Unofficial Best GCA/Dollar You Can Play Top 100 Ranking (Revised!)

[Rich Goodale]

Excellent concept and good work, Jud.  Could you possibly add the green fees (in USD) to your master list?  Thanks.

[Jud_T]

Rich, I'd rather not post the prices.  It's not a difficult math problem to figure it out...

[Thomas Dai]

Jug,

Here's a link to the 2013 green fees for Saunton - http://www.sauntongolf.co.uk/visitors - max £79 per round in summer with various discounts available depending on the time you want to play and if you have membership of another relevant club (referred to as County Card).

All the best

[Jud_T]

Jug,

Here's a link to the 2013 green fees for Saunton - http://www.sauntongolf.co.uk/visitors - max £79 per round in summer with various discounts available depending on the time you want to play and if you have membership of another relevant club (referred to as County Card).

All the best

Thanks.  Updated...

[Andy Troeger]

Thanks to Jud for taking the time to crunch the numbers. I think the value proposition is very useful.

I have to admit, however, that it looks like a list of all the good public courses in the world listed from lowest price to highest. The range of the quality scores isn't big enough to make much difference against the much bigger pricing numbers.

[Alex Miller]

Thanks to Jud for taking the time to crunch the numbers. I think the value proposition is very useful.

I have to admit, however, that it looks like a list of all the good public courses in the world listed from lowest price to highest. The range of the quality scores isn't big enough to make much difference against the much bigger pricing numbers.

Everyone's got a different take on value, but I would be curious what squaring the quality score would bring to the table in order to give it a heavier weight. I don't have the spreadsheet, but it wouldn't be hard to do and could offer some interesting results.

[Jud_T]

Thanks to Jud for taking the time to crunch the numbers. I think the value proposition is very useful.

I have to admit, however, that it looks like a list of all the good public courses in the world listed from lowest price to highest. The range of the quality scores isn't big enough to make much difference against the much bigger pricing numbers.

Everyone's got a different take on value, but I would be curious what squaring the quality score would bring to the table in order to give it a heavier weight. I don't have the spreadsheet, but it wouldn't be hard to do and could offer some interesting results.

On it.  I was wondering how I should shift the weightings about.  You'd think my days as a NY State Math geek would still count for something, but the aging process is quickly setting in.  You can argue the weights indefinitely however... Stay tuned...

[Jud_T]

Done.  Updated above.  Looks a bit better....

[Alex Miller]

Hmmm... I guess the question comes down to how does the Doak scale function mathematically? (This is the Doak scale, right?)

Since the number of courses on the scale gets thinner on both ends, what if we raised e to the power of the quality score of the course. This would give quite a bit more weight to the quality since squaring did not do much.

That's the EXP function in excel.

[Sean_A]

I am looking at a ton of courses ranked top 300 in the world - all are plenty good enough to satisfy most snobs leaning heavily toward quality and practically everybody else (98% of golfers?) who swings a club.  Why exactly does the quality quotient need kicking up?  Is there really all that much difference in quality between 50 and 250?  How bout between 50 and 25?  If anything, there are courses on the list which only the very few of the most elite snobs could say they get value from.  These people probably sail as well.    

Ciao

[Jud_T]

I think it's pretty good as it stands.  If you weight the quality too much you just move inexorably back to the original list.  Each guy can decide for himself if he'd rather play 1 round at Pebble, 2 rounds at Pac Dunes, 4 rounds at Barnbougle, 7 at Carne or 10 at Wild Horse for the same number of shekels.  The point is to throw into relief how much the magazine rankings influence pricing as we all line up like lemmings with our Amex cards out for bragging rights while so many really good to great courses that are just under the radar go begging at a fraction of the price.

[Andy Troeger]

Done.  Updated above.  Looks a bit better....

I agree. Alex knows a lot more about the math stuff than I do, but I think the squaring at least helps the issue. There's no perfect formula.

