[Sean_A]

I haven't seen the new GW 100, but I think Top 100 Golf Courses has replaced GW as the primo ranking in GB&I.  I never liked the GW 100 anyway, perhaps because I didn't grow up with it, but also because its a stale system.

The GCA.com ranking is quite interesting.  Obviously there are a few major new courses missing, but you get the drift. 


1.   Royal County Down
2.   St. Andrews (Old)
3.   Royal Dornoch
4.   Royal Portrush
5.   Ballybunion
6.   Muirfield
7.   Royal St. George's
8.   Sunningdale (Old)
9.   Turnberry (Ailsa)
10.   Lahinch
11.   North Berwick
12.   St. George's Hill
13.   Swinley Forest
14.   Rye
15.   St. Enodoc
16.   Carnoustie (Championship)
17.   Woodhall Spa (Hotchkin)
18.   Royal Birkdale
19.   Prestwick
20.   Portmarnock (Old)
21.   Cruden Bay
22.   Walton Heath (Old)
23.   Ganton
24.   Western Gailes
25.   Kingsbarns
26.   Macrihanish
27.   Royal Lytham & St. Annes
28.   Woking
29.   Sunningdale (New)
30.   Royal Liverpool
31.   Royal West Norfolk
32.   Pennard
33.   Royal Troon
34.   Royal Cinque Ports
35.   Gleneagles King's
36.   Waterville
37.    Silloth-On-Solway
38.   Royal Porthcawl
39.   Notts (Hollinwell)
40.   West Sussex
41.   The Addington
42.   The Island (Dublin, Ireland)
43.   Royal Aberdeen
44.   Alwoodley
45.   The Berkshire (Red)
46.   Saunton (East)
47.   Walton Heath (New)
48.   Carne
49.   Portstewart
50.   The Berkshire (Blue)
51.   County Louth
52.   Enniscrone
53.   Loch Lomond
54.   The European Club
55.   Nairn
56.   Burnham & Berrow
57.   Wentworth (West)
58.   Worplesdon
59.   Formby
60.   County Sligo
61.   Royal St. David's
62.   Southerness
63.   Royal Ashdown Forest
64.   Hunstanton
65.   Tralee
66.   Rosapenna Sandy Hills
67.   Ballyliffin
68.   Hillside
69.   Old Head of Kinsale
70.   New Zealand (Surrey, England)
71.   Gullane (No. 1)
72.   Castle Course at St. Andrews
73.   Southport & Ainsdale
74.   Aberdovey
75.   Wentworth (East)
76.   Donegal
77.   Doonbeg
78.   Boat of Garten
79.   The Duke's, St. Andrews
80.   Blairgowrie Rosemount
81.   Dundonald
82.   Druid's Glen
83.   Nefyn
84.   Gleneagles PGA Centenary
85.   Mount Juliet
86.   The Belfry, Brabazon


Ciao

[Paul Gray]

Paul,

A good question.

I confess to not playing in that neck of the woods for many years now but Broadstone has always been the front runner as far as I'm concerned. When Frank Pont has finished his work there I plan on visiting. I'm literally harping back to my days as a naive junior golfer but I seem to remember thinking that Ferndown was somewhat prosaic. I stand to be corrected.

I was just thinking what Sean has literally just suggested; namely that Top 100 of the World has replaced GW as the primary ranking in GB&I.

[Adrian_Stiff]

I think Golf World will probably be no more in a few years time as a magazine you buy in the shop, sales are going lower for most magazines with the trend one way. We like our news within minutes now not a month stale, so in that respect the commercial value of them will be lower. With so many top 100s its a bit like boxing rankings wherby you hail the one that has your course highest as best and promote from that. Rating golf courses is subjective so in that respect collective opinion is best, but the opinion has to be qualified, not some jack-ass dissing the course because they have just top dressed the green, so what I don't like about top100 is you can slag off golf courses  by one balling them and drop them in the top100 ratings and you see some crap courses getting 6 balled. I cant see that's really fair as the collective opinion is flawed.

[Sean_A]

Adrian

That isn't the case at all with Top100. Read their webpage.  The rankings are not connected with the punters remarks/ball ratings. I never read what the punters have to say because so much if it is a waste of time.

