North Carolina Magazine's Top 100 Courses for 2004

[DPL11]

Ryan & Michael

Thanks for the response. I have heard of the difficulty with National, but in general, most golfers that I've talked to enjoy it.

The reason we are playing at National is that they are trying to sell a fractional ownership of a golf cottage to a group of me and my friends. Membership to National and possibly Mid-South is included with the package. We will be playing 5 rounds at National and 2 at Mid-South, which should give us a good idea how much we like the situation.


Thanks,
Doug

[Allan Long]

Pete,

Mullen, Neb., and Hutchinson, Kan., aren't that easy to get to either, but folks get there to rate. This is a list of courses in one state, and if less than 10% of the raters get to a course, there either need to be more raters from that part of the state
or just plain raters who are willing to travel. The last numbers I saw (early 2003) there were 133 raters on this magazines
"staff". Of those, 16 didn't turn in any ballot for the year. (I'm sure there are plenty of folks in NC that would not only relish the opportunity to rate courses in their home state, but contribute greatly to the system.)

Of the remaining 117 I wonder how many only saw maybe one or two courses. I would love to know how the raters in this case were chosen.  

[Pete Buczkowski]

Allan:

I do not disagree with you, just providing a possible explanation.  The NC ratings should not be compared with Golf Digest or any other major magazine; these ratings do not really sell magazines.  

I might add that the NC outer banks should not be confused with SH or PD.    I think it is the least desirable place in the state for golf (but most desirable in other areas).

We should be glad that the state puts out such a state top 100 ranking.  How many other states do this?  I only know of Florida, maybe others can chime in here.  Yes, the system is flawed, but if you didn't rank them in numerical order and used John's decile system to group them in tens, the ranking would be quite good.

Pete

[Dunlop_White]

Allen and Pete,

I don't think you understand how this rating system works, so allow me to explain. There are some 130 N.C. panelists. If only 20 of them get to play a course, say a private club like Old Town, and all 20 rate that course in the Top 10 in the state, then that course will Not be rated as high as the course which has 100 raters play it, say a public venue like Tanglewood, and all 100 rate it somewhere around 30th.

The rankings are determined by a cummulative number of points, not an average, gathered from all ballots....the liklihood is that the more raters who play a course, the better that course will be ranked. Access is the key. If a private club is ranked high in N.C., then they probably have opened their doors to the raters in some form, potentially through arranged outings.

Please note that I am not an advocate of this type of system...."Average scores" would produce more accurate results!

[Pete Buczkowski]

Dunlop:

That's the argument I tried to make in my post #70 regarding the low ranking of the Outer Banks courses, due to the low number of golf visits.  

I guess the better question is:  Why don't they use some sort of average?  It seems like they do for the Best New (at least the average score was quoted in the article).  I believe there needs to be a minimum number of reviews for a course to be considered (say 1/4 of the panelists), but that a course's ranking should not be enhanced by a large number of replies (which most likely happened w/ Finley).

Pete

[Allan Long]

Pete is absolutely correct. If a course gets 100 visits, it should do considerably better that a course that gets 15, whether it deserves it or not.

This goes back to my question of raters. If there are raters who are going to cover one section of the state (e.g. Triad) and not the coast or mountains, those courses will be hurt. If
a majority of raters fall into this category, there is a problem. NOTE: I am not saying this IS the case, just hypothecizing.