Ratings: Yes. Rankings: No. (Including: A Proposed New Ratings Structure)

[John Chilver-Stainer]

The funny thing is there are databases with all the detailed information one needs about a golf course for each hole, but it's not available.


If you were checking out a course wouldn't you want to know if the greens were flat, moderately undulated, or severely undulated. If the cross slopes were light, moderate or severe.


These plus many other criteria have been measured and collected by the relevant national golf associations.


The data is number crunched and spat out as the Course Rating and the Slope Rating.


However trying to interpret wether to play the course on a single number is like trying choose a car to buy based on it's top speed.


The star system doesn't reveal much more and nor does the ranking system.


So what if the national organisations gave the data to E-Harmony maybe they could come up with a precise way of matching our needs to golf courses.


Call it "date-a-track"


Beware you could be matched up with your golf course for life.
 

[Dan Kelly]

Call it "date-a-track"

BRAVO!

[JMEvensky]

Call it "date-a-track"


Beware you could be matched up with your golf course for life.
 

But what if the track of your dreams didn't want to date you?

[Jeff Schley]

And adding up the subjective views of a dozen or a thousand raters does not make them any less subjective.

This statement appears to be mathematically false. If you have 1000 raters you have 1000 subjective ratings - no question. But if you average the 1000 ratings to one number, then there is nothing subjective about it.

In other words: every random selection of 1000 golfers will produce the same average number. And if not, then take 2000 golfers or however many are required to get objectivity. There are mathematical formulae that let you calculate this number (trivial solution: the number of all golfers). Most of the time it ends up being between 5% and 10% of all participants.

I do agree with the notion that a course's character is best described in words and pictures, not numbers. But the relative merits of playing one course over the other cannot be put in words. The only way to compare two reviews is to find similar words and then look for adverbs like "very" or "not much of that". But a "very" is a poor substitute for a number. And you would need to write very, very, very for Augusta National, which would quickly become unreadable.

Don't burden numbers with tasks they cannot perform, but also don't do it to words. Each medium has specific strengths and weaknesses.

Ulrich

Ulrich,

I think you are referencing Population data vs. Sample data.  The population is all members in a group, where a part of the population is called the sample.  The hard part is to select a sample size, how many members do you need? The larger your population the larger your sample should be.  There are formulas to use depending on how complex your study is and what confidence interval (% error) you tolerate.

So much easier nowadays with software programs and excel even.

[Dan Kelly]

Beg to differ with Ulrich.


If a thousand people are asked for their subjective opinion of something, and all 1,000 agree (let's say: 1,000 people all say Pine Valley is, in their opinion, better than Cypress Point), that unanimous opinion is still completely subjective.


You might think that gives it greater credibility, and I agree ... but it doesn't make it objectively true.

[Jeff Schley]

Beg to differ with Ulrich.


If a thousand people are asked for their subjective opinion of something, and all 1,000 agree (let's say: 1,000 people all say Pine Valley is, in their opinion, better than Cypress Point), that unanimous opinion is still completely subjective.


You might think that gives it greater credibility, and I agree ... but it doesn't make it objectively true.

This dichotomy of subjective vs. objective isn't new, and always the weakness when you ask anyone for a judgement of something that is not absolutely factual, but opinion based.  There are huge debates on even the Supreme Court's judgements, when you think how can they look at one case and not agree if they are experts in the law?  They have a different view on their interpretation, and although there is a written code to follow, the law, they can have their own subjectivity mixed into that judgement.  There isn't anything wrong with that, except those that get frustrated with the outcome that they don't agree with.

Most try and increase the sample size and get enlightened or expert opinions if possible.  Such is the case with golf course opinions. One way to decrease bias for rating courses and isolate the course itself and take out a variable is try and think of all private courses as public.  Pine Valley suddenly becomes a muni, Cypress Point is like Pebble Beach.  They still maybe expensive but they are open to all.  If you want to further decrease bias, you could say golf is now 100% free from now on in the USA with access for all.  This would take out more variables to help increase your confidence interval tremendously.  Will it ever happen?  Hell no, which is why surveys for research purposes are not without bias and difficult to measure. As explained there are statistical tools needed to be hurdled before presenting accurate research in publications and recognition of peer review in journals for a good reason.

