GCA Unofficial Rankings

[Chip Gaskins]

Ian-

Like Tom pointed out, you didn't say not to send this out to others, so I sent it to a guy that has played all 100.  He finished it last year.  Had to fly all the way to Korea to get that new one there.  He played the Top 100 with another guy that he could have easily forwarded this to.  So if you have two that filled out everyone then I am pretty sure where one came from and maybe both.

Chip

[Jonathan Cummings]

Tom - thanks for the update.  The fact that you have played/walked the courses you have is enormously impressive - especially since much of that time you have been a professional architect making a living.  No one pays you to see others courses - I know you have done that over the years for your own personal education and my hat is tipped to you.  I can't imagine another architect has seen anywhere near the number of courses that you have.

"Feat" was a bad choice of words on my part. 

JC

[Ian_L]

Thanks for the info Chip and others.  I will give voters the benefit of the doubt except in obvious situations.  Now once I figure out a good format to put this in I'll have some preliminary rankings for those interested.

[Tom_Doak]

Jonathan:

Actually, when I used to run the GOLF Magazine rankings years ago, I was pretty surprised at how many courses some of the architects had seen or played.

After the guys like Bob McCoy, and Masa Nishijima, the ones who had seen the most were Tom Ramsey (the Aussie golf writer) and several architects -- RTJ Sr., Pete Dye, Michael Wolveridge, and Dana Fry are the ones who come to mind.  It IS our business to understand golf courses, after all.

I think Sir Bob Charles was very high on the list of courses played, too, since he had played all three tours for many years.  Some of the other pros' lists were not as impressive as you might have thought, though.

[Paul Jones]

Tom,

Just curious, why did you just walk those course and not play them?

[Ian Andrew]

Tom,

Just curious, why did you just walk those course and not play them?

I love to walk courses.
I've walked Merion more than I have played it (2).

I often learn more about certain aspects of design by not playing - such as tie-ins and how things were built.

[Ian_L]

Here are some preliminary results as of today, based on a total of 85 voters.  The number on the far left is the rank, found by averaging the entries for each course.



Biggest jumps: Ballyneal and North Berwick (68 spots).
Biggest fall: Muirfield Village (57 spots).
No change: Pine Valley, Pacific Dunes, Oakmont, Hirono.

Most played: Pebble Beach and Bandon Dunes (38), followed by Pacific Dunes (37).
Least played: Nanea, Durban C.C. (3).

Just to emphasize, this should not be taken as a GCA Top 100 list, as many of these courses would be kicked off if we were to take a more comprehensive list.

[Ian_L]

A couple interesting things I noted:

-Bandon Dunes fell down the list from 57 to 72.
-Pacific Dunes, Ballyneal, and Barnbougle Dunes are listed consecutively (13-15).  In fact, all four Doak courses on the list are listed between 13 and 20.  Coincidence?

[Adam_Messix]

Ian--

Interesting to see what the general consensus is here about courses.  It would be interesting to see what courses would break into the list and what courses would fall out if you added courses that aren't in the World 100; like a Holston, Yeamans, Valley Club, Meadow Club, Milwaukee CC, Wade Hampton, Victoria National, etc., etc. etc. 

[Jonathan Cummings]

I like the list!  I don't think there are any major question marks.  I would be interested in you listing next to each course how many votes (and even the standard deviation) on each of the 100.  JC

[Chip Gaskins]

Allow write-ins and if they garner more than the #100 course then put them on the list.  (we need to add Bandon Trails, Tobacco Road, and Baltimore CC

Big fall for Murifield Village, Loch Lomond, Carnoustie, Pebble Beach, Pinehurst #2, Whistling Straits with Baltusrol being maybe the biggest decline of 47 spots.

Big gains for Ganton, North Berwick, Highland Links, with Ballyneal being the biggest gain at 68 spots

[Sean Leary]

Big fall by Pebble.

As Pat Mucci alluded to on another thread, I wonder if people hold some of the holes at TOC to the same standard as they do at Pebble Beach...

[Ian_L]

Jonathan, both your requests have been added to my previous posts, good idea.

Chip, this would be a good idea for a future survey if there is a lot of interest (with Ran's approval).  Tom D. mentioned a nomination process, which I think might be the best way to approach adding new courses to the list.

[Brad Tufts]

Maybe eventually have another list of 100 nominations...or perhaps smaller...50?  Then pit them again against the listed top 100 we come up with now?

[John Kirk]

Great list.  Note that L.A. North has a high standard deviation. Valderrama as well.

[Rob Rigg]

Based on the new course discussions over the past few months - we can probably throw layouts such as Chambers Bay, Tetherow, RCCC, etc. into the mix because a decent number of treehouse peeps have played them.

Is there a minimum number of votes a course would need to become statistically relevant? ie) what should minimum sample size be?

[Tom_Doak]

The minimum sample size depends on how much you trust the people who are voting.  Since this is anonymous, I think the minimum sample size is probably infinite.

[Ian_L]

Just as a reminder, voting is still open, I will be posting updated results later in the week.

Also, to whoever keeps giving all Doak designs a 2, please stop trying to mess with the system, it's not working.   Plus, drinking lots of beer at Cape Kidnappers seems like a recipe for death...

