I have been reading a lot of old posts in the archives and have found some great stuff. This Discussion Group has been involved in some great discussions.
One exercise that I thought was cool was Tom Doak's thread that discussed what changes you would make to Golf Magazine's Top 50 rankings in the United States (circa 2003). Tom's point in the thread was that it is a lot easier to say that this course is a top 50 course, but much harder when you have to remove one on the list. Being that those rankings have changed since that post (believe it or not, many of the suggestions on this board have been added like Valley Club and Somerset Hills. I thought I would re-post the most recent Golf rankings and offer up for discussion. Further, back in 2003, the general thought of the group was that many classics were omitted in place for new designs (other than Matt Ward who defended many new courses). I think it will be interesting to see if general thought of classic versus modern has changed and what some people may think. Just post those courses to add and those courses to remove.
Here is Golf's current top 50:
Pine Valley, Cypress Point, Augusta National, Shinnecock Hills, Pebble Beach
Oakmont, Merion (East), Sand Hills, National Golf Links of America, Pinehurst (No. 2)
Pacific Dunes, Crystal Downs, Winged Foot (West), Seminole, Chicago
Prairie Dunes, San Francisco, Fishers Island Club, Oakland Hills (South), Riviera
Bethpage (Black), The Country Club (Clyde/Squirrel), Friar's Head, Los Angeles (North), Olympic (Lake)
Whistling Straits (Straits) , Kiawah Island (Ocean), Garden City Golf Club, TPC Sawgrass (Players Stadium), Muirfield Village
Baltusrol (Lower), Bandon Dunes, Oak Hill (East), The Golf Club, Southern Hills
Shoreacres, Medinah (No. 3), Old Sandwich, Camargo, Quaker Ridge
Inverness, Maidstone, Old Macdonald, Winged Foot (East), Harbour Town
Ballyneal, Somerset Hills, Nanea, Chambers Bay, Valley Club of Montecito