So is every new course a world beater?

[Tommy Williamsen]

It seems that every year, two, three, or more courses open to rave reviews, and a couple of years (or in some cases, a couple of days) after they open, they make some top 100 list. Are they all that good? Have architects finally cracked the code and discovered golf's Rosetta Stone? Will the sheen wear off in ten years? Or are they really that good?

[Paul Rudovsky]

It seems that every year, two, three, or more courses open to rave reviews, and a couple of years (or in some cases, a couple of days) after they open, they make some top 100 list. Are they all that good? Have architects finally cracked the code and discovered golf's Rosetta Stone? Will the sheen wear off in ten years? Or are they really that good?

Tom

1.  one thing is almost guaranteed...over time new courses (as well as additional restorations and renovations) will be completed and some may well be better thereby lowering the rating of the older course(s)
2.  statistically the vast vast majority of new courses opening over the last almost 30 years (since Sand Hills) have moved UP in the next Top 100 listing after their initial listing


and also..the title of this thread is somewhat misleading...in the title ask if EVERY new course ia a world beater...in the body of the thread you talk about 1-3 new courses awn dsince3 the cycle for most ratings is every two years (with the exception of Golfweek which is every year) that cuts the number of new courses per year in half.

[Thomas Dai]

Just imagine if all the new courses or even restorations/renovations done in one year were damn awful or ultra-bland what would all the publicists, raters, ranking chasers, bloggers, podsters, photographers do with themselves?
And what would we read and write about and look at? year off?

atb

[Adam Lawrence]

The issue is the changing motivation of those who are developing courses. With the demise of large-scale residential based golf development (it still exists, but obviously in tiny quantities compared to twenty or thirty years ago), most people who are developing golf are doing so for its own sake and because they want to do something great.

The developer wanting to do something great doesn't mean that it will be so, but it is the single most important part of creating great golf. Everything else follows from that.

[Ally Mcintosh]

The issue is the changing motivation of those who are developing courses. With the demise of large-scale residential based golf development (it still exists, but obviously in tiny quantities compared to twenty or thirty years ago), most people who are developing golf are doing so for its own sake and because they want to do something great.


The developer wanting to do something great doesn't mean that it will be so, but it is the single most important part of creating great golf. Everything else follows from that.

Adam has nailed this. In my opinion the three things you can definitively say are making this generation’s golf courses better than the previous are:


- Developers are looking at great golf as their core driver.
- The quality of the sites are far superior.
- The intricacy of the detail in the design and build is far more nuanced.


Other variables are - to a degree - not differentiators; this because they are either subjective (e.g. preference of design philosophy) or difficult to gauge for the outsider (e.g. routing skills).


One final aspect we need to consider is that golf courses are getting presented the way architects want them to be. As with many Golden Age courses (also built on good sites with core golf as their driver), will some of these courses lose their bite as they age over the next 50-100 years through owners with different priorities and maintenance practices that outweigh design intent?

[Tim Gallant]

Echo what Adam and Ally say above.


Regardless of rankings, I think there is so much good golf being created at the moment that there will likely be courses that get lost in the shuffle, only to be 'discovered' in 20 years time as a gem.

[Keith Phillips]

Agree with the above.  A focus on finding the best land for golf, rather than the best property for a real estate development.  Secondly, the fact that so many (now) iconic designers are operating at their peaks (Doak, C&C...) while their proteges are branching out with their own bold designs (Schneider, Franz and many others).  Thirdly, the amount of money now chasing good golf experiences, per another active thread.  We are truly living in a golden age. 

[Mike Hendren]

Ally, I would argue that recent designs are often bold rather than nuanced.  Many are attention grabbers in a culture where depth of analysis is often absent.  Nuanced doesn’t sell absent multiple plays by the architecturally astute golfer.  That’s not to say that many courses aren’t quite good. 