[Alex Lagowitz]

nice to see Dornoch being the only scottish course in the top tier; however, like others have mentioned, the greens fee cost is almost irrelevant considering it can't be played in the same rotation at the southern courses.  Often, people overlook Dornoch considering it takes a full half day to get up there (not possible to day trip) and the breadth of courses in the area is not as deep as other high traffic golf areas such as Fife and East Lothian).  Hopefully this will change with introduction of Castle Stuart and as always with nice rounds at Brora and a day trip to Nairn.

[Rich Goodale]

Hmmm... I guess the question comes down to how does the Doak scale function mathematically? (This is the Doak scale, right?)

Alex

The Doak scale is supposed to be logartihmic, so some sort of exponential function should be applied to the "Score" column.

Rich

[Scott Sander]

Jud-

Where, if at all, would you put your newly-beloved Harrison Hills ($30-ish) on this list if you were able to rig the standings?

[Jud_T]

Jud-

Where, if at all, would you put your newly-beloved Harrison Hills ($30-ish) on this list if you were able to rig the standings?

Interesting question.  I doubt it would make the 6.5 cutoff with this jaded lot.  There's only 8 original holes and while Tim Liddy did a fine job with the renovation, it's on less interesting terrain; probably a Doak 5 or 6 for most (6 as the original 9 in the CG).  If it were a 6.5 however, it would easily top the list at $28 to walk weekends.   Brings up a good point about 9 holers though.  Royal Worlington as a Doak 9 for 50 pounds would come in second!

[Alex Miller]

Hmmm... I guess the question comes down to how does the Doak scale function mathematically? (This is the Doak scale, right?)

Alex

The Doak scale is supposed to be logartihmic, so some sort of exponential function should be applied to the "Score" column.

Rich

Rich,

Thanks, as I suspected. Now all we need to do is figure out how "value" functions in terms of dollars. Easy...  


By the way, thanks for doing all this Jud!

[Rich Goodale]

Hmmm... I guess the question comes down to how does the Doak scale function mathematically? (This is the Doak scale, right?)

Alex

The Doak scale is supposed to be logartihmic, so some sort of exponential function should be applied to the "Score" column.

Rich

Rich,

Thanks, as I suspected. Now all we need to do is figure out how "value" functions in terms of dollars. Easy...  


By the way, thanks for doing all this Jud!

And factor in exchange rate fluctuations, etc.

What with the pound plummeting to ~$1.51, and Arble et. al. continuing to ferret out great £25/round courses in MittelInglerland, I would suspect that Wild Horse might not be top of the tree for long.....

[Jud_T]

Rich,

Best absolute value is probably a different discussion/list.  Obviously the best value is a Doak 5 that costs $20 like Spring Valley or one of Sean's off-the-run gems.  The genesis of this list is to look at the best courses in the world and then superimpose a value scale upon them.

[Rich Goodale]

Rich,

Best absolute value is probably a different discussion/list.  Obviously the best value is a Doak 5 that costs $20 like Spring Valley or one of Sean's off-the-run gems.  The genesis of this list is to look at the best courses in the world and then superimpose a value scale upon them.

Agreed, Jud, and as Alex and others have said, in effect, great 1st stab at developing some sort of "value for money" list.  Let's try to keep working on it, even though it is always going to be a work in progress, rather than some sort of finished product.

Rich

[David Harshbarger]

Another to represent this would be to chart it:

X-axis = price
Y-axis = quality

Place and label a mark for each course per the x and y values

Favor those in the upper left quadrant

I'd do a mock-up but I'm lazy and on an iPad....

[Jud_T]

Another to represent this would be to chart it:

X-axis = price
Y-axis = quality

Place and label a mark for each course per the x and y values

Favor those in the upper left quadrant

I'd do a mock-up but I'm lazy and on an iPad....

Actually a pretty good idea.  You could essentially develop an efficient frontier of GCA/price.  Ideally it would be interactive....

[JBovay]

Jud,

Excellent work in gathering the prices and assembling the list.

