[Jim Colton]

Rk   Composo US Classic
1   Pine Valley
2   Cypress Point
3   Augusta National
4   Shinnecock Hills
5   Oakmont
6   Merion (East)
6   National Golf Links of America
8   Pebble Beach
9   Crystal Downs
10   Fishers Island
11   Winged Foot (West)
12   Chicago
13   Prairie Dunes
13   Seminole
15   Pinehurst (No. 2)
16   San Francisco
17   Riviera
18   Oakland Hills (South)
19   Los Angeles (North)
20   The Country Club (Clyde/Squirrel)
21   Bethpage (Black)
22   Garden City GC
23   Oak Hill (East)
24   Olympic Club (Lake)
25   Camargo

Rk   Composo US Modern
1   Sand Hills
2   Pacific Dunes
3   Whistling Straits (Straits)
4   Friar's Head
5   Muirfield Village
6   Kiawah Island (Ocean Course)
7   Bandon Dunes
8   Old Macdonald
8   The Golf Club
10   Ballyneal
11   Shadow Creek
12   Sebonack
13   Old Sandwich
13   TPC Sawgrass (Players)
13   Wade Hampton
16   The Honors Course
17   Gozzer Ranch
18   Rock Creek Cattle Company
19   Pete Dye GC
19   The Alotian Club
21   Bandon Trails
21   Boston GC
23   Chambers Bay
24   Castle Pines
25   Kinloch
25   Spyglass Hill

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AtI2sGAMtMU9dF9uSmt6T0x5OWwxNmxFcmw4RlR6N3c&output=html

A completely unscientific way of combining the four major magazine publications. Display the top 25 classic/modern for each one, give 25 pts for 1st, 24 for 2nd, etc, and you get the lists above. What do you think?

[John Kavanaugh]

Are there any minor magazine publications that rank courses? 

[Mark Bourgeois]

Answer: for the top 10 or so not much change and for the rest the high variance courses will drop out. What happens if you create one list for GW then order courses according to their median magazine ranking?

[Mac Plumart]

Love it!

[Peter Pallotta]

Love it!

Indeed. But then again, what's not to love? The lists are like an old wool cardigan, wonderful and familiar and the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. I think I could become a rater next week (having never done it before, and having played only one of the courses on those lists), pay my fees, play every one of these great courses, carefully consider and fill in all my opinions and scores (re shot values and ambience etc) and in the end, as if by magic, I'd bet that MY list/rankings would exactly match Jim's!! What further proof could one need about the validity of Jim's method? Or ANY method, for that matter?

Peter

[Josh Smith]

Nice Jim, but I don't see Kinsley Club.  BUST.

[Mac Plumart]

Great point, Peter.  But Josh's point hammers home why so many keep plugging away and trying diligently to improve these lists.

There can not be anyway that Kingsley isn't on the Top Modern list.  I simply can not believe it.  And like Eric Smith said on another thread, I don't have to believe it.  And I don't.  I can't accept it and I will try to "correct" it (and other "errors"). 

But I find it fun...so I'm not stressing over it.

[Joe_Tucholski]

Are there any minor magazine publications that rank courses? 

I can think of local golf magazines that provide local rankings.  I feel like these local rankings are based largely on courses that pay for advertising.  I can think of a lot of minor websites that have national course rankings.  Many people on this site do it on their own blogs/sites.

I can't accept it and I will try to "correct" it (and other "errors"). 

Mac,

In trying to do this are you going to increase the score higher than you would otherwise (either intentionally or unintentionally)?

I could see this happening in the ratings process (not saying it will for you) and don't see it as a good thing.  It kind of reminds me of a piece of my wife's PhD thesis.  My understanding is the basic result is a rating that is less than ideal and more volatile year to year.

[Mac Plumart]

Joe...

I'm interested to hear more.

I'm not "over rating" a course to try to get it to the overall level I think the course should be at...I'm simply going to play courses and applying the number I think it should get.

Tell me what your wife's thesis details about pushing the numbers to high and making them more volatile, please.

[Tom_Doak]

Mac,

In trying to do this are you going to increase the score higher than you would otherwise (either intentionally or unintentionally)?

I could see this happening in the ratings process (not saying it will for you) and don't see it as a good thing. 

I am aware of instances where this used to happen in the GOLF Magazine rankings years ago, and I would be surprised if it doesn't happen to a small degree in all of the published rankings.  People are always sure they know better than their fellow panelists, and try to help them out.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Mac,

In trying to do this are you going to increase the score higher than you would otherwise (either intentionally or unintentionally)?

I could see this happening in the ratings process (not saying it will for you) and don't see it as a good thing. 

I am aware of instances where this used to happen in the GOLF Magazine rankings years ago, and I would be surprised if it doesn't happen to a small degree in all of the published rankings.  People are always sure they know better than their fellow panelists, and try to help them out.

Wow. I guess given these rankings are taken seriously we should expect to see corruption of process.

[Ronald Montesano]

by four, I presume you mean Digest, Magazine, Week and ... Links? Is Links a major golf publication?

[Jud_T]

I'd certainly consider Links and Planet golf for such a composo.  Of course too many chefs in the kitchen isn't necessarily a good thing...

[Stephen Davis]

Jim, this is very interesting. I like it!

[Sean Leary]

Are there any minor magazine publications that rank courses? 

