Judging

[Dan Kelly]

I seem to be in the distinct minority here, in refusing to rank courses -- and, in particular, refusing to rank (or rate) courses I've played once or twice.

For example: I have played Minneapolis Golf Club ONCE. I know it's a good golf course, at least -- but would have no way of guessing what its Doak Scale rating should be. How good is it? Is it *better* than, say, Windsong Farm -- which I've played twice? I have no way of knowing.

This year is my first year of having a true "home course" that's worth arguing about. For most of the past 25 years or so, I've been doing my best Tom Huckaby imitation, playing all over the place and accepting invitations when I got them.

But this year was different. I played 40 or so rounds at my new home course, after playing 15 or so there last fall.

And there is no way in hell that I understood the course's virtues after the first 15, or even after the first 55. I can't wait for next year, to see it in even more different conditions, with even more different setups.

I know, now, that it's really good -- but I know that because I have played it enough times to have experienced, first- or second-hand, most (but not all) of the innumerable hole locations, tee locations, weather conditions and potential shots demanded and/or allowed. And I will eat the Confidential Guide if it is not better than a Doak 3, which is its grade in the Confidential Guide.

How do you guys (including the magazine raters) come to conclusions, on the basis of -- at most -- a handful of plays? I know that one can reach negative conclusions quickly, about bad courses, and can reach ecstatic conclusions about the greatest of the great, but how does one quickly judge those in between?

I don't get it. Explain it to me if you can.

[Mac Plumart]

Obviously, we're smarter than you.

 

[Bart Bradley]

Dan:

When two courses are close in quality then I understand your angst...but often, that is simply just not the case.  Quality shines through.  Shinnecock is better than nearly every course I have ever played.  It only took one play to see that.  If you are not sure, then make the two courses tied until you can figure it out...but it is not nearly as complicated as you make it.  Most courses just scream "great", "good", "not so good", "bad".  

Honestly, though, we don't care if you don't rank them.  Just don't condemn others for trying.

But there is no way that anyone could "rate" or "rank" courses if 55 rounds were the requirement.

Bart

[Dan Kelly]

Dan:

When two courses are close in quality then I understand your angst...but often, that is simply just not the case.  Quality shines through.  Shinnecock is better than nearly every course I have ever played.  It only took one play to see that.  If you are not sure, then make the two courses tied until you can figure it out...but it is not nearly as complicated as you make it.  Most courses just scream "great", "good", "not so good", "bad".  

Honestly, though, we don't care if you don't rank them.  Just don't condemn others for trying.

But there is no way that anyone could "rate" or "rank" courses if 55 rounds were the requirement.

Bart

I was amending my post even as you were making yours.

Condemn? I have never come close to condemning anyone for anything here!

[Mark Steffey]

i love being able to grab my guide and splash into situations like this to get a feel from what you are describing.   closest i've been to your place is gastof's.   my next visit i'll have to make a side trip to see for myself -- would you say that the present shape is similar to what tom wrote about?  or has work been done to it?   (clubhouse exterior certainly has a 'gastof's' look to it!  )

[Dan Kelly]

I have no idea what the course was like when Tom Doak visited.

I wasn't there then.

I am not second-guessing his judgment.

[Mark Steffey]

sorry, but i was just guessing you could use your imagination if you've not had a chance to ask someone who was there in 1994 if the course fit the "one of the less well preserved Raynor designs in my acquaintance" sentence.  the pictures on the website certainly give the show of maintenance.  so has the club made an effort to restore some of the original features if they had been overrun with trees or other changes?  have they tried to recapture playing areas (greens, fairways, bunkers) that were shortened over time?

the photo on the website of #8 is hard to tell how quirky the uphill shot makes that hole.

on 12, the front 'green' of the biarritz looks as though that is now fairway.  yes?  may just be the angle of the camera and sunlight however..

thanks.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Dan, in many ways all of us make judgments about many things.  "Boy, that's the best meal I've had in weeks.  The steak was just great." It is another way of saying, "This steak was better than yesterday's." "I think Lincoln was the best movie I saw this year.  I know I liked it better than Les Miz."  "I think my favorite course is Royal County Down."  It's no big deal. That's why have better and best: to compare. Otherwise we would only need good.