[Ben Hollerbach]

This perception does not seem new at all. Since Golf Magazine released their first Top-50 ranking in 1979 216 courses have been ranked. 49 courses have appeared on the rankings 20 or more times. Among the remaining 167 courses, their average stay on the rankings is only 6 cycles, and the median is just 5.

In general new courses make for a big first impression and then fizzle out within a decade, many only last a few years on the rankings.

[Michael Felton]

The issue is the changing motivation of those who are developing courses. With the demise of large-scale residential based golf development (it still exists, but obviously in tiny quantities compared to twenty or thirty years ago), most people who are developing golf are doing so for its own sake and because they want to do something great.


The developer wanting to do something great doesn't mean that it will be so, but it is the single most important part of creating great golf. Everything else follows from that.

Adam has nailed this. In my opinion the three things you can definitively say are making this generation’s golf courses better than the previous are:


- Developers are looking at great golf as their core driver.
- The quality of the sites are far superior.
- The intricacy of the detail in the design and build is far more nuanced.


Other variables are - to a degree - not differentiators; this because they are either subjective (e.g. preference of design philosophy) or difficult to gauge for the outsider (e.g. routing skills).


One final aspect we need to consider is that golf courses are getting presented the way architects want them to be. As with many Golden Age courses (also built on good sites with core golf as their driver), will some of these courses lose their bite as they age over the next 50-100 years through owners with different priorities and maintenance practices that outweigh design intent?

Do you think there is also an impact from the presumably improved ability to move earth around? An architect (given the budget) these days who pictures a significant change to the topography of the site can do that, where a century ago that wasn't an option. I'm thinking of Bayonne in particular as a site that was built rather than discovered.

[Jeff Schley]

This perception does not seem new at all. Since Golf Magazine released their first Top-50 ranking in 1979 216 courses have been ranked. 49 courses have appeared on the rankings 20 or more times. Among the remaining 167 courses, their average stay on the rankings is only 6 cycles, and the median is just 5.

In general new courses make for a big first impression and then fizzle out within a decade, many only last a few years on the rankings.

Ben interesting numbers. I thought I would have been reading Rudo.  Paul is this correct as I know you have the ultimate spreadsheet.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Ally, I would argue that recent designs are often bold rather than nuanced.  Many are attention grabbers in a culture where depth of analysis is often absent.  Nuanced doesn’t sell absent multiple plays by the architecturally astute golfer.  That’s not to say that many courses aren’t quite good.

Mike, I’m talking about detailing only. The best modern designs are showing excellence in the attention to small detailing. The previous generation tended to work with broader slopes. The vision was less detailed, more macro.

[Bernie Bell]

They cost staggering amounts of money to build and to play so of course they must be great. 

[Tommy Williamsen]

Many of the new courses have important things in common.
1.    Many have stunning ocean-front sites.
2.   Even some inland courses are built on sand and in sand dunes.
3.   Architects place bunkers more strategically and incorporate existing landforms into the course better.
4.   Contemporary architects expertly route the course.
5.   They are fun and challenging without beating you up.
6.   Greens are more exciting.

[Ally Mcintosh]

The issue is the changing motivation of those who are developing courses. With the demise of large-scale residential based golf development (it still exists, but obviously in tiny quantities compared to twenty or thirty years ago), most people who are developing golf are doing so for its own sake and because they want to do something great.


The developer wanting to do something great doesn't mean that it will be so, but it is the single most important part of creating great golf. Everything else follows from that.

Adam has nailed this. In my opinion the three things you can definitively say are making this generation’s golf courses better than the previous are:


- Developers are looking at great golf as their core driver.
- The quality of the sites are far superior.
- The intricacy of the detail in the design and build is far more nuanced.


Other variables are - to a degree - not differentiators; this because they are either subjective (e.g. preference of design philosophy) or difficult to gauge for the outsider (e.g. routing skills).


