Golf History - We are indeed lucky

[Kevin Pallier]

I know we all tend to take life for granted and certainly the last year has taught us all many things.


I know there is a bigger picture outside golf but I believe we should be truly thankful for what golf has provided for us in our lifetime.


I was doing a bit of research tonight and was looking at the World Top100 and started to think how many great courses have been built in my lifetime. I've recently passed 50 and determined nearly 30 of the world's greatest golf courses have been built in that time.


So I took it a step further in looking at it by generation by generation since 1900 I came up with the following:


From 1900 - 1925: 24 of the current World Top100 were built
From 1926 - 1951: 23
From 1952 - 1977: 3
From 1978 - 2003: 10
From 2004+ : 14


So nearly half of the World's Top100 have been built since 1925! and 3/4 in the last 120 years.


Now I know it's a point-in-time relative thing (ie: a World Top100) but the last open ended bracket it most interesting. We still have until 2029 to see what transpires but there's been some mighty fine courses built in the last 16 years


Tara Iti
Barnbougle (Dunes)
Cabot Cliffs
Cape Kidnappers
Ballyneal
Cape Wickham
Castle Stuart
Diamante (Dunes)
Cabot Links
Bandon (Trails)
Barnbougle (Lost Farm)
Ohoopee Match Club
Rock Creek Cattle Company
Trump Scotland


Q: Do you think the next 9 years will produce the quality of courses that we've seen over the past 16 years above? Will COVID stiffle the development of the current age of architecture?

[Jeff Schley]

Kevin,


As new course construction is very limited and if takes 2-3 years at least from plan to finish, if it isn't in the pipeline in the next 5 years it won't be ready most likely this decade. While there are less builds overall, the quality is really top notch and they are premium courses that are getting green lighted as the other segments are saturated. So I think the overall quality will still be high, I just don't think they will be numerous enough to challenge what we had in the 2000-2019 decades.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Only 2 of those 16 come from a different lineage, the other 14 directly coming from Pete Dye as the parent.


Does that mean that:


A) Pete Dye should be the most revered architect in the history of GCA bar none, spawning the birth of the “brat pack”, the cream of the profession for the last 25 years.
B) The current Top-100 are currently skewed to a certain taste and other architects aren’t getting recognition.
C) With a limited number of new projects, there really are very few opportunities for names outside of the top handful to get a job, certainly on good sites.
D) All of the above

[James Reader]

It would be interesting to know what this statistic would have looked like in, say, 1980 or 2000.  And, of the courses in the top 100 at those points built within the previous 15 years, how many are still in there now.  I may be proved wrong, but hasn’t there always been an over-representation of “new” courses in the rankings, with many dropping out of favour later on?

By the way, I’m certainly not arguing that the same thing will necessarily happen over the next 20 years, just that we inevitably look at things from a particular perspective at a point in time and only time will tell whether future generations will agree with us.

One other thought - and conscious I may be arguing against myself here - we may be seeing a different picture in England at least.  I’m pretty sure that there are a lot fewer modern (say, last 40 years) courses in the latest Golf World rankings than there were a few years ago.  Is that a reflection of us only experiencing half of the equation?  The initial boost for courses built in the 80s and 90s is dropping away and there simply haven’t been many quality new courses opening in England since 2005 to replace them.  Instead their places have been taken by the likes of Painswick, Kington, Cleeve Hill and Formby Ladies.

[John Kavanaugh]

Who is telling you that those are the top courses is as important as the architect. With a different narrative you would have a far different list.

[John Kavanaugh]

Doak attended MIT. He wrote the algorithm that determines a large percentage of what courses are rated the best in the world. His courses and those of other Dye proteges dominate the lists.


You know that the guys who say Bandon Dunes is better than Pacific are dismissed as MyPillowesque.

