hamptons in which I criticized Bill Davis of Golf Digest for not including National in his list. I sent him the article, and on the next Golf Digest ranking National was ranked in the 50's. I can't remember where National was in the Golf Magazine rankings at the time.

[Mike Hendren]

I'd like to think my book had a bit to do with National's resurgence as well.  

Really?  Even the Colon Boys should give you some ribbing over that statement.

Bogey 

[Mike Sweeney]

"When Golf Digest first ranked America's top 200 courses by states in 1966, Shinnecock was not even listed among New York's top 14. The next year, it was included among New York's 16 "most difficult." In the magazine's 1969 list of America's "most testing" courses, Shinnecock was grouped in the third 10. In 1973 it advanced to the second 10 about the time that Ben Crenshaw stopped by with two friends. As a devoted golf historian who then was a PGA Tour rookie, Crenshaw wanted to see for himself the buried treasure of American golf. When he shot 65, he was told he had set a course record.

By then, I had been fortunate enough to have played a few rounds there, and when I was told of Shinnecock's nonresident membership, I knew that I qualified as a New Jersey resident, and that for $500 it was golf's ultimate bargain. But when I called Virgil Sherrill, the club president at the time, I was told that the nonresident membership had just been eliminated for newcomers. I was crushed, but my wife, Maureen, couldn't understand why."


http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/usopen04/news/story?id=1820086

I think the 1977 Walker Cup at Shinnecock and the widening of the Long Island Expressway  opened up Southampton to a wider golf audience.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Shinnecock and NGLA were both in the first edition of World Atlas of Golf (1976). Ballybunion was off the radar in those days, too.

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark - very interesting. That reminds me: many years ago I had occasion to spend a couple of months with a group of youngish American and British stage actors.  To a person, the Brits had grown tired of and thought over-rated the work of (Britain's) Harold Pinter, while they praised to the moon the work of (American) David Mamet.  Meanwhile, the Americans all thought that David Mamet's work had grown stale and was un-actable, but were dying to do some of the great Harold Pinter plays.  (One of the ironies, of course, was that Mamet had often mentioned the debt he owed Harold Pinter, and how he saw his plays as american versions of Pinter's work.)  The beauty of something like the World Atlas of Golf is the sense one gets that it is above such temporal/fashionable concerns, that it takes the long view, that it aims to be a historical document rather than a short-term vehicle for personal/professional aggrandizement. It seems charmingly anachronistic, treating golf course architecture as an art-craft worthy of respect instead of a business on which to build careers and create prized toys/trophies for rich developers.

Peter




  

[Eric Smith]

In 1983, Harbour Town Golf Links was ranked 24th in the world by Golf Magazine. Ahead of Prairie Dunes. San Francisco. Portrush. Riviera. 32 spots ahead of....National Golf Links of America.

The architecture at Harbour Town hasn't changed since 1983, has it? So, If not the architecture, then what? For a good long while HT was comfortably rated among the world's best. Now, when the course is consistently presented in as good of condition as it has ever been, it's position in and among the Top 100 in the US! hinged on a coin flip at Golf Digest, (which it won), to claim the 100th spot.

As for the Golf Magazine Top 100 World list for 2011 -  NGLA is 12th. Portrush 14th. Prairie Dunes 25th. San Francisco 26th. Riviera 31st.

Where is Harbour Town? 78th.

Wonder what the list looks like in another 25 years?

[JC Jones]

I guess it will depend on the longevity of The Confidential Guide's impact.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Eric Smith,

The exact same thing has happened to Pine Tree.

There seems to be an ebb and flow in rater's tastes.

JakaB,

That was Tom Watson, not Ben Crenshaw.

Anthony,

I know that in the winter of 2003/2004 Bill Salinetti removed all of the interior trees.
I was not aware of a massive tree removal program undertaken by Karl Olsen.
In what year/s did that take place ?

JC.

Raters are.............. raters.

Typically, they don't go to unknown/unrated courses in numbers.
Hence it would seem that unrated courses would stay that way, while rated courses would either have their rating reinforced or vascilate a bit over the years.

Additionally, fads can influence a rater's perspective.
There was a time, and it may still exist, when difficulty equated to architectural quality.
Longer, tougher courses seemed to be highly rated, whereas, shorter, sporty courses were no longer in vogue.

In order to assess WHY, you'd probably have to examine each rater's ballot to see if there was a theme.

And, perhaps, NGLA wasn't rated because the minimum number of ratings required, couldn't be obtained due to access issues.

[David Harshbarger]

Pat,

I hereby volunteer to be a rater of the lightly rated. All I ask is a few rounds at Pine Valley, Cypress Point, and the like to level set, and I'll be off to send in postcards from the fringe.  Overdone top 100's need not fear my call, for I will taste only of those not so now honored.

When can I start?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat,

I hereby volunteer to be a rater of the lightly rated. All I ask is a few rounds at Pine Valley, Cypress Point, and the like to level set, and I'll be off to send in postcards from the fringe.  Overdone top 100's need not fear my call, for I will taste only of those not so now honored.

When can I start?

You're a few decades too late.