I'm suggesting an adjustment here, but I realize that everything is subject to debate and just want to provide this as a resource for folks rather than generating a ton of conversation about the exact way I scaled it. Everyone's interpretation of golf course rankings and ratings is personal, and everyone's valuation of great golf and ability to pay for it is a little different too.

A while back, I asked myself how much I would be willing to pay to play some of the great courses and also courses of much lower reputation/quality, based on my own interpretation of the Doak scale. I developed a table of values and a formula that I'll get to later.

By dividing value or ranking^2 by price, as Jud did, you are easily able to determine where the best value for golf is and this system can help you to determine where to play. It makes a lot of sense to say that a course you value at $100 but for which you only pay $50 is a better deal than the course you value at $300 that has a green fee of $250, because you can play the cheaper course five times for the price of the more expensive one (and get the $50 surplus value each time).

However, by asking how much a course is undervalued or overvalued (value minus price, instead of value divided by price), you can develop a ranking that works when you're considering spending part of that $250 on things other than golf. That is, when you don't have a dedicated portion of your budget set aside for golf. My ranking system puts the two hypothetical courses in the above example at the same exact ranking, and that's one drawback, especially if you have a lot of time to play golf.

The other advantage of the formula I propose below is that courses of all levels can be compared; you don't have to cut it off at 6.5 and it's impossible for low-quality courses to rise to the top of the chart.

So, here is my own personal formula:
Dollar value=318*(arcsin(GCA points/10))^1.7 [arcsin is ASIN in Excel, for anyone who wants to play around and develop their own formula]

This results in values like:
10 @ $685
9 @ $385
8 @ $280
7 @ $206
6 @ $150
5 @ $100
4 @ $70
3 @ $42
2 @ $21
1 @ $6

I think I might be willing to spend a little more to play Augusta or NGLA, but nobody's searching for a good deal in that corner of the golf course rankings.

So here's my table of good deals among great golf courses, based on the unofficial GCA ranking and the prices Jud found last year. Note that rankings are not too sensitive to changes in the formula, as long as dollar value has the exponential shape with respect to quality.

