OK, so after clearing the idea with ran and getting lots of input from you guys, we're reprising the idea I did last year here and on my blog of having a "64 team tournament" of the great US public courses...like we did last year with the architects...last year Tillie edged out CB Macdonald in the final and we had a cool upset where Mike DeVries spanked RTJ to reach the "sweet 16."

Here's my dilemma...how do we select gthe 64 best US public courses?  I'll take care of the regions and seeding,  but do you guy wanna use the GM rankings alone?  Top 50 GM and 14 wild cards?  Do GM, GD and GW rankings all getting weighted?

Throw out some ideas here or in my inbox and well, rank, seed and have fight night, US public course style!

Also, if we could all get on the same page, or thread as it were...  

Jay - how about a muni bracket?

Candidates for the muni?
Bethpage (pick your colors)
Torrey Pines
Eastmoreland (Portland, OR)
Wintonbury (Hartford, CT)

You can also set a bar for involvement based on the fees charged.

Frankly, Pinehurst #2 and PB may be listed as "public" but that sort of "public" has a much higher disposable income point.

Jay, the public or "open to the public" of 64 courses might be a good division.  Then, in another division, we might have the top 64 privates of in-land character, prior to 1960 (whatever) as a separate division.  

Then, another division of linksland, dunes land, coastal, or similar.

I think the overall idea would be competitions of similar character courses to determine winners in each division.

Maybe later in the process, take the top 4-8 of each division and put them all in a super division.

something along those lines.

As I had just mentioned to Jim Thompson on an IM, we probably should start with a clearing house of a universal data base of eligible courses to be seeded into the various divisions.  As Jay said, maybe we can compile the total list of the various golf magazine top lists, of private, affordable, public, private, worldwide, before 1950s, etc.  Then when we have a list of eligibles, we can decide what to call the divisions, and start placing them into those categories...

Yikes Dugger, you are M O T I V A T E D!  

I would only offer some humble suggestions.  By doing this seeding as you have, you are already sort of vetting or ranking them.  That is why I was originally suggesting to identify an original list of "like courses" in a division first, then find some way (maybe flip of a coin or some non-vetting/ranking method to match them up for the fight).  

For instance, rather than doing it merely by region and pitting a Pac Dunes, obviously a coastal Dunes like course against a Barton Creek (that has very little similarity) I would suggest it be considered in a division with the likes of Kiawah TOC, Whistling Straits, Bandon and Pac Dunes, Arcadia Bluffs (bubble identity there), Pebble B, Spanish Bay, etc.  Hopefully, we can get 16 such dunesland linksland coastal courses that are public (as so many tend to be private)  

We could debate the merits of including a course like Wild Horse because it is all sandy, duneslike, treeless etc.  Yet, I could also see it in a division with the likes of Tobacco Road, True Blue, Lawsonia Links, Rustic Canyon, Barona Creek, Erin Hills (might have some trouble finding guys for judges of the fight that have played Erin and any of the others in its bracket)  There might be many on the bubble that need some discussion of how to catagorize them.

What if we get some divisions together of like courses first, from a master or amalgamated list like you guys already have.  See if we can get a solid 16 in each division of like public courses, without seeding them or matching them just yet.  If one division has obviously more than 16 candidates, lets list them anyway, and have two differing opinion guys alternately strike names off the divisional list for competition, like they do for arbitrators or jurors.  Some of the struck names might still fill the bill in another division.

We need a clearing house and compilier.  Mike and Jay and Jim already have lists.  

I like the idea of amalgamation of already identified lists as a starting point.

Since I'm blabbing, and offering modifications... let me start from Mike's list with a possible starting list of candidates for the high end resort, dunes, coastal public division.   Notice a Sand Hills, BallyNeal, Dismal, Cypress Ptl, Friars Head can't qualify here.  Save them for the privates list...  I am no where near the travelled player that most of you are, so I can't even come up with a whole list of 16.  But, I know if my start is acceptable, you guys can come up with plenty more similar upscale public duneslike, coastal to fill it.

Pebble B., Pac Dunes, Bandon Dunes, Bandon Tr., Sea Island, Spanish Bay, Whistling Straits, Kiawah TOC, Trump L.A., Arcadia Bluffs (?) Torrey Pines (?)

If we pilot test one division for fight night, we can move on to other divisions, private coastal dunes links, etc.  

Lets start small, one division, then find a way to post the matches, and post a request for volunteers to judge, who have played both courses in the match.  A 16 course division should give us a good idea if the concpet can be taken further.

I'd say you almost need two "parkland" brackets. Maybe a parkland urban/suburban, and a parkland rural/mountain.

Just food for thought.

Blackwolf Run - River
The Harvester
Cog Hill - Dubsdread

I think a strong case could be made for The River being in the top 16.

Haven't played Giants Ridge - Quarry, but that may be a contender as well.

 

I don't see how you can get anything set up other than regional voting, ala all-star ballot stuffing contests.. I'd almost bet you could have 64 teams in each of 4 USA quadrants.. to determine the final 4.. so maybe limit to 32 in each quad and get off the ncaa wagon..

only privates excluded
 

Dick - good point - if it is done via the "fight night" method, the means to get to the choices will be interesting for sure.  So it's still worth doing...

I'd just be a lot more interested in the end results, and entrants into, the Clayman bracket.

That's why I wondered if we could do both?  But I just thought of a weakness of the Clayman bracket... for a lot of the entrants we're gonna be hard pressed to find more than one or two players who've played both courses, given some odd ones are likely to be included....

Oh well.  No perfect way to do this, and all sound fun to me.

Two thoughts...who's to say if we split hairs to have the same number of desert, mountain, links, parkland, etc., that the 5th best oceanside course might not get into the field just to fit in the 3rd best mountain course?

Also I have to disagree with the "if your ranked in a magazine you're not eligible.  This is for everybody to participate, not just architecture experts who know places that are unsung.  We have to include the "Conference champions."

Besides...it'll be all the more fun when some overrated 2 or 3 seed gets upset by the golf equivalent of a "directional school."

Lets do this...I'll set up two separate brackets.

For the PUBLIC side maybe what we do is take GM's, GW's and GD's top 50 lists.  Figure out what the top 50 points getters on the common lists are.  ***maybe even add a 4th list...a GCA list where all you guys reank YOUR top 50 and we score them 50 for 1st place, 49 for second, etc until we get a GCA top 50***

Then I'll fill out the rest of the bracket with 14 wild cards...the best of those who didn't crack the top 50...then just fill in the brackets by the formula and voila...off we go.

Then we on GCA can do exactly the same thing on the private side!  In fact, for the private side, we can just do strictly GCA "top 50 ranking, private" and strictly GCA voting in the brackets.

I wanna keep the public side open to everyone since Cybergolf is thinking about running the story and brackets and helping tabulate voting.

Sound good?

I don't really understand where you are going with this, but if it was international in scope, I'd like to wager on Barnbougle Dunes at around US $60.