Golf Digest Best New

[Jonathan Cummings]

For whatever reason the owner of White Oak (that gets next to no play) wanted to expose his course to the rating panels.  So he instructed the manager to determine the required minimum number of votes necessary to qualify for the various lists, and give that number of raters access, then re-shut the door.  Can't speak to Digest but my understanding is GW was given a month to allow 8 foursomes (no more than one a day!) to play White Oak.  Have no idea about the Magazine panel access.

[Derek_Duncan]

JC Jones,


What is your deal? The only arrangement that any golf course or club has with Golf Digest, and I presume other publications, is they allow panelists to play the course. Many of the clubs charge their standard guest fee to do so. The panelists then file their score, and at the end of the process, whether it's for Best New or Best in State or 100 Greatest, our statistician tabulates the numbers and gives us back the results. That's it. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?

[JC Jones]

JC Jones,


What is your deal? The only arrangement that any golf course or club has with Golf Digest, and I presume other publications, is they allow panelists to play the course. Many of the clubs charge their standard guest fee to do so. The panelists then file their score, and at the end of the process, whether it's for Best New or Best in State or 100 Greatest, our statistician tabulates the numbers and gives us back the results. That's it. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?

"The only arrangement"?  So, what do you call the 48 person non-arrangement at Cabot Citrus Farms in March where you are speaking to panelists? Did Golf Digest book all of the tee times on the website without "arranging" anything with the resort?  Why continue to pretend these things don't exist?


I understand Golf Digest's methodology, entirely.  I am well aware of the system and process that your "statistician," the Pope of the Slope, has implemented over the last 10+ years.  The pivot in ~2013 created a system that perpetuates groupthink vis a vis the Scorecard; the ballooning of the panel to 2000 people to generate $2mm in "entry fees" and $600k+ per year in revenue has turned the rankings into a joke; and, the "awards" are easily gamed by clubs knowing they only need to find 15 panelists out of 2000 who are enamored with exclusive access, free rounds and other perks, to win "Best New".  Moreover, the flood of these panelists who have no idea what they are doing, other than paying their way into an annual "free golf" punchcard, has caused most of these clubs to just shut down access all together because they dont want to participate in the Golf Digest charade.


The Golf Digest rankings are broken.  Which is sad for me, because I always viewed them as the gold standard for US100, Best Public and Best in State rankings.

[Jake McCarty]

JC Jones,


What is your deal? The only arrangement that any golf course or club has with Golf Digest, and I presume other publications, is they allow panelists to play the course. Many of the clubs charge their standard guest fee to do so. The panelists then file their score, and at the end of the process, whether it's for Best New or Best in State or 100 Greatest, our statistician tabulates the numbers and gives us back the results. That's it. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?

"The only arrangement"?  So, what do you call the 48 person non-arrangement at Cabot Citrus Farms in March where you are speaking to panelists? Did Golf Digest book all of the tee times on the website without "arranging" anything with the resort?  Why continue to pretend these things don't exist?


I understand Golf Digest's methodology, entirely.  I am well aware of the system and process that your "statistician," the Pope of the Slope, has implemented over the last 10+ years.  The pivot in ~2013 created a system that perpetuates groupthink vis a vis the Scorecard; the ballooning of the panel to 2000 people to generate $2mm in "entry fees" and $600k+ per year in revenue has turned the rankings into a joke; and, the "awards" are easily gamed by clubs knowing they only need to find 15 panelists out of 2000 who are enamored with exclusive access, free rounds and other perks, to win "Best New".  Moreover, the flood of these panelists who have no idea what they are doing, other than paying their way into an annual "free golf" punchcard, has caused most of these clubs to just shut down access all together because they dont want to participate in the Golf Digest charade.


The Golf Digest rankings are broken.  Which is sad for me, because I always viewed them as the gold standard for US100, Best Public and Best in State rankings.

I know more than a few Golf Digest raters. Some are well-traveled and others haven't seen three top 100 courses and they readily admit that they have no idea what they are doing but are in it for "free golf and boozy trips where they can bring friends." And "that they just give out random scores to match existing scores."

Over drinks a friend who's a Golf Digest rater even told that he (and several others he knew) frequently made up scores for courses hi never visited.  He also told me that he just gives the similar scores "to fly below the radar" on everything.


He also said that he "knew of" more than a few Golf Digest raters "who knew absolutely nothing" and weren't "aware of the names Raynor and Fazio" and that "lots of randos" have been "turned onto"  a "discount golf card" for "free golf."


Perhaps these stories are outliers? One can suspect why that the head of the Golf Digest revenue program would disagree with the confessions of his panelists.

[JC Jones]

Hi Jake,


Exactly.  This is what I was alluding to above.  It is a product of both the "Scorecard," and the expansion of the panel to generate revenue for the magazine.


Edit: This is my thread from 5 years ago addressing these issues:


https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,67772.0.html

[Derek_Duncan]

JC Jones,



You used to be a Digest panelist. I don't know the circumstances of your departure but it seems that you still carry emotional baggage. Thou doth protest too much.


Everyone is entitled to their opinion of the rankings--I'm not here to argue methodology or the way things are run. You have issues? Good for you. What I do care about is people spreading misinformation and saying things that aren't true.


You have claimed that White Oak and The Covey hosted large groups of panelists. Neither is true. You also insinuated that Golf  Digest was working with The Covey in some kind of arrangement. Also unequivocally false. Here's what actually happened: a bunch of people visited the course. The sum of their scores was higher than the other courses. End of story.


You've accused my having the architect on my podcast, which I've had since 2017 and run independently of Golf Digest, as being part of the, I don't know, buy out. Tell me more about how that works, please. I'd love to know because the money doesn't seem to be  getting back to me.


You keep bringing up a panelist summit that hasn't happened yet to bolster some claim of alleged past collusion. That's some strange logic. If we have events in the future, it doesn't change the fact that we didn't have them in the past.


Again, I don't care what your beef is with GD. You want to explicate on all the ways GD gets it wrong, knock yourself out. But there are ways to be critical without advancing and perpetuating tired falsehoods.




Jake McCarty,


I don't suppose you would DM me the names of these panelists, would you? Your comments sound specious to me but I'd like the opportunity to investigate now that you've hung out the dirty laundry for everyone to read.

[Alex_Hunter]

15 of 2000 panellists seeing a course and having it be rated as best new does not add up to statistically significant. Even if it was "over 25" that's garbage data collection. I'd argue it's a bit of a sham in fact. If a course won't have at least 100 panelists out of 2000 then don't count it OR make your panel smaller (this is really what GD should do). But I get it, it's a cash cow for the magazine, which is a very peculiar thing to me.

[Jake McCarty]

I know that a couple of my courses have banned Golf Digest raters because they perceived that the leadership was dishonest and didn't vet the panelists.