Baltimore Country Club dropping off the list.

Wild Horse is NOT a top-100 public course (but Quarry Oaks is). Good lord.

Oh, and that there are 30 public courses in the United States better than Pasatiempo.

Oh, and Hawktree is 19th.  

The biggest shock is Ran would post.

On a self serving note, Olympic Club dropping from 16th to 25th after all the work we have done is disappointing.

Friars Head not in the top 100 has to be a shock.

Joel -

Seeing Olympic drop 9 spots amazed me as well, but seeing Five Farms drop out after all the work we did was truly shocking. I am sure Olympic will move up in 2007 as my ratings will take effect then .

The biggest shock is Ran would post.

Ran???  Who is that  

That Ron Whitten is still the head of the Golf Digest ratings panel.

I don't jump onto these rater bashing threads too often, but this Golf Digest panel has no direction. How can you pull "Tradition" and not tell your raters? I understand statistics well enough to know the problems with looking as to why a course moved from 35 to 25 or vice versa.

However if you are in charge of a ratings panel, and they can't see the difference between Friar's Head and Atlantic, then you are not educating your panelist. I have defended Atlantic many times in this website. Yes I like a Ress Jones course. However, Friar's Head was blessed with one of the most unique sites on the East Coast. Farmland, dunes, water, wind, trees, open space. It is not fair to even compare with Atlantic which has a wonderful farmland only site.

Statistically I understand how these things happen, but sorry they have an education problem at Golf Digest. If Cypress Point is #4, and that is with tradition thrown out, and Friar's Head is #14 in New York behind Atlantic, then the head of the panel needs to make some drastic changes or step down.

By the way, do any of the raters read Ron's column? Certainly they did not agree with his view of CC of Buffalo when Whitten said, "When it comes to early-American "quarry courses," I like it better than the far more famous Merion East. It may lack Merion's tournament history, but Buffalo's quarry holes are more intriguing, and it has four times as many of them."

Yet, CC of Buffalo does not even make the New York list. By the way, I love his reviews, I am only questioning his leadership. Brad is a little whacky, but he clearly sets a tighter agenda at GolfWeek.

I'd rather read the "Racing Form" or Elaine Garzarelli pick stocks. ZZZZZZZZZZ

Why do you guys continue to bother discussing these lists?  

Did I somehow miss Wannamoisett?

Friar's Head is #14 because it doesn't have a quorum yet.  There are 13 courses in NY state with enough votes to put them in the top 100, so it can't be listed ahead of them.

Biggest shock:  Flint Hills National.  A friend of mine used to own the property, and even he doesn't think it's one of the best courses in America.

Biggest disappointment:  to see Pacific Dunes rated so low on the Conditioning standard.  From my point of view the conditioning there is as good as it could ever be ... you can putt from forty yards out on the fairway, and it plays like it was designed.  GOLF DIGEST panelists must be rating conditioning by holding up a color strip to see how green the course is, and writing down the corresponding number.

That Ron Whitten is still the head of the Golf Digest ratings panel.

I'm not exactly sure this is true?   The bottom of the article lists the names for the people responsible and Rons name is clearly missing.  

I know Ron is still writing reviews and I believe he is involved in the "best new courses" but I have a feeling he is not involved in the top 100 ranking anymore?  

unless the conditioning at Pacific D. has gone WAY down since I was there in Nov 2003, a low rating for it there is ridiculous and indicative of some of the things that can be improved with American golf, like many people wanting all-green conditions, which usually , and unnecessarily, requires more water which equals wasting water  which leads to less roll which leads to shorter driving distances, etc....

the conditions when I was last there were GREAT

man, this is supposed to be about golf courses, not turf nurseries!

On the local level, Pine Barrens, ShoreGate and Scotland Run making the NJ list while Pine Hill didn't make the cut.

On the big list, Kapalua Plantation being ranked so low.  My round there was the most fun I've had in the rain (poured from 10 through 16), along with the '93 Phillies/Blue Jays World Series.