[Matt_Cohn]

2: A mediocre golf course with little or no architectural interest, but nothing really horrible. As my friend Dave Richards summed up: "Play it in a scramble, and drink a lot of beer."
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3: About the level of the average golf course in the world.
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4: A modestly interesting course, with a couple of distinctive holes among the 18, or at least some scenic interest and decent golf. Also reserved for some very good courses that are much too short and narrow to provide sufficient challenge for accomplished golfers.
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[/size]Full scale [/size]here[/size].
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[/size]Everything else gives us a description, but 3 doesn't, and I don't feel like I know what the level of the average golf course in the world really is. I only know a course is a 3 if it's better than a 2 and worse than a 4. [/size]So what is a Doak 3?[/size]

[Sean_A]

A Doak 3 for me is a course I don't want to spend time or money playing unless there is a compelling reason such as mates, family, charity etc which makes the course a complete non-factor.  I would probably say the same thing about most 4s! 

Ciao

[Peter Pallotta]

I'm very familiar with Doak 3s. In fact, as a golfer I myself am a Doak 3. I don't do anything egregiously wrong or badly, but don't do anything notably well or right, either. An average, run of the mill, garden-variety golfer -- indistinguishable in my averageness from countless other average golfers. For golfers & golf courses both, a Doak 3 is utterly unremarkable. You can't say anything for or against them, and indeed can't say much of anything at all. Vanilla ice-cream, they are, but without the vanilla. In short, Matt, I think your approach is a valid one, ie the best/only thing you can say about a 3 is that it's not a 2, at least not on the days when you're feeling charitable. I think Tom just needed another number between 2 and 4 so that he could give the courses he adored a 10.
P

[Jim_Coleman]

   A not very good course that doesn't make you angry.

[Matthew Rose]

I interpret it as perhaps your run of the mill muni that might be bland and uninteresting but not offensive either, i.e. no gimmicky or stupid holes.

I'd say most public courses I play would probably fit that description.

[Peter Pallotta]

   A not very good course that doesn't make you angry.

Perfect!
Just perfect!

[Bill Brightly]

Try to keep in mind TD's eye, and that a true Doak 3 may be a "great track, 7100 from the tips" for the low handicap pukes at your home club...

[Kalen Braley]

Not to be contrarian, but I don't know if any of those definitions fit.


What many of you wrote just rehashed what a Doak 2 is:
"A mediocre golf course with little or no architectural interest, but nothing really horrible"

A Doak 3 should be better than that!

Given a 4 is "mostly interesting" and can be "very good but too short"...I would think a 3 is "somewhat interesting and a pleasant experience otherwise, even if its nothing to write home about"

[Bill Shamleffer]

I expect I have played >90% of my golf on Doak 3-5 range courses; and perhaps 1/2 of that was on Doak 3 courses.  I would not have traveled far to play those courses, but I love playing the average courses in my hometowns.


I get just as much fun trying to stay in a ho-hum fairway, trying to avoid another boring tree-line, trying to stay out of mediocre bunkering, and trying to make a decent putting stroke on an unimaginative green.


I have only encountered a few courses, that even if the price is right, the conditioning is decent, and the pace of play is good, that I still will rather skip playing golf rather than play that specific course.  (Riverside in St. Louis)


I think that the Doak 3 course is going to test & challenge me, more than any Doak 10 will test & challenge any PGA Tour player.


My brother & I frequently play a 9-hole muni in St Louis (Ruth Park), that can not be any better than a Doak 3.  And I look forward to playing it again & again.


In Springfield Ma, most of my rounds were at Franconia, a muni designed by Van Kleek & Stiles with later work by Cornish.  It could not be much more than a Doak 3.


Here in Cincinnati, I play in a weekly league at The Mill course.  This too is a muni, re-designed by Hurdzan.  This course is definitely a Doak 3.


But all of these are fun for me and enjoyable.  I have played St. Louis Country Club, and Cog Hill #4, and Longmeadow CC, and George Wight, and Crooked Stick, and Highland Links on The Cape, and The New Course in St. Andrews.  And I would gladly play any one of those as often as I could.  But I also have financial, time and logistical limitations in my life (& did I mention financial limitations); and manage to still love playing golf at my simple little munis.

[Tom_Doak]

3 is sort of the default rating if the course has nothing special to recommend it, but nothing really bad to turn you off.  In the USA, it would be a tree lined parkland course with uninteresting greens and a lot of back-and-forth holes.  Doesn't matter if it's 7000 yards from the tips or 6000.  It would also be in average condition; if the course was in great shape that would add enough interest to bump it up to a 4, and if it was soggy or that hey it would be in danger of getting a 2.

