[Jim Colton]

Here's a comparison between the new Links100 rankings against the Golfweek US Classic & Modern Top 25, with Golf Mag and Golf Digest thrown in for good measure. Bold denotes the only pub where the course makes the top 25.

Interestingly, for Links and GD, the 25th classic course is 33rd overall in each. 25th classic is 38th overall for GD. 25th modern is 68th overall for Links, 72nd for Golf Mag and 58th for Golf Digest.

So looking at the lists below, how would you rate the 4 major publication ratings?

Rk	_____Links Classic_____	_____GW Classic_____	_____GM Classic_____	_____GD Classic_____
1	Cypress Point	Pine Valley	Pine Valley	Augusta National
2	Pine Valley	Cypress Point	Cypress Point	Pine Valley
3	Augusta National	Shinnecock Hills	Augusta National	shinnecock hills
4	Shinnecock Hills	NGLA	Shinnecock Hills	Oakmont
5	NGLA	Merion (East)	Pebble Beach	cypress point
6	Oakmont	Oakmont	Oakmont	Pebble beach
7	Merion (East)	Fishers Island	Merion (East)	Merion (East)
8	Fishers Island	Crystal Downs	NGLA	Winged Foot (West)
9	Pebble Beach	Pebble Beach	Pinehurst (No. 2)	NGLA
10	Prairie Dunes	Augusta National	Crystal Downs	Fishers Island
11	Crystal Downs	San Francisco	Winged Foot (West)	Crystal Downs
12	Pinehurst (No. 2)	Prairie Dunes	Seminole	Seminole
13	Winged Foot (West)	Chicago	Chicago	The Country Club
14	Chicago	Seminole	Prairie Dunes	Chicago
15	San Francisco	Los Angeles (North)	San Francisco	Oak Hill (East)
16	Riviera	Winged Foot (West)	Fishers Island	Riviera
17	Los Angeles (North)	Pinehurst (No. 2)	Oakland Hills (South)	Medinah (no 3)
18	Seminole	Garden City GC	Riviera	Oakland Hills (South)
19	The Country Club	Oakland Hills (South)	Bethpage (Black)	Prairie Dunes
20	Oakland Hills (South)	Riviera	The Country Club	Olympic Club (Lake)
21	Bethpage (Black)	Bethpage (Black)	Los Angeles (North)	Baltusrol (Lower)
22	Garden City GC	The Country Club	Olympic (Lake)	San Francisco
23	Shoreacres	Olympic Club (Lake)	Garden City GC	Bethpage (Black)
24	Camargo	Camargo	Baltusrol (Lower)	Pinehurst (no 2)
25	The Course at Yale	Southern Hills	Oak Hill (East)	Southern Hills

Classic courses that are on 3 top 25's but not all 4: LA North and Garden City (not on Golf Digest); Olympic (Lake) (not on Links)