I can think of local golf magazines that provide local rankings.  I feel like these local rankings are based largely on courses that pay for advertising.  I can think of a lot of minor websites that have national course rankings.  Many people on this site do it on their own blogs/sites.

I can't accept it and I will try to "correct" it (and other "errors"). 

Mac,

In trying to do this are you going to increase the score higher than you would otherwise (either intentionally or unintentionally)?

I could see this happening in the ratings process (not saying it will for you) and don't see it as a good thing.  It kind of reminds me of a piece of my wife's PhD thesis.  My understanding is the basic result is a rating that is less than ideal and more volatile year to year.

I would guess this happens with courses deemed overrated and underrated by Digest in particular, especially when it comes to GCA faves and unfaves.

[John Kavanaugh]

I'd certainly consider Links and Planet golf for such a composo.  Of course too many chefs in the kitchen isn't necessarily a good thing...

If you can't buy it in an airport it is not a major publication.

[Jud_T]

I'd certainly consider Links and Planet golf for such a composo.  Of course too many chefs in the kitchen isn't necessarily a good thing...

If you can't buy it in an airport it is not a major publication.

So just Digest and Golf Magazine?  How depressing of a list that is...

[Sean Leary]

I'd certainly consider Links and Planet golf for such a composo.  Of course too many chefs in the kitchen isn't necessarily a good thing...

If you can't buy it in an airport it is not a major publication.

So just Digest and Golf Magazine?  How depressing of a list that is...

Especially with how they rate Kingsley.

[Jim Colton]

Does Golf Tips have a ratings panel yet? Do they charge dues?

[Joe_Tucholski]

Joe...

I'm interested to hear more.

I'm not "over rating" a course to try to get it to the overall level I think the course should be at...I'm simply going to play courses and applying the number I think it should get.

Tell me what your wife's thesis details about pushing the numbers to high and making them more volatile, please.

Mac,

I haven't read any of it because she won't let me until it's all done but from the 1 minute elevator synopsis here is the way I interpreted what she told me.  Realize I'm probably missing a good amount in trying to relate it to golf rating, but basically she told me one section looks at a model (call it the golf week rankings) where people who have a stake in an end product (call them the golf week raters) are able to provide input to obtain an end result (call it the score for a particular course).  Each individual has a particular desired outcome based on their preferences and acts in a manner that serves their best interests.  After the initial result (the top 100 rankings) is obtained each individual assesses the result and sees that it doesn't match perfectly with their ideal so they change their original inputs, moving further from the compromise, in a manner that would work best to alter the initial result towards their ideal result.  This process ends up bringing the product further from the ideal.  The solution is to implement a punishment for providing extreme inputs (in my mind this is kind of like Golf Week firing a rater).

Part of the problem in the comparison is the ratings are linear whereas her model has a multi-dimensional optimal result.  Also her punishment is imposed on the end result not the stakeholder (so it would be like the magazine rankings algorithm adjusting the ranking on Kingsley so it moved further down in the rankings if you gave it a higher score further away from the average score).

[Mac Plumart]

Thanks, Joe.  To be clear, I am not doing that.  Although I could see how my original post could be read as such.

[Jud_T]

Joe...

I'm interested to hear more.

I'm not "over rating" a course to try to get it to the overall level I think the course should be at...I'm simply going to play courses and applying the number I think it should get.

Tell me what your wife's thesis details about pushing the numbers to high and making them more volatile, please.

Mac,

I haven't read any of it because she won't let me until it's all done but from the 1 minute elevator synopsis here is the way I interpreted what she told me.  Realize I'm probably missing a good amount in trying to relate it to golf rating, but basically she told me one section looks at a model (call it the golf week rankings) where people who have a stake in an end product (call them the golf week raters) are able to provide input to obtain an end result (call it the score for a particular course).  Each individual has a particular desired outcome based on their preferences and acts in a manner that serves their best interests.  After the initial result (the top 100 rankings) is obtained each individual assesses the result and sees that it doesn't match perfectly with their ideal so they change their original inputs, moving further from the compromise, in a manner that would work best to alter the initial result towards their ideal result.  This process ends up bringing the product further from the ideal.  The solution is to implement a punishment for providing extreme inputs (in my mind this is kind of like Golf Week firing a rater).

Part of the problem in the comparison is the ratings are linear whereas her model has a multi-dimensional optimal result.  Also her punishment is imposed on the end result not the stakeholder (so it would be like the magazine rankings algorithm adjusting the ranking on Kingsley so it moved further down in the rankings if you gave it a higher score further away from the average score).

Joe,

I'm not sure there is such a statistical ideal in this case.  Perhaps this type of methodology would apply to Golf Digest where they try to boil everything down to a mathematical formula.  If your wife can come up with a statistically significant independent methodology for ranking painting, music, literature or architecture she should either get a Nobel prize or pursue Tiddly Winks... 

[Jim Colton]

Does Golf Tips have a ratings panel yet? Do they charge dues?

LOL!  When are you going to start charging Hundred Hole Hiker Dues?  You could make a killing on that, especially if you figure out a way to charge both the courses and the players and convince them both that you've deigned to do them a favor..

Dave,

  We do have a HHH entry fee of $150/hiker. Our goal is to just cover the costs for the website hosting and planned development enhancements and some of the soft goods that we send to each participant. We did have an excess last year, so we lowered the entry fee and also used the excess to fuel that Midnight Golf auction.

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