[Paul Rudovsky]

My view (which is based on an assumption that the vaccine essentially halt's COVID's march by autumn 2021 and no big recession in the next 2-3 years) is that the next 2-3 years will be even MORE productive than that last few years.  Just looked at our list of projects underway (https://fescue.github.io) and just among new courses and total rebuilds (so excluding restorations and renovations) I can see the following highly anticipated courses being build or planned (in no particular order):


Thailand--Ballyshear (Lido adaptation)--Hanse
Australia--Kangeroo Island (near Adelaide)--supposedly incredible site
Australia--7 Mile Island (Tasmania near Hobart)--again, supposedly incredible site--Clayton & DeVries
New Zealand--Tara Iti #2--Coore & Crenshaw
New Zealand--Tara Iti #3--Doak
Ireland--St Patricks--Doak
St Lucia--Cabot--Coore & Crenshaw
USA-CA--Brambles--Coore & Crenshaw
USA-FL--McArthur #2---Coore & Crenshaw
USA-NE--Caprock--Hanse
USA-NE--Landman--King & Collins
USA-NY--new course in Hamptons--probably Fazio
USA-SC--Buck Club--Doak
USA-TX--PGA HQ #1--Hanse
USA-TX--PGA HQ #2--Welling
USA-WI--Lido-Doak

If I am counting right...that is 16 biggies (and I am sure I left off some that are just as anticipated or more anticipated than the above).  Not to mention some highly highly anticipated retro's and reno's suck as Oakland Hills, Congressional, Muirfield Village, Jupiter Hills, Baltusrol, Olympic, Chicago, Scioto, Union League-NJ, Falkenstein, Club Puerta de Hierro, etc, etc etc.

Yes...we could be sitting on a  big fat bubble, but if not I think huge flow of superb new and rejuvenated places in coming years

[Ally Mcintosh]

Again Paul, all of those future “biggies” are by the same 3 or 4 architects. Will the best of these courses push their own courses out of the Top-100? Or will we end up with 50 of the Top-100 built by these three architects?


If so, will we really?


In the way rankings are looked at, the golf world is far more introverted than it has ever been. Not only does it consider just a handful of current architects, but it has put another handful of golden age architects on a pedestal whilst consigning others to the history books, ruling out two full generations in between.


The trouble we have is that very few new courses are being built. But it’s an astounding hit rate when about 25% of these very few courses make their way in to the top 0.0025% in the world.

[Peter Pallotta]

Reading this thread, the simple questions again come to mind:

Has the art-craft of golf course architecture gotten better in the last 100+ years?
Are the architects today building higher-quality golf courses than their predecessors did 40 and 60 and 90 years ago?

If the answer is yes, then the 'numbers' that Kevin provides make perfect sense (and are in keeping with the natural order of things)
If the answer is no, then the 'over-representation' that James suggests makes perfect sense (and is also in keeping with the natural order of things, albeit in a different sphere)

Can there be a 'better and worse' and a 'good and great' in an art-craft that is ostensibly such a subjective one?

If so, there's no reason why a significant percentage of the best courses ever built couldn't have been built in just the last 20 years -- since greatness is not limited by statistics and, like the wind, will come and go as it pleases
If not, if the subjectivity of the art-craft makes suspect such historical & over-arching value judgments, there is reason to believe that the modern-day marketing ecosystem easily explains the statistical anomaly

But of course, any way you parse it, we can all agree that we are indeed very lucky. I'm told that so many truly wonderful courses have been built in a short period of time -- our time!

 

[Tom_Doak]

Doak attended MIT. He wrote the algorithm that determines a large percentage of what courses are rated the best in the world. His courses and those of other Dye proteges dominate the lists.


You know that the guys who say Bandon Dunes is better than Pacific are dismissed as MyPillowesque.

I only attended MIT for a year.  Maybe if I'd stayed longer I could have figured out how to make the ampersand disqualify a course from the rankings, so Bill & Ben could not challenge my position!   

[Tom_Doak]

Again Paul, all of those future “biggies” are by the same 3 or 4 architects. Will the best of these courses push their own courses out of the Top-100? Or will we end up with 50 of the Top-100 built by these three architects?

If so, will we really?

In the way rankings are looked at, the golf world is far more introverted than it has ever been. Not only does it consider just a handful of current architects, but it has put another handful of golden age architects on a pedestal whilst consigning others to the history books, ruling out two full generations in between.

