[Wayne_Kozun]

The great tragedy with Score's list is the fact that it is the only publication that ranks Canada's Top 100 golf courses.  Unlike Golf Digest, Golf Magazine, Golfweek, and countless other online journals Score has no competition to expose its inherent flaws and weaknesses.  Sadly for the vast majority of Score readers their rankings will be taken as fact not fiction.

There is also the Ontario top 50 available here that does contain half of the courses, including all of the top 5 from Score's list.  There are some major inconsistencies between the two.  

[Ian Andrew]

I pretty sure that I have read somewhere that half of Canada's courses are to be found in Ontario, and half the participation in the country comes from Ontario. I could be wildly wrong on this, and if so I appologize, but I will try find the facts to back this up.

From Bob Weeks Blog " But when you consider that more than 50 per cent of all of Canada’s golf courses are in Ontario, the province is actually under-represented, if we’re going to use per capita numbers – which is actually pretty dumb, in my humble opinion."

From the RCGA study Ontario has the largest golfing population (2.31 million), followed by Quebec (1.14 million), British Columbia (0.812 million), and Alberta (0.754 million).

I was wrong about 50% of all playes, but it seems that 40% would be definately in line

[Gerry B]

wayne:

the National does have forward tees:

whites are just over 6000 yds  
blues - just under 6400 yds
blacks - just under 6800 yds
golds - around 7200 yds

the holes that have forced carries are not that severe from the front tees

[Kerry Gray]

National's short tee of 6000 yards is not really suitable for the average women golfer. Lets say 20 handicap and averages under 220 off the tee. The National does not allow women members as far as I know.
But my earlier comment referred to the poor placement of women tee at several Toronto area clubs. I think the story of Pete Dye getting a talking to from Alice regarding his diligence for placing the forward tee is telling. He readily admitted he rarely put much thought into it. My point being if women were more representative in the survey, those clubs may pay for that weakness in ratings points.
Perhaps if Martha Burks hears about it.
 

[Yannick Pilon]

Ian,

I believe that, according to Scoregolf's numbers on golf courses accross the country, Ontario would have around 36% of all courses, but 46% of the Top 100.

Either, there is a lot of great stuff in Ontario, or the panelists haven't been around that much outside of Ontario.

But I am not in a position to say anything on that.

Yannick

[Wayne_Kozun]

wayne:

the National does have forward tees:

I was using "Forward Tees" as the politically correction synonnym of "Ladies Tees".  As Kerry alluded to - a course of 6000 yds is too long for all but the very best female players, probably too long for many seniors and certainly too long for children.

[Gerry B]

Women are allowed to play as guests at the National at certain times. I have played with numerous female golfers of different skill levels as well as many elder gentlemen(including members of the club) who cannot hit the ball over 180 -200 yds and they have done just fine in respect to forced carries. The approach shots and putting surfaces are what makes The National a stern examination of one's game.

As a comparison - The Chicago Golf Club - which has female members have a set of forward tees and they are approx 6000 yds.

[Yannick Pilon]

Just need to clarify something.

I one of my previous comment, posted yesterday, I was not saying that Quebec courses deserved a better treatment in the ranking, or as Ian said in his blog, that there is a lack of support in Quebec. I am only questionning if the courses in Ontario are as good as the ranking seems to make them.

I don't want to be perceived as the usual cliché. The one where the french separatist is trying to get a bigger piece of the pie for is "country". I don't think there are many courses in Quebec that are truly great and that deserve to be ranked very high in this ranking. There is a large number of
good courses, but not many great courses.

I am only questionning whether Ontario is the great place it seems to be according to this ranking. Other provinces seem to be suffering from the same type of phenomenon, and I wonder if it is due to a large number of panelists coming from Ontario, and thus, more accustomed with the courses
near them, or to the fact that there is truly great stuff in large quantity in Ontario.

One last thing. I, too, believe there should definately not be a quota of courses from each province. We should just try to find the best courses in the country, wherever they are, in the most intelligent and non-biased way possible. I am just surprised by the large number of courses from Ontario. But maybe the ranking is a good representation of golf in this country. As I mentionned yesterday, I am not in a good position to judge with the small number of courses I have played here.

Again, Ian and Robert are proposing changes that seem to be headed towards a better ranking system.

Yannick

[Yannick Pilon]

Phil,

You are right about Beaconsfield.  Strong routing and a good sequence.  I just find the overall style and caracter to be inconsistent throughout the course, and the setting to be less than perfect, with housing surrounding the course and the highway bissecting the front nine.  Most of it could however, IMHO, be fixed by a good, consistent, bunker program and some mound removal.  They would also have to decide which of the previous architect's style they are going to go with when they do that.  And the list is long....

Then I would strongly support its presence in the higher spots of the top 100 in Canada.  But until that happens... I believe there are others who deserve it more.

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