Golf Digest's new complete 200 greatest international courses

[Jeff Schley]

Yet another list..... here is how they intro:

Golf Digest has been ranking golf courses for more than half a century. In February 2018, we published a World 100 ranking that included the best courses outside the United States—as a way to celebrate golf in other countries. With so much course-design work now being overseas, our editors used this as an opportunity to highlight impressive and unique designs that some of our readers may not have heard about.

In reaction to the interest that followed, Golf Digest decided to create an additional international ranking that includes courses from both lists—our America's 100 Greatest and the World 100. We know golfers love comparing courses they play to others they may have only read about. Now, this new ranking gives you more conversation for the ultimate bucket list.


Not sure how they ranked these because Eagle Point GC was #100 in America's hundred greatest and not on the list of top 200 internationally.  Calusa Pines (#96 on US list) is #200 overall. Thus, it appears there are more international than US for what it's worth in their view.

Some interesting things 12 of top 20 are international and 15 of top 25.  It basically is one for US, one from international as Ballyneal is 101 on this list and 50 on the US list.

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/golf-digests-international-greatest-golf-courses

[Thomas Dai]

I stopped buying Golf Digest many years ago and haven’t regretted it.
Atb

[Matthew Mollica]

Golf Digest continue to make the same spelling errors and mistakes in their lists, having done so for years. It is Dan Soutar not Des at Kingston Heath. Several more I won’t bother to point out. GD will continue to print the same errors years from now. It is embarrassing.

[John Kavanaugh]

I was really proud that no one had posted this list. We were making progress. Thanks new guy.

[Jeff Schley]

How else are you to know which courses are overrated? 

[Mark_Fine]

Jeff,
I am hoping someone here much smarter and more traveled than the rest of us will finally list the correct Top 200 courses so we all don't have to keep looking at these magazine lists.  Maybe John will 😉 


Mark

[Jim Nugent]

How else are you to know which courses are overrated? 

Jeff, don't worry about Jaka's curmudgeonly cantankerousness. 

I looked at the list.  Tom's highest-ranked course is Tara Iti, at...

... #11. 

Diamante Dunes (Paul Cowley) came in at 95.  Kinloch (Lester George) at 105.  One I don't usually see on these lists -- St. Andrews Beach -- made the grade at 169. 

Overall, most though not all GCA favorites are there, along with some head-scratchers of course.  The order differs a bit (sometimes a lot) from how we would place it.   

[jeffwarne]

I stopped buying Golf Digest many years ago and haven’t regretted it.
Atb

I didn't know anybody ever "bought" it.
I have two issues every month delivered to my house and haven't subscribed since about 1990.....
Guy Yocum still presents very compelling articles.
The one this month with Bob Goalby is quite good.

[Steve Lapper]

I stopped buying Golf Digest many years ago and haven’t regretted it.
Atb

I didn't know anybody ever "bought" it.
I have two issues every month delivered to my house and haven't subscribed since about 1990.....
Guy Yocum still presents very compelling articles.
The one this month with Bob Goalby is quite good.

Yet, their Course Rankings are shit.

[Craig Sweet]

Lists are nothing more than click bait...

[Frank M]

When’s the last time one of their raters visited Cabot Links?

[Ryan Taylor]

I stopped buying Golf Digest many years ago and haven’t regretted it.
Atb

I didn't know anybody ever "bought" it.
I have two issues every month delivered to my house and haven't subscribed since about 1990.....
Guy Yocum still presents very compelling articles.
The one this month with Bob Goalby is quite good.

Yet, their Course Rankings are shit.

This crap isn't worth commenting on.

[Mark_Fine]

There are always two sides to every coin but "the lists", as right or wrong as all the experts on this site seem to think they are, happen to be without question THE MOST INFLUENTIAL thing that has driven golf architecture (both forward and backward) in the last 50 years!  ALL architects will agree and those who don't are fooling themselves.  There is not a single architect out there that doesn't give a hoot about the various "lists" and rankings.  Yes some might be so well established now that "it doesn't matter" as much to them anymore, but it was those lists that had a major influence on their careers (one way or the other), GD's included. 


