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.