[Cliff Hamm]

In New England I  would think the  typical public course would be a 3...I suspect this is true for most anywhere. I think of Geoffrey Cornish's courses.  That is not an insult.  Cornish deserves a multitude of gratitude for anyone who grew up playing his courses.

[James Brown]

What are some actual 3s from the CG?  Are there any listed.  I don’t have it yet for the USA.  There were only a couple 3s in the 1st edition. 

[James Brown]

I am envisioning much of Mrtyle Beach as a big land of 3s. 

[Edward Glidewell]

I am envisioning much of Mrtyle Beach as a big land of 3s.

I don't think so -- I'd say there are at least 20 courses in the area (stretching from Pawleys Island all the way up to Shallotte, NC) and probably 30-40+ that would at least rise to a 4, and a few that would be 5s and 6s (Caledonia and the Dunes Club at the very least).


I live in Atlanta, and I don't think I'd have any problem naming 20 courses in that Grand Strand area that are better than any public golf course within 30 miles of the city.

[Carl Rogers]

Doak 3 ......... the only memorable holes would be the very bad ones.

[Matthew Petersen]

There aren't going to be many 3s in the Guide, because Tom and co. aren't terribly likely to seek those courses out and I think most 3s are pretty obviously what they are. These tend to be courses that you end up playing because you live in an area for a while and you end up sampling different courses, more than likely.


Here are the 3s I have played:


South Suburban, Littleton, CO
Foothills, Phoenix, AZ
Fred Enke, Tucson, AZ
Red Mountain Ranch, Mesa, AZ
Tatum Ranch, Carefree, AZ
Waikoloa (Beach), Hawaii, HI


Only Waikoloa is a course that you might even really think for a moment is more than an average course, because it is a resort course in Hawaii, with a hole on the ocean. But I think the 3 is pretty fair. Setting aside, it's not any better as a course than anything else on that list.

[Joel_Stewart]

   A not very good course that doesn't make you angry.

Perfect!
Just perfect!

To me I would be bored and thus angry I wasted my money.

[David Davis]

A course that better than 95% of the courses located in Continental Europe.


I'm guessing to a certain extent but Tom having seen a growing percentage of the best courses here while touring, so the Top 1% maybe, could either confirm or deny my claim. Based on my experience this would be my theory.

[James Brown]

Here’s where I am at odds:  I read a 3 as the 50th percentile.   Meaning there are 7500 courses in the US that are 3 or less.  Am I wrong?

[Mark Pearce]

I play most of my golf on a course that got a 3 in the original Confidential Guide.  Whilst I wouldn't call it a great course if it really is at the level of the average course in the world then that tells me that average courses in the UK are much worse than elsewhere, because it's much better than average.

[Kalen Braley]

Here’s where I am at odds:  I read a 3 as the 50th percentile.   Meaning there are 7500 courses in the US that are 3 or less.  Am I wrong?

James thats how I read it too...  And that 2s and 3s together make up more courses than all the rest combined.

[Brian Finn]

Here’s where I am at odds:  I read a 3 as the 50th percentile.   Meaning there are 7500 courses in the US that are 3 or less.  Am I wrong?

James thats how I read it too...  And that 2s and 3s together make up more courses than all the rest combined.

I agree there are likely more 2s and 3s than all others combined, and I would guess that between 2/3 and 3/4 of courses in the US are 3s or lower.  I think the distribution might look roughly like this:

Rating	Percentage	Cumulative
0	1%	1%
1	20%	21%
2	25%	46%
3	25%	71%
4	15%	86%
5	7%	93%
6	3%	96%
7	2%	98%
8	1%	99%
9	<1%	99+%
10	0.1%	100%

[Kalen Braley]

Brian,


I've DS rated every course I've ever played and graphed the results in a xls, and it looks very similar to that.  I'll post it up later, but its essentially a left shifted bell curve where the median is 3 and mean 3.4.

[James Brown]

Seeing these numbers is very helpful in understanding the goals of the Doak Scale rubric.  So does this distribution hold only for the US or is it deferent in the US than the UK for example? 

[mike_malone]

 I think that in Philly Makefield Highlands would epitomize 3. The fairway bunkers are exactly where you think they would be, the greens gently undulate, and the routing is cookie cutter. It strives not to annoy anyone nor to create controversy.

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