Rob, good point on the minimum number of votes.  Unfortunately, I don't think we'll get enough participation to garner an infinite number, so we would probably have to decide on a minimum if we were to make this a more serious project.

[Jonathan Cummings]

Also, to whoever keeps giving all Doak designs a 2, please stop trying to mess with the system, it's not working.   

Ian - now I think you are getting an appreciation for why panel directors with the aid of a little statistics need to police these lists.

JC

[John Kavanaugh]

I'm not voting on this list so just maybe the guy who gives Doak a bunch of 2's is being honest.  I believe him just as much as the 11 guys who rank ANGC and Pebble down.  While I am not sure what a Dick proves by giving Doak 2's I am all too familiar why an intellectual rates ANGC like a Dick.

[Andy Troeger]

Ian, I commend you for putting in the time and effort with this list.

I think the results are very questionable quite frankly--I know this group loves Ballyneal but ahead of Augusta? 19 spots (!!!) ahead of Pebble? Muirfield Village second to last?

The SD for Muirfield Village seems interesting. Given its average it would seem like at least a few people have trashed it--it has the highest standard deviation of anything on the list that I've seen. I'm not sure how different that would be than giving the Doak courses all 2's.

[Ian_L]

Andy, after looking into Muirfield Village and Pebble it seems that there is a suspicious number of golfers who rated both courses down significantly (5's and 6's).  I will look into this further.  There was also a 2 given to Muirfield Village which I suppose should be tossed. 

John, while I understand your point I doubt someone would go all the way to NZ and Tasmania to visit courses they know they won't like.  As for Augusta, I could see how the forum's negative attitudes towards the changes there might lead golfers to give the course lower ratings.  I do agree there is something suspicious about Pebble Beach...

I seriously pity whoever is putting in so much effort to skew a meaningless list.

[Andy Troeger]

Andy, after looking into Muirfield Village and Pebble it seems that there is a suspicious number of golfers who rated both courses down significantly (5's and 6's).  I will look into this further.  There was also a 2 given to Muirfield Village which I suppose should be tossed. 

I think this shows why these lists are so difficult to compile. You want honest opinions, and people giving Pebble and Muirfield Village a 5 or 6, while odd to me, isn't out of the realm of possibilities. I think you do have to consider throwing out the outliers such as that 2. People have different preferences after all.

I think its hard to post preliminary results and then still allow more entries. I didn't participate originally, so I could look at the results and say "Muirfield Village is underrated so I should give it a 10--I'd have to decide between 8 and 9 on a real ballot. But perhaps originally there may have been a few that truly would give Pebble a 7 knocking it down another couple notches to make sure it gets down into its current location (where they perhaps feel it should be).

[Tom_Doak]

Andy:

You are right that sometimes voters start to deliberately overreact to the previous results in order to make a course move up or down the list, instead of just voting their conscience and letting others do the same.

When I was with GOLF Magazine we had a couple of panelists who would deliberately vote higher on certain international courses, because they felt there should be more of a 50-50 balance on the top 100 courses in the world.   The funny thing is, those guys were Americans, whereas many of the foreign correspondents had U.S. and British courses dominating the list.


Ian:

Your problem is having a 1-10 scale for voting, which allows if not encourages people to try to ruin a course they don't like by giving it a very low vote.  Realistically, none of the courses on your ballot are lower than a 6 on the Doak scale, no matter what any one panelist says, so that should be the lowest possible vote.

But, again, anonymous voting is fraught with problems.  If the correspondent who gave all my courses 2's had been smart enough to only sabotage one or two of them at a time, you might not have caught it. 

[Tim Bert]

Andy, after looking into Muirfield Village and Pebble it seems that there is a suspicious number of golfers who rated both courses down significantly (5's and 6's).  I will look into this further.  There was also a 2 given to Muirfield Village which I suppose should be tossed. 

I think this shows why these lists are so difficult to compile. You want honest opinions, and people giving Pebble and Muirfield Village a 5 or 6, while odd to me, isn't out of the realm of possibilities. I think you do have to consider throwing out the outliers such as that 2. People have different preferences after all.

I think its hard to post preliminary results and then still allow more entries. I didn't participate originally, so I could look at the results and say "Muirfield Village is underrated so I should give it a 10--I'd have to decide between 8 and 9 on a real ballot. But perhaps originally there may have been a few that truly would give Pebble a 7 knocking it down another couple notches to make sure it gets down into its current location (where they perhaps feel it should be).

I haven't played Muirfield Village, but I've played Pebble Beach.  I've gone on the record as saying I prefer Pasatiempo and MPCC Shore to Pebble, even though I loved Pebble Beach.  My only point is that I'm not the biggest Pebble advocate on the site.

At the same time, I find defining Pebble in the following manner to be pretty absurd:

"5: Well above the avg. course, but the middle of this scale. A good course if in the vicinity, but not worth setting aside a day to visit."

Money aside, how could one define Pebble as a course only to see if in the vicinity and even then not worth setting aside a day to visit.

I'd love to hear a bit more detailed reviews from those on the site that view Pebble as a 5.