There is no correct list and I still laugh at the arrogant comments from some who call them garbage.  Present a better list of your own before you throw rocks.  If 10% of the 200 courses "are wrong", that is still an A for effort.  My personal Top 200 list looks different than all the other lists out there but there is still significant overlap.  Just to be anywhere on a list (my own included) is special whether the course is #67 or #167.  It is still in the top 1% and that is something to be proud of.

[John Kavanaugh]

Who is now in charge of Americas's Best at Golfweek?

[Ira Fishman]

There are always two sides to every coin but "the lists", as right or wrong as all the experts on this site seem to think they are, happen to be without question THE MOST INFLUENTIAL thing that has driven golf architecture (both forward and backward) in the last 50 years!  ALL architects will agree and those who don't are fooling themselves.  There is not a single architect out there that doesn't give a hoot about the various "lists" and rankings.  Yes some might be so well established now that "it doesn't matter" as much to them anymore, but it was those lists that had a major influence on their careers (one way or the other), GD's included. 


There is no correct list and I still laugh at the arrogant comments from some who call them garbage.  Present a better list of your own before you throw rocks.  If 10% of the 200 courses "are wrong", that is still an A for effort.  My personal Top 200 list looks different than all the other lists out there but there is still significant overlap.  Just to be anywhere on a list (my own included) is special whether the course is #67 or #167.  It is still in the top 1% and that is something to be proud of.

+1.  I do not usually comment on rankings largely because I have not played enough of the courses.  But I scanned the first 50 on the GD list, and it almost seems as if a lot of the raters are now regular readers of GCA.com.


Ira

[Tom_Doak]

Who is now in charge of Americas's Best at Golfweek?

You're assuming there still is one (and I'm not even sure whether "one" refers to a ranking, or to Golfweek itself.

[mike_malone]

Philly Flynns as one should have a spot to themselves.

[David Davis]

I'm not sure I want to live in a world where some of my favorites are not in the Top 100.


Shoreacres, Prestwick, Cruden Bay, Castle Stuart falling out to the likes of Mission Hills Haikou - Blackstone. I've played it as well as most the others they sneak in in Asia and if they were in my back yard I'd be dreaming about heading to Scotland everyday.


To each their own but I've never heard of anyone that has actually played those courses no matter the rating system and would even think of this order.


I also know quite a few Golf Digest guys both US side as well as in Asia and no chance any of them would agree with this.

[Tom_Doak]

The most unusual thing about this ranking is there are FOUR modern courses rated ahead of Sand Hills ... none of them in the United States.  That perhaps offers a clue that the international rankings were not done by the same process (or with the same bias toward traditional favorites) that the US and UK rankings have, so cobbling them together like this produced some unexpected phenomena.

[John Kavanaugh]

How many raters will resign because of these results? Hopefully some owners will ask their red headed step children what the hell happened. I think people are just sick of middle America and are punishing courses because of it.

[Joe Zucker]

Another clue that they merged existing lists, rather than creating a new one, is that the US courses list the architect in the top line, while the international courses do not.  I think if they generated a new list they would have a consistent format, but I would guess they had the international and US lists separate and merged them together with some basic rules for roughly equal representation.

[John Kirk]

I'm prepared to declare this the finest list of its kind.

As long as people like me, and people of my ilk, wield great influence redefining the concepts of golf course quality, the lists will maintain a high degree of excellence.

[John Kavanaugh]

Any true sense of mystery was lost when these lists went past 100 courses.

[Cal Seifert]

Shanqin Bay over NGLA?!? The range must've been full of prov1 pyramids to woo the raters.

[Tom_Doak]

Shanqin Bay over NGLA?!? The range must've been full of prov1 pyramids to woo the raters.

This does not even begin to describe how eaters are treated at Shanqin Bay ... but only select eaters, of course.  The rest cannot gain access at all.