One final aspect we need to consider is that golf courses are getting presented the way architects want them to be. As with many Golden Age courses (also built on good sites with core golf as their driver), will some of these courses lose their bite as they age over the next 50-100 years through owners with different priorities and maintenance practices that outweigh design intent?

Do you think there is also an impact from the presumably improved ability to move earth around? An architect (given the budget) these days who pictures a significant change to the topography of the site can do that, where a century ago that wasn't an option. I'm thinking of Bayonne in particular as a site that was built rather than discovered.

Yes, but I don’t think that matters to a huge extent when the sites are good, as they are now and as they were in the Golden Age.


It’s the period in between where huge earthmoving equipment came in to its own. Sure, there have been some really bold, heavy construction jobs in the last 20 years but they generally haven’t been the ones that make their way in to Top-100 lists…


…in fact, I’d argue that on a really good site, you can get by with excavators and no dozers.

[Charlie Goerges]

This is a minor point about the lists, but two ideas that are coming out in the ranking side are Paul's contention that courses are moving UP, while Ben discusses courses falling DOWN.


I'm curious about this, as I could see both being true depending on the parameters. Could it be that courses that land on the most prestigious top 100 lists are moving up, but courses landing on less prestigious lists can be falling down?


For instance, Sand Hills hit the Golf Magazine world 100 list and then moved up (as have many others). But many courses would hit something like Golf Digest's best in-state public lists and eventually fell off. Does that make sense? I remember public courses making a big splash locally that eventually fall off in importance (even if they are still successful operations).

[Kalen Braley]

Charlie,

I'd tend to agree with your last post.  It'd be interesting to see a listing by listing comparison with analysis on new courses that opened in the last 25 years.

As one counter-point, I recall the massive hype around Lakota Canyon (now known as Lakota Links) when it first came out.  I believe it made at least one of the top 100 lists, but now wouldn't even make the top 10 in Colorado listings.

[Charlie Goerges]

Charlie,

I'd tend to agree with your last post.  It'd be interesting to see a listing by listing comparison with analysis on new courses that opened in the last 25 years.

As one counter-point, I recall the massive hype around Lakota Canyon (now known as Lakota Links) when it first came out.  I believe it made at least one of the top 100 lists, but now wouldn't even make the top 10 in Colorado listings.

That's a good example, if a little higher ranking than I was thinking. But yes. Sometimes we use a shorthand around here and I think it sometimes confuses things. I remember lots of courses that have made the best in-state (overall or just public) lists for here in Minnesota that have come and gone in importance; especially in the late 80s and into the 90s. But it also wouldn't surprise me if 90% of the courses to hit the world top 100 in the last 25 years have stayed there or even moved up.


What feels like it's the case, is that those best in-state courses just aren't really being built anymore, which has been corroborated by Adam and Ally.




Edit: I keep saying best in-state and variations, but really thinking about it, I'm thinking of all the "best new public" type courses that opened over the years. A venerable old muni or resort course would often hang on the lists for quite a while. Hopefully that distinction sort of makes sense in the context of what I was trying to say.

[David Kelly]

Ally, I would argue that recent designs are often bold rather than nuanced.  Many are attention grabbers in a culture where depth of analysis is often absent.  Nuanced doesn’t sell absent multiple plays by the architecturally astute golfer.  That’s not to say that many courses aren’t quite good.

Mike,
Which recent courses have you found to be more bold than nuanced?

[Jeff Schley]

Ally, I would argue that recent designs are often bold rather than nuanced.  Many are attention grabbers in a culture where depth of analysis is often absent.  Nuanced doesn’t sell absent multiple plays by the architecturally astute golfer.  That’s not to say that many courses aren’t quite good.

Mike,
Which recent courses have you found to be more bold than nuanced?

Not to answer for Mike, but one for me is Ballyshear Links in Thailand. The ode to Macdonald templates.  It exaggerates the green complexes to a large scale and was noticeable to those familiar with other MacRaynor courses.