Rk	_____Links Modern_____	_____GW Modern_____	_____GM Modern_____	_____GD Modern_____
1	Sand Hills	Sand Hills	Sand Hills	Sand Hills
2	Pacific Dunes	Pacific Dunes	Pacific Dunes	The Alotian Club
3	Friar's Head	Old Macdonald	Friar's Head	Pacific Dunes
4	Ballyneal	Whistling Straits	Whistling Straits	Whistling Straits
5	Old Macdonald	Friar's Head	The Ocean Course	Muirfield Village
6	The Golf Club	Ballyneal	TPC Sawgrass	Wade Hampton
7	The Ocean Course	Bandon Dunes	Muirfield Village	The Ocean Course
8	Whistling Straits	Sebonack	Bandon Dunes	Bandon Dunes
9	Bandon Trails	The Golf Club	The Golf Club	The Honors Course
10	Bandon Dunes	Pete Dye GC	Old Sandwich	Castle Pines
11	Muirfield Village	Shadow Creek	Old Macdonald	Shadow Creek
12	Boston GC	Muirfield Village	Harbour Town	Friar's Head
13	TPC Sawgrass	Old Sandwich	Ballyneal	Victoria National
14	Shadow Creek	Kinloch	Nanea	Canyata
15	Old Sandwich	Rock Creek	Chambers Bay	The Golf Club
16	Gozzer Ranch	Spyglass Hill	Spyglass Hill	TPC Sawgrass
17	Chambers Bay	The Honors Course	Trump Bedminster (Old)	GC at Black Rock
18	Sebonack	TPC Sawgrass	Bandon Trails	Sebonack
19	Pete Dye GC	Wade Hampton	The Honors Course	Pete Dye GC
20	Monterey Peninsula (Shore)	The Ocean Course	Wade Hampton	Kinloch
21	Wade Hampton	Boston GC	Shadow Creek	Eagle Point
22	Kingsley Club	Gozzer Ranch	Sebonack	Arcadia Bluffs
23	Rock Creek	Mountaintop	Calusa Pines	Sahalee
24	The Honors Course	Shooting Star	Gozzer Ranch	Butler National
25	Kinloch	Chambers Bay	Hazeltine National	Rich Harvest Links

Modern courses that are on 3 top 25's but not all 4: Ballyneal, Old Mac (probably timing), Old Sandwich, Chambers Bay, Gozzer Ranch (may be min vote thing) - all not on GD Top 25 modern; Kinloch not on GM Top 25 modern

[Michael George]

Jim:

Did you copy GM and GD Classic list or are they identical?

Good thread.

[Jim Colton]

Michael,

Yeah, I'll go in and fix that last column. Might take me a bit to get it in the table. Here is the GD list in the meantime.


Augusta
Pine Valley
Shinnecock
Oakmont
Cypress Point
Pebble Beach
Merion
Winged Foot (West)
NGLA
Fishers Island
Crystal Downs
Seminole
The Country Club
Chicago
Oak Hill (East)
Riviera
Medinah (no 3)
Oakland Hills (South)
Prairie Dunes
Olympic Club (Lake)
Baltusrol (Lower)
San Francisco
Bethpage (Black)
Pinehurst (no 2)
Southern Hills

[Bart Bradley]

Jim:


I think GW's are very good also and have little complaints.  One question is Mountaintop as most everyone that I have talked to that is very familiar with the area likes Grandfather and Diamond Creek better.  Any thoughts from Wade and Bart and others that know the area well.

Good thread.

Michael:

Glad to offer my opinion.  

Mountaintop is in a beatiful settting and has some very interesting holes.  The level of service at the club is top notch and it has a very modern feel.  There is pop music playing for all to hear at the driving range as you warm up.  The entire golf staff is outside on the range and course all day long tending to the members and visitors.  I have joked to some that the neck message I got on the first tee really loosened me up before my round.  The routing is confusing at best and walking is quite a challenge...the first hole alone would stop most from attempting the walk....Here is a picture of the 2nd hole at Mountaintop.



Again, to show you the stunning beauty of the place, here is a long par 3 over a ravine (the fairway short and left of the green had been aerated and sanded):



Diamond Creek, the other Fazio you mention, is in a similarly stunning setting.  It is a much tighter routing and certainly more walkable.  The strategic nuances of this course seem to far outweigh those at Mountaintop.   I believe the entire course has less than 50 bunkers and the maintenance is a near perfect firm and fast.  I believe it is superior to Mountaintop .

As to Grandfather, I am a member and accordingly I can be accused of bias appropriately.  Grandfather has the weakest opening hole of the 3 courses discussed here but has by far, the best and most walkable routing.  I walk about 80 to 90% of my rounds at Grandfather and so do most of my guests.  Grandfather feels much older and lies over ground without significant elevation changes.  Grandfather is well-known for its fast, sloped greens but its fairways have traditionally been too soft (progress in that regard is being made).  Grandfather's bunkering has been changed away from its original Ellis Maples design and truthfully, the bunkers lack depth and character.  Grandfather is in need of further tree removal despite quite a bit of work in that regard over the last 2 winters.  I love the place, and the setting for golf is tremendous.  