[Kalen Braley]

I intentionally avoided reading this thread until it "simmered" a bit and the usual suspects weighed in...


I have nothing to add here, so I won't gum up the discussion, but I will leave one thought I had while reading this:


The irony of trying to decide and debate on which rating system is best...is just as subjective as trying to rate the course itself...


But then again, that's one of the pleasures of this site isn't it! 


Carry on!!

[Ulrich Mayring]

Beg to differ with Ulrich.


If a thousand people are asked for their subjective opinion of something, and all 1,000 agree (let's say: 1,000 people all say Pine Valley is, in their opinion, better than Cypress Point), that unanimous opinion is still completely subjective.


You might think that gives it greater credibility, and I agree ... but it doesn't make it objectively true.

It does in a statistical and thus mathematical sense. There are philosophical definitions of "objectivity", which basically say there cannot be objectivity anywhere about anything - obviously, such definitions aren't meant.

I call it objective, because billions of dollars are routinely invested by companies, if they find that any representative sample size loves their new product. They can expect that the population at large will love it, even if they have just asked a representative sample group.

So if we manage to come up with a representative sample group of golfers and poll them for their Top 100 list, then the aggregate will accurately represent the view of "golfers". Meaning that if you pick a random golfer from a crowd, there is a 60% chance of him preferring Pine Valley over Cypress Point, if the representative sample has that preference.

However, if you're one of the 40%, then you might call this subjective, because your personal view differs. But objectivity is not unanimity.

Of course the problem is that no one knows what a representative sample of golfers is for a decent Top 100 list, so many efforts leave something to be desired. But I consider working on such lists a journey, not a destination. One thing is for sure: if you never embark, you won't ever get to a decent list.

Ulrich

[Sean_A]

Ulrich

Your example isn't quite apt. There is a big difference between loving a product and thinking it is one of the best on the market. The same can be true for golf courses.

Using words like love is a dead give away for subjective. Being objective is unemotional, neutral.

Ciao

[Jeff Schley]

Beg to differ with Ulrich.


If a thousand people are asked for their subjective opinion of something, and all 1,000 agree (let's say: 1,000 people all say Pine Valley is, in their opinion, better than Cypress Point), that unanimous opinion is still completely subjective.


You might think that gives it greater credibility, and I agree ... but it doesn't make it objectively true.

It does in a statistical and thus mathematical sense. There are philosophical definitions of "objectivity", which basically say there cannot be objectivity anywhere about anything - obviously, such definitions aren't meant.

I call it objective, because billions of dollars are routinely invested by companies, if they find that any representative sample size loves their new product. They can expect that the population at large will love it, even if they have just asked a representative sample group.

So if we manage to come up with a representative sample group of golfers and poll them for their Top 100 list, then the aggregate will accurately represent the view of "golfers". Meaning that if you pick a random golfer from a crowd, there is a 60% chance of him preferring Pine Valley over Cypress Point, if the representative sample has that preference.

However, if you're one of the 40%, then you might call this subjective, because your personal view differs. But objectivity is not unanimity.

Of course the problem is that no one knows what a representative sample of golfers is for a decent Top 100 list, so many efforts leave something to be desired. But I consider working on such lists a journey, not a destination. One thing is for sure: if you never embark, you won't ever get to a decent list.

Ulrich

Ulrich,

Objective information are facts and truths, which therefore are not open for subjectivity, they are what they are.  So your example above of 60% felt this way and 40% that way isn't really the intended example.

Examples

Objective
The hole measured 540 yards and had 5 bunkers down the left handside, with the green being 1000 square feet with 2% grade back to front.

Subjective
The hole was a long par 5 with way too many bunkers on the left, favoring those with slice; the green was tiny although the green's slope helped hold approaches.

One is fact, the other is opinion.  With judgements or rankings you are unable to make objective rankings of preference. Nothing wrong with that, it just is.  You can get overwhelming opinion as to the preference, but by definition it is subjective even if 1000 out of 1000 would rather than Pine Valley over their local municipal.  Statistics is based on probability of phenomena and fitting it into a distribution to give it concrete meaning and although boring to many, the geeks love it for it translates data into the language of statistics.  I don't love statistics at all, for it gets complicated very quickly especially now that software programs allow data collection to run models and go crazy.  Basic statistics is helpful and all I actually recall as I use it from time to time.