Gentlemen,
Look, let's cut all the bullsh*t here.
All three rating panels have a skeleton or two in their closet.
Nobody has come up with the perfect system. Having marched under two different flags and being a close friend of an architectural savant who carries a card on a third I am somewhat qualified to comment.
The Preserve is what it is. I think it is rated too high with my current association as well as my past alma mater.
GD rated Shadow Creek in the top ten and then threw it under a bus two years later. I think it belongs a bit lower still, but that is just my opinion.
I can see how lesser intellects can allow their judgement and opinions of a layout be clouded by booze, pussy, bathtubs or whatever else they throw at you.
But for the vast majority of us - or maybe most of my friends on all these panels are hopeless curmudgeons - it makes no difference.
The rating is the rating. The number is the number and eventually (over a few years) a golf course settles where it belongs. Sometimes we get over-excited for a short time, but after a day or two of reflection, the real value rises to the surface of your mind.
Whether there is an outing there or not.
Personally, I ALWAYS wait a few days before posting my rating of a golf course to give it time to settle in.
And sometimes it is simply a matter of which particular raters visit a golf course. Taken in total, between GW, GD and GM, we come from extremely varied demographics and geographic areas.
I am close friends with Wigler, but we disagree all the time. Same with Huckster. Even Joel, whose opinions I hold as high as the Emperor, sometimes is so far from lockstep with me that he is playing in a different band.
I don't think Joel believes there is some kind of conspiracy or even impropriety. He is just giving everybody the dick for amusement.