[Matt Schoolfield]

I genuinely agree with Adam and Ally here, but I think demographics might also play a role. It seems GOLF started publishing it's list in 1983, then grew to its current size in 1985? If that's the case, we have yet to see a generational transfer of cultural influence on the golf canon. The last time we could have seen that happen would have been in the mid-to-late '70s. If there are more individual rankers that are less connected to certain aspects of the history of marginal courses, I think it they would be more inclined to bump them when a place like Bandon opens than the old guard might be.

[Michael Chadwick]

Plenty of new courses do not garner top100 attention. Tim Gavrich tends to summarize many new openings on GolfPass and of, say, 20 designs, about 2-3 might make a rankings splash.

I still think the best modern designs tend to be undervalued https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,71964.0.html

[Sean_A]

The issue is the changing motivation of those who are developing courses. With the demise of large-scale residential based golf development (it still exists, but obviously in tiny quantities compared to twenty or thirty years ago), most people who are developing golf are doing so for its own sake and because they want to do something great.


The developer wanting to do something great doesn't mean that it will be so, but it is the single most important part of creating great golf. Everything else follows from that.

Adam has nailed this. In my opinion the three things you can definitively say are making this generation’s golf courses better than the previous are:


- Developers are looking at great golf as their core driver.
- The quality of the sites are far superior.
- The intricacy of the detail in the design and build is far more nuanced.


Other variables are - to a degree - not differentiators; this because they are either subjective (e.g. preference of design philosophy) or difficult to gauge for the outsider (e.g. routing skills).


One final aspect we need to consider is that golf courses are getting presented the way architects want them to be. As with many Golden Age courses (also built on good sites with core golf as their driver), will some of these courses lose their bite as they age over the next 50-100 years through owners with different priorities and maintenance practices that outweigh design intent?

Do you think there is also an impact from the presumably improved ability to move earth around? An architect (given the budget) these days who pictures a significant change to the topography of the site can do that, where a century ago that wasn't an option. I'm thinking of Bayonne in particular as a site that was built rather than discovered.

Yes, but I don’t think that matters to a huge extent when the sites are good, as they are now and as they were in the Golden Age.


It’s the period in between where huge earthmoving equipment came in to its own. Sure, there have been some really bold, heavy construction jobs in the last 20 years but they generally haven’t been the ones that make their way in to Top-100 lists…


…in fact, I’d argue that on a really good site, you can get by with excavators and no dozers.

Doesn’t the modern equipment help with details?


Ciao

[Mike Hendren]

Ally, I would argue that recent designs are often bold rather than nuanced.  Many are attention grabbers in a culture where depth of analysis is often absent.  Nuanced doesn’t sell absent multiple plays by the architecturally astute golfer.  That’s not to say that many courses aren’t quite good.

Mike,
Which recent courses have you found to be more bold than nuanced?

Mammoth Dunes, Sweetens Cove, and Erin Hills come to mind. Again, they are good golf courses. 


All the best.

[Mark_Fine]

Tommy,

I think it might help to broaden your definition of are they all that good to maybe “all that good” means having a dramatic impact on golfers or means saving a golf course from being turned into a Walmart or means creating an experience that attracts golfers and doubles the number of rounds or means making the course a profit center instead of a cost center, …. If that is what “are they all that good” means, then there are countless examples of this kind of success and there will be many more opportunities out there in the years to come. 


We mostly focus here, as you imply, on the high profile and generally mega budget courses that might make some list, but the real game changing work (no pun intended) that is making the biggest difference to the most golfers is happening on the much lesser known courses.  If for example an architect can help save a course from extinction and make it an asset for the local community, that is work that is really good for golf.   Creatively taking a course from a Doak 2 or 3 level to a Doak 4 or 5 with a very frugal budget might not make the front page of Golf Magazine or any Top 100 list, but it likely will have more impact to more golfers especially those hundreds or even thousands who regularly play the course because what was done was “really that good” 😊