Ciao

[Adrian_Stiff]

Adrian

That isn't the case at all with Top100. Read their webpage.  The rankings are not connected with the punters remarks/ball ratings. I never read what the punters have to say because so much if it is a waste of time.

Ciao

Say's it does the way I read it....we honestly believe nobody does it better than us and you.... The regional Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire rankings are well beyond cuckoo... I just cant respect this shite and it's a real shame somebody thinks it is any good. I built the www.independentworldboxingrankings.com so i understand how the foundation level of a system and how it must start at first base. Having Long Ashton #2 and Bristol & Clifton #12 is potty, both courses are very close in peoples minds and one will say LA and another B&C. Puckrup Hall #7 madness, that can't be collective opinion...only a man from Mars could rate that above Stinchcombe Hill.... Gloucester above Henbury .... I give up.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I think top100golfcourses do in fact take the public's viewpoint as an input in to the overall ranking (although it's difficult to tell if this is what they mean by reading their description)...

If this is the case, the public's view will have much less impact at the top end where the numerous magazine rankings will hold sway... But at the bottom end where there are no magazine rankings to act as a base, the public's view will have a very strong impact...

This might hold with what Adrian is saying regards the south west rankings...

As for the usual accusation that advertising rules the roost, I think that's a real untruth... Certainly with Golf Digest Ireland, the magazine have zero input in to the final positions...

[Sean_A]

Adrian

That isn't the case at all with Top100. Read their webpage.  The rankings are not connected with the punters remarks/ball ratings. I never read what the punters have to say because so much if it is a waste of time.

Ciao

Say's it does the way I read it....we honestly believe nobody does it better than us and you.... The regional Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire rankings are well beyond cuckoo... I just cant respect this shite and it's a real shame somebody thinks it is any good. I built the www.independentworldboxingrankings.com so i understand how the foundation level of a system and how it must start at first base. Having Long Ashton #2 and Bristol & Clifton #12 is potty, both courses are very close in peoples minds and one will say LA and another B&C. Puckrup Hall #7 madness, that can't be collective opinion...only a man from Mars could rate that above Stinchcombe Hill.... Gloucester above Henbury .... I give up.

Adrian

No, their rankings are separate from the punters rankings.  Go to the About Us page for an explanation.  Once in a while they publish a punter ranking.  

Forget the County rankings, they are often not very good.  Stick to comparing apples to apples: top 100 to top 100.  Its not surprising the county rankings are poor, because the more courses that are ranked the more tenuous rankings become.  It takes a lot of local knowledge to create good local rankings and their team is lacking in that experience for most areas.  It would require a lot more specific people (those who live in/near the area and play the courses on a regular basis) to join the team and things might get unruly.  Even so, I think its waste of time because courses which are merely average end up getting ranked - whats the point of that?  Its almost like false advertising  .

Ciao

[Ulrich Mayring]

Keith Baxter of Top100Golf always says that it's a marathon, not a sprint. Since I started working on their German rankings, I have come to realise the wisdom in that. Of course I'm impatient and want to get the German rankings "just right" as quickly as possible, but just as I wasn't about to play decent golf within a year or two of starting out, this is going to be a thorough and not a quick process. Patience is the #1 virtue in golf and in rankings.

The hit and run style hurts rankings tremendously. Someone comes in, upturns everything, throws out the old and introduces new ideas, but then bolts after two or three years and leaves behind a half-finished mess. Obviously, this makes the rankings completely incoherent and you will find some ridiculous spots.

So the goal needs to be to establish a team of rankers, who stick with it over a longer period of time and introduce improvements year after year. Even if those rankers are not the most qualified initially, they're better than a rock star, who makes a brief appearance and then loses interest.

Top100Golf has been around for 10 years, which is fairly short in the rankings world.

Ulrich

[Tony_Muldoon]

I’m surprised the internet hasn’t come up with a better system to utilise the large no of potential voters to provide useful guides to quality. Somehow you have to get voters who know something but….

