On my way back from Europe today, I picked up a copy of the September 2011 GOLF WORLD, which has its own ranking of the top 100 golf courses in the world. It's almost like a parallel universe.
Some of it looks like they were copying the GOLF Magazine list [which of course, they couldn't have, since both came out at the same time]. The newcomers to the GOLF WORLD list were remarkably similar to the GOLF list:
Old Macdonald #58
Lost Farm #71
Ballyneal #73 [guess it wasn't there before]
The Prairie Club (Dunes) #74 [!]
Diamante #75
Chambers Bay #90
Mission Hills (Lava Fields) #93
Yas Links #95
But the one interesting omission is Castle Stuart ... apparently not as highly regarded in its own neighborhood?
The rest of the list is a mish-mosh. By my count there are 18-20 courses on this list not on the GOLF list, most of them in Europe [Les Bordes, Golf National, Royal Zoute, Noordwijk] and the UK and Ireland [Saunton, Gleneagles, West Sussex, Alwoodley, Formby, Doonbeg] ... oh, and South Africa, as Fancourt and Leopard Creek are both in the top 40. There are only 36 U.S. courses [including those new ones!], and many are ranked much lower than you are used to seeing them ... Prairie Dunes and Crystal Downs 56-57, San Francisco Golf Club at 80, and Baltusrol and Olympic in the 90s. There must be a few staples that missed the top 100 altogether, but I'm too tired to sort through them right now.
The odd thing about the list is that they don't say exactly how they arrived at it -- just that they "combined our own GB&I and European rankings with similar lists from the USA, South Africa and Australia, " and "invited contributions from noted golf travel writers, photographers and regional experts." So apparently it is something of a cut and paste effort, where raters were not comparing courses directly at all.