Erin Hills at $150 and We-Ko-Pa at $195 made me quandry about what other courses are out there that are not in the very liberal Golfweek Top 100's.  I'm sure Vegas must lead the list with many over $200.  Any others?

Trump National Ocean Trails at $195 weekday/$300 weekend certainly qualifies...though it did make the Golfweek best-in-state list for CA.

Is PGA National (Champ) in the top 100? I think their fee will be close to or greater than $300.

Sea Island is off the charts when you consider you have to stay and play. The Greenbrier ain't cheap either. When you factor all expenses, Wynn probably comes out on top, but Sea Island and The Greenbrier are close.

We've got a lot of these covered:

no. 8, Shadow Creek
no. 72, Seaside
no. 90, Cascata

But Plantation (Sea Island ) is not on the list so that is why I included Sea Island in my assessment.

Plus a lot of 2nd-3rd-4th courses at expensive resorts tend to be expensive as well (but not top 100 designs in their own right)...

The Irish Cse at Whistling Straits comes to mind as another one of those along with Jim's Sea Island example.

the least bang for your buck in the nation has to be the Halfmoon Bay courses here in the bay area-135 weekday and 155 weekend, 165/180 if you book more than 14 days in advance. I wouldn't pay half that for either.

How about the Golden Horseshoe.
Its one of my favorites.
But its been off the list for awhile.

While not in the league with others mentioned, I was surprised to pay $130 for a 3:00 p.m. round last year at the RTJ Trail's Ross Bridge course in Birmingham.  

Apparently they are marketing this as a resort with fancy hotel and spa on site, but the course is a notch below others on the trail and rightly did not crack the Bama list in Golfweek.  Looks like business conference city.

Paging Hillbilly rookie Goodman.

Mike

Wayne, here's a takeoff on the index you suggested.  

Start with the course rating.  Divide that by the greens fee.  Multiply by one hundred (to make the numbers easier to read).  The higher the result, the better the value.

For example, Pebble is rated 9.07.  Greens fees are, what, $450?
100 x 9.07 = 907.  907 divided by 450 = 2.02.

Compare that with Bethpage Black.  Rating is 8.02, and resident greens fees are $41.  8.02 x 100 = 802.  802 divided by 41 = 19.56.  Non-resident greens fees are double, so the value index is 9.78 for non-residents.

So according to this index, BPB is nearly ten times the value of PB for residents, and nearly five times greater for non-residents.

One flaw here is that the ratings are not really quantitative.  i.e. we can't say a course rated ten is twice as good as a course rated five.  Also, what counts in the end is how each golfer personally values each course.  For some people the experience at Winn may indeed be worth the stiff fees.  

 

These value indexes probably appeal to John.  

So what is Shadow Creek by these methods?

8.11 x 100 divided by 500 = 1.622

8.11 x 8.11/500 = 0.132

That's nothing Jay. I heard the other day Dismal River is making changes on 7 holes and it hasn't been open a year.