Here’s a rant by a restaurateur, well peed off by trip advisor.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10804176/TripAdvisor-is-democracy-for-the-stupid.html

ON the recent Welsh Wanderings tour, short of time I picked 3 from the top 5 Trip adviser restaurants in the centre of Swansea. Afterwards  I concluded that a no of waiters have a lot of spare time on their hands…
On the Thursday night we ate in a large restaurant which was empty except for us all night.  The waiter informed us that it was dry and we couldn’t go fetch a bottle – which certainly wasn’t highlighted or mentioned by the first half dozen comments that I’d read.  When the owner showed up he changed the rules for us and in truth we had a great time at very good value. But…
Friday. The no 1 Restaurant in Swansea turned out to be an OK’ish burger and pizza joint. Cheap  and cheerful but not what I was expecting or indeed hoping for.  Apparently Bistro doesn’t mean anything like I thought it did.
Saturday.   I was trepidatious but Food and experience was very good and I realised a lifetime ambition to eat Cockles with lava bread (look it up).  Recommended.  However if I reviewed it I would have had to add that the bench seat holding 3 of us collapsed when I sat down!


Let’s face it would you go out of your way to play a course based on the recommendations of someone you barely knew? I have a good idea of courses I’d like to play because I’ve invested a lot of time in finding out. But I just haven’t got the time to research all the things I like to do in depth.

So then there’s Rotten Tomatoes.  If I understand correctly this attempts to provide an aggregate score based on critics reviews.  How then to explain The Lego Movie getting 98% favourable reviews. I was recently charged with buying tickets to accompany my daughter, wife and mother in law to the cinema. The three Toy Story movies all provided me with great pleasure, so this seemed like a lock.  WRONG.  Noisy, unfunny and with politics of a 14 year old, it was painful to sit through.  If you think my opinions have any merit, avoid like the plague.

I’m at a loss.

At the end of this month I’m taking my wife to Vienna for putting up with me for a long time. On the anniversary in question I’d like a really good meal in a beautiful place. (i.e. food is important  but this time ambiance even more important).

Where can I turn to?

[Ulrich Mayring]

You need to get away from playing the numbers game, but read the content of the reviews carefully. You can conclude which opinions matter to you and which don't.

For example, my favorite hotel in the world isn't #1 at TripAdvisor, because of a few jerks and some, who had legitimate complaints about stuff that I personally don't care about. Interestingly, the national German football team chose exactly that hotel for their preparations leading up to the World Cup in Brazil. So I guess they aren't all that bad!

I've relied on TripAdvisor for many years and have never been disappointed. But then I've probably read thousands of comments...

Ulrich

[jeffwarne]

Tony
 I must say I've had good luck with Trip Advisor, but as Ulrich said it was usually based on comments, and large numbers of them.
a small sample size can skew any rating system.
Agreed the Swansea results were a bit baffling

[Rich Goodale]

Here’s a rant by a restaurateur, well peed off by trip advisor.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10804176/TripAdvisor-is-democracy-for-the-stupid.html

Where can I turn to?

Tony

I will hopefully never forget that great tag line "********" is democracy for the stupid."  Sean's "Top100/top 86?" proves that, as does the Links 100, all of the golf magazines and Zagat's.  I'll stick with Tom Doak and Ran Morrissett and Sam McKinlay and the Michelin Guide for lists to turn to, even though I don't always agree with what each of them has to say.

From the early days of the internet, the answer is TTP ("Trusted Third Parties").  If nobody on this board has any serious knowledge of restaurants in Vienna, ignore this board and find another one that has TTP's.

Rich

[Paul Jones]

I could not find the link - I went to GolfWorld.com and it linked me Golf Digest rankings.

[Mark Chaplin]

Brian - you'll notice I rarely get a mention!!

TA is a good tool if you read between the lines, there will always be 2% of people you'll never satisfy, once only reviewers tend to slag off somewhere and never post again. People with more than 10 reviews tend to be more balanced.

Food is really difficult, serve 4 perfect medium rare fillet steaks and one person won't be happy!

[Adam Lawrence]

Brian - you'll notice I rarely get a mention!!

TA is a good tool if you read between the lines, there will always be 2% of people you'll never satisfy, once only reviewers tend to slag off somewhere and never post again. People with more than 10 reviews tend to be more balanced.

Food is really difficult, serve 4 perfect medium rare fillet steaks and one person won't be happy!

Yeah, the one who knows that fillet has no flavour and ordered ribeye!

[Sean_A]

Here’s a rant by a restaurateur, well peed off by trip advisor.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10804176/TripAdvisor-is-democracy-for-the-stupid.html

Where can I turn to?

