Does the order one plays two golf courses impact the evaluation of each

[Michael Felton]

"have wondered ever since if playing a great course ahead of a lesser one in a close time frame might tend to set the standards so high that we undeservedly write down the latter"

I played Ardglass after RCD and had the opposite reaction.  "Greatness is overrated," I've heard it said.

Well a good part of the issue here is expectations.  If you don't expect Ardglass to be nearly as good as RCD, you could be surprised to the upside, and realize you had just as much fun.


But if you are going to two or three supposedly GREAT courses, then of course you will rank them relatively.


When I was 19 I went to Philadelphia for the first time to play Pine Valley and Merion for the first time, in that order.  Merion wasn't a letdown, but it certainly wasn't Pine Valley.  And then I went over to walk Aronimink after playing Merion and thought it was worthless.

I was 22 when I got to play Pine Valley and Merion on the same trip. PV first and Merion second. I didn't get what all the fuss was about with Merion (they had just hollow cored their greens, which didn't help). Pine Valley I had been led to expect a LOT from and I came away just astounded by the place. Playing it the other way round may well have changed my estimation of Merion.


I have no doubt that some courses are considered lesser on account of their more famous neighbours - The New at St Andrews for example. WFE too I think would be more highly regarded if it weren't next to its brother.

[Adam Uttley]

Really interesting topic.  My gut feel was that the order might well make a difference so I looked back at my last 12 days of playing 2 different courses on the same day, when I hadn't played either before.  In fact, I decided to analys a couple of other criteria to see if there was a pattern in those too:

• I preferred 50% that I played in the afternoon
• I preferred 56% that I expected to be like more
• I preferred 75% that I played better on

So in my own experience the order I play the courses and which I expect to be better has no bearing on which I ended up preferring.  Instead, it appears that I preferred the ones I played better on, but that may be misleading: is it that I enjoy them because I play better or that I play better because I enjoy them more?  Of the occasions that my preferred course of the day was different to the one I was expecting it to be, I played better on exactly 50% of those occasions.  I honestly think, therefore, that the order I play the course, whether I play well or my expectations has little to do with how I enjoy or evaluate the course.


Putting statistics aside, when I look down the list, the aspect that jumps out at my is how "fun" the course was.  A couple of examples where my my preference differed from expectations included preferring Wykagyl vs Quaker Ridge and Ballyliffin Old vs Glashedy.

[cary lichtenstein]

I played Winged Foot both courses in one day and felt ambivant but not so when I played 2 courses by 2 different architects

[Rick Emerson]

I do think that order matters, especially when you play the better course first. I think it makes the lesser course suffer a little more.
An example for me was when I played Barnbougle and Lost Farms. I loved Barnbougle so much that I think I had a little lower opinion of Lost farms than I usually would have. I think I would say that in this case it might make me initially want to rate the course maybe one point lower on the Doak scale. In hind sight I actually would rate Lost Farm a little higher than I initially thought of it.


Using the same trip as an example of the opposite: I played Royal Melbourne East before West and had the opposite experience. I played the East and thought this is great. Then I played the West and thought the East was great and the West is even better. It actually reinforced what I thought was an accurate opinion of both courses.


Another question I would pose is: Do you think one play versus multiple plays muddies the situation even more? Again I will use my Australia trip as an example. I stayed at Victoria golf club in Melbourne and played there four days straight while getting in other rounds each day at Royal Melbourne East, West, Kingston Heath, and Metropolitan. Because I got to know Victoria better than the others, enjoyed the club's atmosphere and friendly membership I actually put it ahead of Kingston Heath and Royal Melbourne East when ranking them in my brain post trip. This contradicts most peoples' opinions that both KH and RME are better.  I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on whether multiple plays also skew opinion.

[Sean_A]

Multiple plays especially over time can have an impact on my opinion. The more you play the more chances there are to see different parts of the course. Conditions and weather changes. Your standard of play changes.

I played Kington on Saturday and only just noticed the severely sloping fairway on 11. From the yellow tee I can reach the the "flatter" section of the fairway, but not anymore from the whites. It's a double edge sword because a fairway like this really rewards the player who can shape shots into slopes. On the other hand, most players can't do this. Does this mean folks shouldn't play comps from the white tees (usually medals) or that the tees should be in a place more players can keep the tee shot in play?

Anyway, I don't know how many times I played Kington, but I learned something new.

Ciao