Rankings are always near-sighted, because the newer courses push their marketing and because the panelists tend to jump onto bandwagons [whether in favor of the consensus choices or some other contender].  So there is no question that some of the courses Kevin listed will fall out of the rankings over time, first to be replaced by other courses by the same designers, and then by courses built by designers who are still in diapers today.


But, rankings are overrated, anyway.  The bottom line is that there are a lot of great new courses being built.  How many of them belong in a top 100 list is really only important to a small number of people.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Again Paul, all of those future “biggies” are by the same 3 or 4 architects. Will the best of these courses push their own courses out of the Top-100? Or will we end up with 50 of the Top-100 built by these three architects?

If so, will we really?

In the way rankings are looked at, the golf world is far more introverted than it has ever been. Not only does it consider just a handful of current architects, but it has put another handful of golden age architects on a pedestal whilst consigning others to the history books, ruling out two full generations in between.

Rankings are always near-sighted, because the newer courses push their marketing and because the panelists tend to jump onto bandwagons [whether in favor of the consensus choices or some other contender].  So there is no question that some of the courses Kevin listed will fall out of the rankings over time, first to be replaced by other courses by the same designers, and then by courses built by designers who are still in diapers today.


But, rankings are overrated, anyway.  The bottom line is that there are a lot of great new courses being built.  How many of them belong in a top 100 list is really only important to a small number of people.

This I can get on board with.

[Kevin Pallier]

It would be interesting to know what this statistic would have looked like in, say, 1980 or 2000.  And, of the courses in the top 100 at those points built within the previous 15 years, how many are still in there now.  I may be proved wrong, but hasn’t there always been an over-representation of “new” courses in the rankings, with many dropping out of favour later on?

By the way, I’m certainly not arguing that the same thing will necessarily happen over the next 20 years, just that we inevitably look at things from a particular perspective at a point in time and only time will tell whether future generations will agree with us.

James
 
You raise a very valid point and one I’ll explore further. There has been a large number of courses in the last 40 years that debuted in the Top100 stayed for one or two periods and slipped out again.
 
There’s 33 courses that opened since 1980 and appeared but no longer do so. I’ve sorted them by decade. I’ve also listed an asterix again those that appeared more than 5 times.
 
1980 [15]
Wild Dunes (Links)
Gary Player Country Club
The Vintage Club (Mountain)
Long Cove*
The Honors Course*
Troon Country Club
Lake Nona
Haig Point Club
PGA West (TPC Stadium)
Wade Hampton*
PGA West (Nicklaus)
Black Diamond Ranch (Quarry)
San Lorenzo
Forest Highlands (Canyon)
The European Club*
 
1990 [8]
Shadow Creek*
Double Eagle
Cabo del Sol (Ocean)*
World Woods (Pine Barrens)
Loch Lomond*
Ocean Forest
The Estancia Club
Old Head of Kinsale
 
2000 [7]
Kauri Cliffs
Oitavos Dunes
Nanea
Old Sandwich
Trump National (Bedminster)
Ayodhya Links
Chambers Bay
 
2010 [3]
Yas Links
Bandon (Old Macdonald)
Shanqin Bay [note design changes]
 
Only a select few will know why it could be argued whether those that came in and went out so quickly should have appeared there in the first place.



There’s some really good golf courses in those 33 courses above – I suspect though there’s not many that I could see should knock out the 16 courses I listed previously. I’d be interested to see an argument re same.

