Why isn't anybody answering my hypo?  I'll admit it -- I'd rather play Pine Meadow or whatever if I got to watch 7 holes of extracirricular dual X chromosome activity than Shoreacres without it any day of the week.  

Shivas;

Simply because your hypothetical is preposterous!  

If that type of activity was happening adjacent to seven holes anywhere, anyone who would be thinking about course comparisons at the time would either be dead or a madman.  

Rich,

You seem to be arguing for the temporality of options and inpermanance of shot values.  

Given that an option that might exist for one player doesn't necessarily exist for another, or even that an option that exists for one player on one day at a particular moment in time might not exist an hour later, is a perceived option that isn't realistically viable or feasible really an option?

You got it pardner!

Pat

Reading shivas' posts is torture enough--re-reading them is beyond the pale.

Patrick,
  If you will look back you will see that I said your listed criteria should be given the most weight IMO. Old Head doesn't meet those criteria, based on what everyone has posted about it. Thus it has no business in the top 10, and is not. For me if a course doesn't meet your criteria, the best views in the world are not going to help. I may see Old Head one day but there are at least 500-600 I plan on seeing before that.
   I can assure you that I would much prefer hiking up in the Sierra Nevada, than trekking halfway around the world to see a mediocre course with great views.

I think Shivas has it right.  Trust others to develop informed opinions.  Trying to make a science of this stuff is silly.  It is not science.  If anything, architecture is much closer to art, treat it as such.

Ciao

Sean  

I was going to jump in and defend Old Head but Tom Huckaby beat me to it, and did it quite well.

Why is it that people seem to have it out for that course?  Is it because of their treatment of the locals against the tradition of public spaces in GB&I, is it the fact that the land is so amazing that they feel consensus world #1 course could have been built there if some GCA favorites like C&C or Doak had a shot at it or is it sort of based on the same reasoning why I'm not a big Tiger fan, because it(he) was overhyped so much based on unlimited potential that you just gotta kinda snicker when he it(he) turns out to not be perfection defined after all.

Shivas,

You system would be at the mercy of those who played well, as well.

And, your system lacks any definable criteria or methods of intellectual expression.

Ed Getka,

It's easy for him to acknowledge my point, I'm correct  

When someone makes a good point, I too will acknowledge it.

But, the waiting is hell.

Ed:

Stepping in for Doug, which seems ok given he was just echoing what I said for the most part....

Can't say whether Old Head is worth the steep green fee for sure, because that is so personal and subjective.  Let's just say I had no great reticence paying it, because I was there ONCE and was not gonna put a price tag on my good time.  If I was going to Ireland all the time, I'd likely not want to pay it bloody well often, that's for sure.

I'd say a reasonable green fee for Old Head is to just make it the same as Ballybunion, Lahinch, whatever.  They are ALL pretty damn expensive for visitors now, but what the hell you get to play, so "reasonable" is hard to figure.

Making it cost more than those courses seems unreasonable.  And I'm pretty sure it does.

But in any case, Old Head remains among the most spectacular golf courses on this planet, and just needs to be seen.  And it's not all about the views, though those are incredible.  There are a LOT of fun golf shots to be faced there, some that you won't find anywhere else.... like the tee shots on 2 and 3 and 12 and 18 from the tips, just off the top of my head, working from 5 year old memories.. not many other places where one could die falling off a tee.  Steady with those swings and keep that balance.  

Those who complain about lack of strategy, architecture, whatever at Old Head need to refocus their priorities, I think.  OK sure, maybe if Doak were allowed to do the course, it would have come out better.  But calling what's there anything but great, well... I gotta wonder what game one plays.

TH

Ed,

Once again Tom Huckaby pretty much said what I was going to -- I think we are of like minds WRT Old Head.

I think you are off base if you ask me to compare Old Head to TOC North Berwick, et al on just the golf course and not the setting.  That's like the "how good would Pebble Beach be if you transplanted it to a field in the middle of nowhere" threads you see here from time to time.  I don't deny that the setting is part of it, but even if you don't believe setting is important this is probably about the most spectacular setting you can imagine.  It makes Pebble Beach or CPC look like they ARE in the middle of a field by comparison.

Given how extreme the penalties for being offline obviously are on some of the holes, and the course's precarious perch so high up in one of the windiest parts of one of the windiest countries around, I think its a pretty good accomplishment just to make the thing playable for all levels of player.  It makes wide look narrow, narrow look wide, gives you confusing stuff (like the bunkers on the inside of #4's dogleg recently discussed here) that can act as "stay away" for higher handicaps playing from the up tees from one angle, or act as an sighting line to tempt better players from the angle of the tips to perhaps foolishly attempt to cut the dogleg over the cliff.  Maybe its because I was playing back by myself and my dad and a couple other members of our group were playing a couple sets up and just seeing what their shots looked like versus mine, and hearing their reactions to various features versus how I saw them really brought this out for me.

Just for grins, of the courses you named I've played Dornoch, TOC and North Berwick.  I'd put TOC first, North Berwick second if you go purely by the golf, Old Head second if you allow setting to enter into it, and Dornoch last.  Though before the GCA RD membership contingent skewers me, I hasten to add that I only played Dornoch once, in 1991, and didn't really think it was all it was cracked up to be.  Perhaps because there wasn't a whole lot of wind, and I'd played eight days in a row by that point and sometimes get a pretty good swing going when I do that.  I just tore the place up, and if I could have putted would have finished under par since I had makeable birdie or eagle putts on nearly half the holes.  I tend to knock down courses that I don't find sufficiently challenging, but I'm planning to revisit it on my next trip to Scotland.  Anyway, it was a LONG time ago, on my first overseas visit, and if I'm about a 4 in architectural knowledge today I was a 2 then, so maybe Dornoch boosters can just believe I was too stupid to recognize greatness, and might even be correct

Of the courses I played on last summer's visit to Ireland, I'd rate them:

Ballybunion Old
Lahinch
Old Head
Tralee
Waterville
Killeen
Mahoney's Point (but I have no idea how this is on anyone's list of places worth visiting in Ireland, and think its 18th being in Tom Doak's "all scenic 18" just has to be a misprint that will be corrected if he ever does a new edition of the CG )