[Tom_Doak]

Dan:

I've been criticized many times for judging courses in The Confidential Guide based on a single visit, and I have always agreed that a single visit yields a varying level of judgment depending on such factors as the weather, one's golf game, one's emotional state, and other factors.  However, since no one gets paid to visit courses full time and make these judgments, I had to fall back on my own, imperfect though they may be.  If I'd only judged the courses I played three or more times, the book would be much slimmer, and there are lots of great courses that would have had to be omitted.

So, how do I make judgments so quickly?  A lot of it is context -- I'll try to think what other courses it reminds me of, and then compare it to various other courses that I've already rated, trying to slot it appropriately.  In the case of your home club, I compared it to other Raynor courses I knew.  I think that context is useful for courses designed by well-known architects; most readers will have some familiarity with their work already and whether they like it or not, so I try to place the course within the architect's body of work.  If you didn't like a Raynor course I gave a 6, you probably wouldn't like the ones I gave a 3 ... but you could very well like all of his work.

Honestly, I don't remember your course very well from my visit of +/- 20 years ago, and as we've discussed, it would be dishonest of me to start changing my ratings of courses without having seen them again, so some of my mistakes from the first Guide will go on to the new edition, while others will be acknowledged and corrected.  That's one reason I put the year I last saw the course right alongside my rating of it, for additional context.

[Jason Topp]

Dan - when you edit do you agonize over whether you are right?  I doubt it.  

As a lawyer, I feel I am paid for effort and judgment.  As a young lawyer I struggled with whether or not my advice was accurate but I learned over time that my advice is at least as good as anyone else's.

I use the same approach in rating or ranking courses.  I think it is pretty easy to broadly judge a course the first time around and I am not sure your evaluation gets better with more experience.   You learn more with repeat plays but you also develop a relationship with the place.

I am less confident in my evaluation of Oak Ridge than I am of other courses.  

[Sean_A]

Dan

To a large degree I agree with you.  Thats the reason I much prefer to deal in the realm of preferences/favourites rather than best. Also, much of the time, courses discussed on this site tend to fall in at least the top 5% category - so they are all good to very good to great.  Its usually just personal preference which separates a ranking anyway.  For instance, one stark division in opinion is how much of a lift should championship courses be given in determining the best?  Most think it is very important, to the point of sacred cow status and some think don't give that automatic boost.  This is probably the one aspect of The Confidential Guide which I don't agree with.  It seems the champ courses are given a bit of a pass because they are difficult. It would be interesting to know how many people rank courses they don't like quite highly.  

Another reason why BEST OFs don't do a lot for me is the results bring us straight back to courses which have been discussed to death.    

Ciao

[Jeff_Brauer]

Dan,

Deep down, didn't you judge that you loved your wife on first sight or first date?  Sometimes, gut feel is more important than any by the numbers analysis.  And, golf course ranking is much less important than picking a life mate.

I will grant you that statistics say that we make the wrong life choice about 50% of the time using this method, but it is less painful to change a golf course ranking later on than getting a divorce, no?

Or, since you haven't taken on any responsibilities to a magazine or web site to rank golf courses (that I know of) just go play the durn course and have fun, no?

[jeffwarne]

Dan,

Deep down, didn't you judge that you loved your wife on first sight or first date?  Sometimes, gut feel is more important than any by the numbers analysis.  And, golf course ranking is much less important than picking a life mate.

I'd say the analogy comparing the first date  and the Top 100 course is seriously flawed.
Lots of guys here will have access to more than one Top 100 course

[BCrosby]

Dan says:

"How do you guys (including the magazine raters) come to conclusions, on the basis of -- at most -- a handful of plays? I know that one can reach negative conclusions quickly, about bad courses, and can reach ecstatic conclusions about the greatest of the great, but how does one quickly judge those in between?