What else can I tell you?

Bart

[Jud_T]

To me it's in the following order (are you saying something by putting them in the same order Jim?):

1.  Links
2.  Golfweek
3.  Golf Magazine
4.  Golf Digest

Golf Digest is clearly last, primarily due to their obsession with difficulty and tournament tracks.  Links nudges out Golfweek for the top spot IMO primarily for a more appropriate ranking of the following courses (amongst others), both positively and negatively:

Shoreacres
Kingsley
Yale
Whistling Straights
Pinehurst #2
Fishers Island
Bandon Trails
Spyglass
Bandon Dunes

[Tommy Williamsen]

To be honest there is really very little difference between the lists.  Except for a few courses they are very similar. Having played most of the courses I can see reasons to include most of the courses.

[Jud_T]

Tommy,

I'm not sure how you can look at the Links Modern and Digest Modern lists and say there is very little difference.

[Anthony Gray]

I would choose Links. It's the magazine that emphasizes architecture the most. That panel should have a greater appreciation for the ground golf is played on.


  Anthony

[Mike Nuzzo]

Links  ---->---- Golf Digest
Fun --->---- Pretty

If you are a pretty / maintenance player - use Digest
If you are a fun player - use Links

[Jeff Doerr]

It looks to me like the GD list has not been updated in a while on the modern side.

[Joel_Stewart]

It looks to me like the GD list has not been updated in a while on the modern side.

There is no "modern list" from Golf Digest or any other publication other than GolfWeek.  Jim has created those from the lists.

To me, the top 25 are basically all the same on the classics with some minor variations.  It's some of the larger differences that interest me.  Yale being 25th on the Links list isn't in the top 100 for Golf Digest?  Seems like it's overrated on Links and underrated on Digest.

[Jim Colton]

Joel,

Yale and Rich Harvest might be the two biggest differences of any courses in the mix. Links has Yale 33rd in the US. Golf Digest has Yale 6th in Connecticut, something probably akin to being 500-600th in the US. I'd have it much closer to the former than he latter.

[George Freeman]

Where is the "Unofficial GCA" ranking??   

[George Freeman]

Jim - are the bold courses ones that don't appear in other lists?  If not, what do they entail?

[Jim Colton]

Jim - are the bold courses ones that don't appear in other lists?  If not, what do they entail?

Thats what it's meant to do. It's updated for modern, I believe. I didn't go in and change the classics after I updated the last Column.

[Buck Wolter]

Pretty sure Kingsley is Top25 GW modern

[Jim Colton]

Pretty sure Kingsley is Top25 GW modern

26. Kingsley Club

7.63

(19, p) Kingsley, Mich.

2001, Mike Devries

[Jackson C]

Jim - are the bold courses ones that don't appear in other lists?  If not, what do they entail?

Thats what it's meant to do. It's updated for modern, I believe. I didn't go in and change the classics after I updated the last Column.

Thanks for putting this together Jim.  As usual, it is very interesting to see the numbers against each other.

Of the bolded courses, a few do appear in other's list -- as you pointed out Kingsley is 26 and 19p on GW's list, so it is supported by a similar ranking on another list.
Glancing at the other rankings, it appears that Calusa Pines, Nanea, and Alotian's rankings are not outliers as well, as they place on another list, not far beyond 25.

WRT true outliers?  Shooting Star and Rich Harvest, as you've pointed out?
Perhaps you can compile a list incorporating the rankings of these four sources?   

[Buck Wolter]

Pretty sure Kingsley is Top25 GW modern

26. Kingsley Club

7.63

(19, p) Kingsley, Mich.