Unofficial GCA rank   Course name   GCA points   Surplus value
10   Royal Dornoch      9.3   262
24   Barnbougle Dunes      8.6   235
28   Highlands Links      8.44   217
4   Royal County Down   9.58   209
9   St. Andrews (Old)   9.35   202
11   Pacific Dunes   9.28   192
124   Wild Horse Golf Club      7.21   172
45   St. Enodoc      8   165
38   North Berwick   8.17   158
N/A   A 6.5 that costs $20      157
83   Macrihanish      7.56   146
97   Lawsonia Golf Club (Links)       7.41   144
101   Pennard      7.4   142
54   Paraparaumu Beach   7.85   142
3   Royal Melbourne (West)   9.65   141
116   Silloth-On-Solway      7.27   139
165   Black Mesa Golf Club      6.91   134
174   Rustic Canyon Golf Course      6.84   130
N/A   A 6 that costs $20      130
14   Royal Portrush   8.91   130
86   Woking   7.53   128
47   Bethpage (Black)   7.98   128
180   Carne      6.8   128
67   Cruden Bay   7.72   120
43   Rye   8   120
71   Ganton   7.68   109
96   Royal West Norfolk   7.42   104
129   Notts (Hollinwell)   7.17   103
196   Enniscrone      6.7   102
34   Lahinch   8.3   101
126   Cuscowilla   7.19   99
62   Casa de Campo (Teeth of the Dog)   7.77   96
39   St. George's Hill   8.15   87
140   Newcastle   7.08   87
N/A   A 5 that costs $20 or a 6 that costs $59      86
157   World Woods (Pine Barrens)   6.96   85
17   Ballybunion   8.78   83
161   Saunton (East)   6.94   81
147   Tobacco Road   7   72
50   Woodhall Spa (Hotchkin)   7.92   71
108   Chambers Bay   7.33   69
141   The Addington   7.08   59
158   Alwoodley   6.96   59
205   Burnham & Berrow   6.67   56
19   Muirfield   8.75   56
100   Jasper Park   7.4   56
30   Royal St. George's   8.37   54
75   Western Gailes   7.66   53
48   Carnoustie (Championship)   7.97   52
139   West Sussex   7.09   52
226   County Sligo   6.51   51
145   The Island (Dublin, Ireland)   7.04   51
N/A   A 6 @ $100, a 5 @ $54, or a 4 @ $20      50
218   Worplesdon   6.57   44
103   Royal Troon   7.39   33
190   County Louth   6.74   31
56   Bandon Trails   7.82   30
57   Prestwick   7.81   27
204   Nairn   6.67   27
121   Homestead (Cascades)   7.23   26
49   Pasatiempo   7.95   26
81   Banff Springs   7.58   25
183   Portstewart   6.79   25
66   Bandon Dunes   7.73   22
156   Royal Aberdeen   6.97   21
117   Royal Porthcawl   7.27   19
20   Kingston Heath   8.73   13
32   Sunningdale (Old)   8.32   11
33   Turnberry (Ailsa)   8.32   5
68   Walton Heath   7.71   4
72   Mid Ocean   7.68   4
211   Arcadia Bluffs   6.61   3
135   Royal Adelaide   7.13   -1
182   Palmetto   6.79   -2
60   Portmarnock (Old)   7.8   -4
107   Royal Cinque Ports   7.34   -6
221   Formby   6.55   -7
134   We-Ko-Pa (Saguaro)   7.13   -10
51   Royal Birkdale   7.91   -11
36   Cape Kidnappers   8.27   -18
112   Gleneagles (King's)   7.29   -18
113   Waterville   7.29   -23
155   Pine Needles   6.98   -30
91   Royal Liverpool   7.49   -36
154   Blackwolf Run (River)   6.98   -45
127   Harbour Town   7.18   -46
80   Kingsbarns   7.6   -50
118   Kapalua (Plantation)   7.25   -55
88   Sunningdale (New)   7.52   -56
160   The Berkshire (Red)   6.95   -63
172   Walton Heath (New)   6.86   -68
214   San Lorenzo   6.6   -69
186   The Berkshire (Blue)   6.76   -74
199   The European Club   6.69   -85
52   Ocean Course at Kiawah Island   7.91   -88
73   Royal Melbourne (East)   7.68   -106
74   Whistling Straits (Straits)   7.66   -108
99   Cabo del Sol (Ocean)   7.4   -122
64   TPC Sawgrass (Players Stadium)   7.76   -135
18   Pebble Beach   8.75   -141
111   Spyglass Hill   7.29   -141
85   Royal Lytham & St. Annes   7.55   -146
35   Pinehurst No. 2   8.3   -168
123   Valderrama   7.21   -176

Some of the truly great courses move up significantly in the value rankings from the (already great) version of the rankings that Jud did. The courses that move up more than 10 spots:

Royal Dornoch
Royal County Down
The Old Course
Pacific Dunes
Royal Melbourne West
Royal Portrush
Ballybunion
Muirfield
Kingston Heath

Lessons I've learned from this activity:
- Traveling for great golf is expensive, as is traveling for very good golf. Especially within the United States.
- Enjoy whatever time I get to spend in remote corners of the world like Dornoch and Barnbougle and Bandon.

JB

[Ulrich Mayring]

A "good deals" list that has Royal Dornoch at the top and TOC at #5 seems a little bizarre. I think this stems from the fact that a "10" course is deemed to be almost twice as valuable as a "9" course, which I personally find unrealistic. Tom Doak says he splits hairs between great and greater with his scale, for most mere mortals there will not be much of a difference between a 9 and a 10. And even 8 will in most cases be much, much better than 99% of the golf we play day-in, day-out.

Ulrich

[Norbert P]

Wildhorse         Nebraska
Delaware Springs    Texas
Wine Valley         Washington
Mid Pines            NC
Bayside           Nebraska

Common theme here?   Proctically speaking, yes.

(Hey!!  They're in MY top 100)