[Kevin Pallier]

My view (which is based on an assumption that the vaccine essentially halt's COVID's march by autumn 2021 and no big recession in the next 2-3 years) is that the next 2-3 years will be even MORE productive than that last few years.  Just looked at our list of projects underway (https://fescue.github.io) and just among new courses and total rebuilds (so excluding restorations and renovations) I can see the following highly anticipated courses being build or planned (in no particular order):


Thailand--Ballyshear (Lido adaptation)--Hanse
Australia--Kangeroo Island (near Adelaide)--supposedly incredible site
Australia--7 Mile Island (Tasmania near Hobart)--again, supposedly incredible site--Clayton & DeVries
New Zealand--Tara Iti #2--Coore & Crenshaw
New Zealand--Tara Iti #3--Doak
Ireland--St Patricks--Doak
St Lucia--Cabot--Coore & Crenshaw
USA-CA--Brambles--Coore & Crenshaw
USA-FL--McArthur #2---Coore & Crenshaw
USA-NE--Caprock--Hanse
USA-NE--Landman--King & Collins
USA-NY--new course in Hamptons--probably Fazio
USA-SC--Buck Club--Doak
USA-TX--PGA HQ #1--Hanse
USA-TX--PGA HQ #2--Welling
USA-WI--Lido-Doak

If I am counting right...that is 16 biggies (and I am sure I left off some that are just as anticipated or more anticipated than the above).  Not to mention some highly highly anticipated retro's and reno's suck as Oakland Hills, Congressional, Muirfield Village, Jupiter Hills, Baltusrol, Olympic, Chicago, Scioto, Union League-NJ, Falkenstein, Club Puerta de Hierro, etc, etc etc.

Yes...we could be sitting on a  big fat bubble, but if not I think huge flow of superb new and rejuvenated places in coming years

Paul


Thanks for that list of projects. It makes for some interesting reading and following.


With regard to the reno's - some of those already exist in the Top100 eg Oakland Hills, Muirfield, Chicago but there's a few there that once were and no longer are. I suppose it will be good to read as to how successful they are once they are completed.

[Tom_Doak]

There’s 33 courses that opened since 1980 and appeared but no longer do so. I’ve sorted them by decade. I’ve also listed an asterix again those that appeared more than 5 times.
 
1980 [15]
Wild Dunes (Links)
Gary Player Country Club
The Vintage Club (Mountain)
Long Cove*
The Honors Course*
Troon Country Club
Lake Nona
Haig Point Club
PGA West (TPC Stadium)
Wade Hampton*
PGA West (Nicklaus)
Black Diamond Ranch (Quarry)
San Lorenzo
Forest Highlands (Canyon)
The European Club*
 
1990 [8]
Shadow Creek*
Double Eagle
Cabo del Sol (Ocean)*
World Woods (Pine Barrens)
Loch Lomond*
Ocean Forest
The Estancia Club
Old Head of Kinsale
 
2000 [7]
Kauri Cliffs
Oitavos Dunes
Nanea
Old Sandwich
Trump National (Bedminster)
Ayodhya Links
Chambers Bay
 
2010 [3]
Yas Links
Bandon (Old Macdonald)
Shanqin Bay [note design changes]
 
Only a select few will know why it could be argued whether those that came in and went out so quickly should have appeared there in the first place.

Decades ago, when I tried to convince Pete Dye to participate in the rankings, he said that there were "40 to 50" courses that he thought were head and shoulders above the rest, and after that, there were at least 100 more that were pretty close to the same level.  [That's one of the reasons I set up the Doak Scale in the way I did, as sort of a logarithmic scale.]


Of all those listed above that have dropped from the list, only a couple -- Shadow Creek, Shanqin Bay, [and possibly Cabo del Sol, I can't remember] -- cracked the top 50.  And both Shanqin Bay and Cabo del Sol fell off due to having coastal golf holes removed from play.


So, making the top 50 is a pretty good sign of staying power, while a new course that debuts at #80 is unlikely to be there in ten years.  Does that mean it never belonged in the first place?  Possibly.  But they will market that "top 100" ranking forever!

[Tim_Weiman]

Doak attended MIT. He wrote the algorithm that determines a large percentage of what courses are rated the best in the world. His courses and those of other Dye proteges dominate the lists.


You know that the guys who say Bandon Dunes is better than Pacific are dismissed as MyPillowesque.

John,


I didn’t go to MIT, but didn’t even need to go to Princeton (the home of perfect people) to see that Pacific Dunes is far better than Bandon Dunes.


Who knows what I would think if I was a Yalie instead of a Tiger. No......same thing.