2001, Mike Devries


Glad I let the GW subscription lapse  

[Sven Nilsen]

Looking over the classics lists, if you did a breakdown I'd bet that Golf Magazine probably has the most consistent placement amongst the four.  That being said, I find myself agreeing with the Links list on the whole over the other three.  I think that GM may be a bit closer to the anomalies that occur in the GD list, and therefore its rankings come out with the least deviation from an average of the four. 

Here's a highly unofficial and unscientific ranking of the classics based on the average spot for each course on the four rankings:

1. Pine Valley
2. Cypress Point
3.  Shinnie
4. ANGC
5. Oakmont
6. NGLA
7. Merion
8. Pebble
9. Crystal
10. Fishers
11. WFW
12. Chicago
13. Prairie D.
14. Seminole
15. Pinehurst
16. SF
17. Riviera
18. TCC
19. Oakland Hills
20. LA North
21. Bethpage
22. GCGC
23. Olympic
24. Baltusrol
25. Camargo

[Jim Colton]

Sven,

 I think the composite classic is really strong, probably better than any of the individual lists. The composite modern isn't quite as good, in my opinion, probably because the modern lists are so volatile.

Sand Hills
Pacific Dunes
Whistling Straits (Straits)
Friar's Head
Bandon Dunes
Muirfield Village
The Golf Club
Kiawah Island (Ocean Course)
Old Macdonald
Ballyneal
TPC Sawgrass (Players)
Shadow Creek
Old Sandwich
Sebonack
Wade Hampton
The Honors Course
Pete Dye GC
Bandon Trails
The Alotian Club
Chambers Bay
Spyglass Hill
Boston GC
Kinloch
Gozzer Ranch
Castle Pines

Note: Old Mac wasn't eligible for the last GD list, so it would likely move up a couple slots. I think Gozzer had a top 100 score, but didn't have enough votes to qualify. So it would move up as well if you factored that in somehow. I simply gave 25 pts for 1st, 1 pt for 25th, so one shortfall is it doesn't give credit for something that's listed lower on a given list. A different approach would obviously yield a different result, but the top 5-10 is probably pretty solid.

[Kevin Pallier]

Jim

I like the look of the Links lists v those of GD in particular which has some real outliners (For the record - I participated in developing the Links list) GD in the classic list has Cypress low and my old yardstick PB ahead of Merion, NGLA and Fishers Island ? GD in the modern list has Friars half-way, no Bandon Trails but Bandon Dunes and many tournament venues ?

Tom Dunne

It seems even though it was turned around in a short timeframe the US list seems pretty well recieved. Any chance of putting a country map on the world listings ?

Jim C - I haven't done a Top25 World listing comparison - but at first glance it seems OK ?

[Pete Blaisdell]

Jim
 Gold Star for your effort putting this together for our viewing pleasure.

 I would say that after staring at the differant lists for 30-45 minutes and two cups of coffee, I like the quality and the memories that surface on the LINKS list.

 Thank you for the distraction. I needed one to take away the thought of my Patriots giving away that game last night. I've seen Welker make that catch more times than I can remember but not last night.

  That safety call was bogus. Even Brady quipped that he thought Branch was running a post. Referee should have known that was a possible route. Tom would not have said a word if he thought he did not have case. Course, we got away with one on the pass interference.. Some might debate that but that could have been a flag with no argument from me.

[Peter Pallotta]

Jim - thanks for posting the rankings like that.  For me I'm glad someone like Tommy W -- who has played most of the courses on all the lists -- finds "very little difference" between them.  I'm glad because it helps support my (uninformed) view that we tend to miss the forest for the trees, i.e. that in focusing on individual courses -- the ones we want to see higher or lower, or on or off the list(s) -- we can miss/dowplay the overall and quite overwhelming unanimity of opinion, the virtual consensus, that is manifest in those various lists.  Group five or ten courses together (as the best, second best etc "groups") and the unanimity gets even more pronounced. I don't know what that "means" if anything -- it may simply mean that all the experts agree: there is absolutely no doubt at all about what courses are the top 10/20/30 courses in America, classic and modern.

Peter

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