Tony

I will hopefully never forget that great tag line "********" is democracy for the stupid."  Sean's "Top100/top 86?" proves that, as does the Links 100, all of the golf magazines and Zagat's.  I'll stick with Tom Doak and Ran Morrissett and Sam McKinlay and the Michelin Guide for lists to turn to, even though I don't always agree with what each of them has to say.

From the early days of the internet, the answer is TTP ("Trusted Third Parties").  If nobody on this board has any serious knowledge of restaurants in Vienna, ignore this board and find another one that has TTP's.

Rich

Rihc

The biggest problem with all lists is they are top end focused, so yes, I agree that trusted folks are essential.  Even so, everybody who does any research into anything can quickly find out the concensus big guns give or take.  To find out the what lies beyond takes more than trusted mates.  It takes time, energy, good fortune and hopefully good times.  Its one reason why I like picture tours.  I trust my eye more than anyone else's when it comes to where I want to play. A good photo tour can usually supply all the info I need. 

So far as lists go, the GCA.com is one of the best and most interesting I have come across.  I wouldn't mind seeing it updated, but a usual, I am far more interested in favourites rather than best. 

Ciao     

[Jon Wiggett]

The Durness thread got me thinking. I wonder what the list would look like if value for money was part of the equation and the rater had to visit say 40 courses in a year to rate them and had a budget of say £1200 for greenfees (normal 18 hole rate).

Jon

[Niall C]

Jon

I have several editions of the Golf World publication of UK & Irelands Top 1,000 Courses. Of course it doesn't rate the courses from 1 to 1,000 but what it does is rate the courses in each region giving stars from 1 to 5. Each course rating includes contact details and abbreviated comments from raters which tell you a lot more than a simple rating. The publications must be about 15 years old by now but still priceless for helping to find great golf you've never heard of before. If you get a chance to buy a copy in a second hand book store I'd urge you to do so.

On point, they also have top 100 listings at the front including best of list and also another one for value for money. Not suprisingly Silloth was top of the list for value for money. It might be an interesting exercise posting that list and seeing how it stacks up today.

Rich

Sam McKinlay - is that Darwins friend who wrote for the Herald and Evening Times back in the day ? If so would love to see any list he compiled.

Niall

[Sean_A]

McKinlay was the editor for the Evening Times.  He was also a contributing writer to Peter Allen's Play The Best Courses (GB&I).  Not a bad book if you find a cheap copy.  Very few pix of any consequence, but some good text very much in the style of Pennink.

Ciao

[Niall C]

Thanks Sean

McKinlay was also a fair player having played in the Walker Cup I believe and did a fair bit of writing on golf in the Herald and ET as well as being editor. I wasn't aware of the Allen book so it would be good to track down a copy.

Niall

[Sean_A]

Thanks Sean

McKinlay was also a fair player having played in the Walker Cup I believe and did a fair bit of writing on golf in the Herald and ET as well as being editor. I wasn't aware of the Allen book so it would be good to track down a copy.

Niall

I am sure a cheap paperback copy is available on Amazon.  There may even be a newish edition (post 1987).

Ciao

[Rich Goodale]

Rich

Sam McKinlay - is that Darwins friend who wrote for the Herald and Evening Times back in the day ? If so would love to see any list he compiled.

Niall

Same guy.  I've never seen his complete list of 1-3 Thistle courses in Scotland, but I do know that his only 3 Thistle courses were Muirfield, Carnoustie, Turnberry, Dornoch and the Old Course.  If you can dig up the complete list, I'd be very interested in seeing it.

Rich

[Ally Mcintosh]

I just bought the magazine.

Golf World have thrown the whole list to the wind by disbanding the panel of experts and basing the ranking on a panel of 14 well travelled readers.

I do not understand this approach.

[Tony_Muldoon]

I just bought the magazine.

Golf World have thrown the whole list to the wind by disbanding the panel of experts and basing the ranking on a panel of 14 well travelled readers.

I do not understand this approach.

Cheaper?

[Ally Mcintosh]

I just bought the magazine.

Golf World have thrown the whole list to the wind by disbanding the panel of experts and basing the ranking on a panel of 14 well travelled readers.

I do not understand this approach.

Cheaper?

Can't see this. Panellists didn't get paid as far as I know. Main cost is in collation of results and putting the issue together.

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