I don't get it. Explain it to me if you can."

I don't think it has an explanation. At least when trying to apply the finely grained distinctions most rating systems use. Which is not good news for the credibility of ratings and raters.

Most of those systems are almost too easy to mock. For example, how do you distinguish NGLA from ANGC from Peachtree from Firestone from Sand Hills based on a fraction of a number? My short answer - I have no idea. All are very different courses built in very different eras for very different kinds of golf and golfers.

Beginning with Joshua Crane and continuing today, the main problem with rating systems is that they pretend to make fine distinctions (usually expressed numerically) where none should (or can) be made. With the result that they undermine their own credibility. Put diffferently, they purport to convey information, but they don't.

I have come around to the Rich Goodale view. If you must rate courses, the only good rating system is a crude rating system. Let's go to Michelin stars where a bunch of good courses all get four stars and the others are lumped somewhere below them. Give up trying to make fine distinctions between a Myopia, a Seminole, a Harbor Town and a Pacific Dunes.

What a Michelin system foregoes in endless threads on GCA about how this course or that is ranked, it gains in crediblity.  

Bob    





 

[Mike_Young]

Beginning with Joshua Crane and continuing today, the main problem with rating systems is that they pretend to make fine distinctions (usually expressed numerically) where none should (or can) be made. With the result that they undermine their own credibility. Put diffferently, they purport to convey information, but they don't.
 

Bob,
I love it....you hit on the key word in all of this rating stuff..."pretend"

[Mark Bourgeois]

This post probably could go here or on the "Rankings - Harmful/Helpful" thread.

Referring to Tom Fazio's comments regarding clients who want him to engineer a course to be ranked:

Doesn't that strategy work best when "it's all right there in front of you," ie the course is well-defined and framed? The assumption is the course will be ranked by people seeing the course only 1-2 times. This is why Fazio wins all those "best new" awards and his courses enter the rankings high but then fade as rankers play the courses again.

So you might ask, what's the problem? A course comes in ranked highly and / or wins a "best new," gets extra attention (= repeat visits) then drops until it finds its "natural" bottom.

The problem is two-fold.

First and most importantly, I think the courses that fare worst in these rankings exercises are those lacking definition and subtlety, where there does not appear to be a "there there." New courses don't get the benefit of a doubt and they don't get a second chance to make a first impression. Like the referenced quote suggests, there might not appear to be a there there because the course actually is "Oakland:" there really isn't a there there.

On the other hand, it could be TOC or #2 -- or Hidden Creek. But to quote Lewis Black, "You don't know. You just don't know."

The second problem is that rankers know an ill-defined course is supposed to be great and rank it higher than they would otherwise simply because of consensus. They rely on the designer's name or on the course's reputation instead of writing what they think.

[Mike_Young]

Just imagine if a magazine could have 100 raters meet at an airport in a major city,  Blindfold each rater and send them in groups of four to various courses where they would be led to first tee and placed in an unmarked golf car or given a caddy in an unmarked suit.  Play the course with an unmarked scorecard and submit comments before being allowed to see the clubhouse or the surrounds.  Rankings would change drastically...

[PCCraig]

Dan,

I judged my home course after only playing it once, in the late fall nonetheless. Candidly I hadn't heard much if anything positive about the architectural significance of it from golfers in town. Yet, prior to playing it John Mayhugh (who I consider a well-traveled golfer with GCA-related opinions I respect) had some nice things to say about the course which were affirmed once I had played it. Of course, I've played it probably 120 times since then and I enjoy it more and more, but I saw it's primary strengths and weaknesses on that first play.

To more accurately answer your question. I liken rating golf courses to going to judging art in a gallery. Many times, you'll walk by art that doesn't catch your eye, sometimes you'll stand and stare for a moment or two and complement a particular feature, but sometimes on very rare occasions you'll find a work of art that takes your breath away...and you can't look away. (Which has only happened perhaps 3 times in my life). I have similar reactions to golf courses, sometimes I may not know why a work is special, but when I see it I know it's better than most everything else I've seen.

