I imagine that before my arrival here, you ladies (if any) and gentlemen (if any) must have exhaustively -- and likely exhaustingly -- discussed the question of whether it's a good idea to RANK golf courses.
Sorry I missed it and couldn't weigh in, until now. Here's what I think:
I think -- very simply (I try to be a very simple guy, to keep from getting confused): It's just silly to put golf courses in numerical orders (far sillier than these course-vs.-course "match play" comparisons I've seen here -- which, at least, have the considerable advantage of offering a fresh perspective).
How in the world can anyone say (to use a few courses I've been fortunate to play) that Pebble Beach is BETTER than Sand Hills -- or vice versa? That The Old Course is BETTER than Lahinch -- or vice versa?
I know which of each pair I'd play, if I could play only one course for the rest of my life, or if I had only day's play left in me. But does that make it BETTER? No. Of course it does not.
Nor would it make my choices BETTER courses if all 8,268 Golf Digest raters agreed with me.
They're all great! They all deserve as many stars as you're willing to give! (I don't object to RATING courses, in general categories ranging from RIDICULOUS to SUBLIME; I merely object to RANKING them.) All four of those courses -- and, of course, many others, which many of you are lucky enough to have played -- offer a Sublime (or, at least, potentially sublime) experience. All are works of art. Why try to put them in order?
Does anyone try to put art works from other genres in numerical order? Is Picasso's "Guernica" better art than Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel? Is the Chrysler Building better architecture than Fallingwater? Is Beethoven's Ninth Symphony better music than "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'? Is "Huckleberry Finn" a better novel than "The Great Gatsby"?
If anyone seriously attempted such rankings, as anything more than a parlor game (or a one-time-only, turn-of-the-millennium-type magazine or newspaper feature, or as a "clever" bid for a little publicity), we would dismiss him as a goofball, unworthy of our attention -- just as we dismiss, with a sigh of oh-there's-that-again, the annual lists of Best Dressed and Worst Dressed celebrities. We may look at the pictures, and we may consider the list -- but we cheapen ourselves in the process, and we know it.
Are the annual Best Dressed Golf Courses listings really any more noble? Aren't they just the same kind of meaningless fluff, designed to rope in our lesser selves?
The fine folks at the golf magazines would much better serve this game, if not necessarily themselves, if they'd list and describe the courses they consider great, and near-great, rather than rank them.
Why do they persist with these goofy, pseudoscientific rankings -- year after year after year? Take a look at the Views line for the various recent threads here. Look at the number for the "Golf Digest Best New Courses / 2001 Results" thread. Big number, eh?
Case closed; judgment to Golf Digest; all costs to be borne by plaintiff Kelly.
But I do wonder: Is this ranking mania, still in its ascendancy on these shores, an American thing? Esquire's December issue: "The 162 Greatest Things About America." (That's how they're advertising it, anyway -- on the cover. When one turns inside, one discovers that it's false advertising -- for a story, by Charles P. Pierce, titled "162 Reasons It's Good to Be an American Man." Credit to Esquire: The subtitle of the story is "[IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER].") The Twin Cities' local magazine's December issue: "The Twin Cities' Best 100 People, Places and Things." (In order! No. 1: Winter?!?)
Are rankings and lists standard fare in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere? Or is this just one of the 162 Reasons It's Not So Great to Be an American?