[PCCraig]

Just imagine if a magazine could have 100 raters meet at an airport in a major city,  Blindfold each rater and send them in groups of four to various courses where they would be led to first tee and placed in an unmarked golf car or given a caddy in an unmarked suit.  Play the course with an unmarked scorecard and submit comments before being allowed to see the clubhouse or the surrounds.  Rankings would change drastically...

I highly doubt that.

[Mike_Young]

Just imagine if a magazine could have 100 raters meet at an airport in a major city,  Blindfold each rater and send them in groups of four to various courses where they would be led to first tee and placed in an unmarked golf car or given a caddy in an unmarked suit.  Play the course with an unmarked scorecard and submit comments before being allowed to see the clubhouse or the surrounds.  Rankings would change drastically...

I highly doubt that.

Oh...I think they would...

[Josh Tarble]

When there are multiple options for one product, there will always be rankings, whether they are conscious or sub-conscious is up to the individual person.

If you are given the option to play course a. or course b. and you choose course a. wouldn't that mean it's better?  

I have thought about rankings quite a bit lately for some reason, and I always come back to the same thing.  They are so subjective that they really don't mean anything until I personally play it.  Rankings to me are a conversation piece and a guideline.  They don't mean I have have to like a course more or less than another, I will like what I like.  

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

You imply but forgot to mention, make sure the rater has no clue as to who the architect is.....I am sure the top guys get about five assumed points before the rater ever sees the course, at least in anticipation.  It could work the other way, though.  If they knew it was a Doak or Faz or other fave of theirs, and it disappointed, then they MIGHT downgrade for flaws even further.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

You simply know a good golf course very early on in a round, or at least I do.
For example when playing at Oak Hill in the William event last month, I went over to Rochester CC and drove around the golf course, didnt get to play just drove.
Within three holes of the cart drive I knew it was a quality golf course, so I dont think playing a course numerous times would change that .You know quality when you see it,  equally you know a lack thereof equally as quickly.

But I think many things in life are like that.
 Golf equipment,Restaurants, movies, music,locales,  first impressions are generally not changed very much over time.
I think with experience courseraters get thier opinions right rather accurately, but of course that is excatly what they are ...opinions.

[Rick Shefchik]

As a newspaper guy and, at one time or another, a paid critic of music, movies, television, books, restaurants and theater, I learned to become comfortable with snap judgements. I had no choice. I wasn't going to read the book twice or watch the show twice.

Obviously, golf courses are different in a very significant way, because you play a slightly different course every time you play the same course, no matter how many times you play it. But I'm still comfortable with my first impression. I also know it would change if I played the course more often, for better or for worse.

Usually for the better. There is a home course factor at work here that is undeniable. When I joined Stillwater Country Club 8 years ago, I'd played the course perhaps a dozen times, and I liked it very much, but I would not have put it in my list of my 10 favorite courses in the Twin Cities. Now I could not in all good conscience keep it out, because I've played it hundreds of times, know it intimately and understand almost all of its attributes.

I didn't call my list the 10 Best courses on the other thread; I called it my 10 favorites, even though the thread asked for the 10 Best. I tend to agree with you that any one person's ranking of best courses is presumputous, but I would still be willing to offer that list, too. It just wouldn't be able to withstand a Pat Mucci cross-examination.

[PCCraig]

Just imagine if a magazine could have 100 raters meet at an airport in a major city,  Blindfold each rater and send them in groups of four to various courses where they would be led to first tee and placed in an unmarked golf car or given a caddy in an unmarked suit.  Play the course with an unmarked scorecard and submit comments before being allowed to see the clubhouse or the surrounds.  Rankings would change drastically...

I highly doubt that.

Oh...I think they would...

Please give specific examples of cities and/or courses where you think this would be the case.