Golf Digest Top 100 is out

[jkinney]

As to Golf Digest changing their rating system.....don't hold your breath. They've gone so far off the GCA reservation with this year's top 100 that I doubt they'll  ever be of like mind again.

[Tom Huckaby]

Garland:

Giving something that says how tough but fair a course is for a scratch golfer to me is a fine indicator of how difficult a golf course is without being stupidly so.  Those who seek challenges might seek it out for such.   Many would be interested in this one way or the other.

But the real point remains that this is just one criteria among many.  Score too high on this and you are not likely to score very high on a few others.  It all works together.

If I were king I might delete "resistance to scoring", for reasons you seem to be driving at.  I remain unsure if it helps more than it hurts.   But that being said, I do not think its inclusion makes the whole system useless to the average golfer.

To me the criteria as a whole do as well as can be expected at trying to get at what said golfer values.

And that's the bottom line.



To Jkinney:

GD tweaks its methodology darn near every iteration of this list.  But more importantly, when was it ever ON the GCA reservation?  When did it ever care if it was?

The bashing here to me is taken as a badge of honor for both sides.  I'd expect no less from the cognoscenti here.

But I'd also expect it to be praised out in the real world.... and it usually is.


TH

[Garland Bayley]

...
Regarding "firm yet receptive", I completely disagree with your assessment.  It just means a green that is firm, but not absurdly so.  That to me describes in general a pretty darn good green.

TH

Tom, Excuse my language, but what balderdash! A firm green that cants away from the golfer will never be "receptive".

[Tom Huckaby]

...
Regarding "firm yet receptive", I completely disagree with your assessment.  It just means a green that is firm, but not absurdly so.  That to me describes in general a pretty darn good green.

TH

Tom, Excuse my language, but what balderdash! A firm green that cants away from the golfer will never be "receptive".

OK, so such a green might contribute negatively to an overall score on this criterion... or perhaps the rater will adjust accordingly if it's a very cool green.

We are not slaves to any definition, Garland.   

Note also I said the wording could be improved.  In any case, what you posted was just the short summary of the criteria... we go to seminars and get much further guidance as to how to apply it all.

TH

[Adam Clayman]

I was recently privy to a GD's panelist's written assessment of a certain golf course that is not on the list and has been mentioned on this thread by many people as proof of the absurdity. The report was an amazingly thorough and well considered GCA analysis, all from a one time play. He gave the course what I thought was a very high score around 9 (either 8.9 or 9.2 I don't recall). He clearly took his job seriously and had a great eye and knowledge about Golf Course Architecture.

My question for anyone is... how many of the panelists do that extensive of a review for each course? It was 8 full pages in length.

[jkinney]

Garland:

Giving something that says how tough but fair a course is for a scratch golfer to me is a fine indicator of how difficult a golf course is without being stupidly so.  Those who seek challenges might seek it out for such.   Many would be interested in this one way or the other.

But the real point remains that this is just one criteria among many.  Score too high on this and you are not likely to score very high on a few others.  It all works together.

If I were king I might delete "resistance to scoring", for reasons you seem to be driving at.  I remain unsure if it helps more than it hurts.   But that being said, I do not think its inclusion makes the whole system useless to the average golfer.

To me the criteria as a whole do as well as can be expected at trying to get at what said golfer values.

And that's the bottom line.



To Jkinney:

GD tweaks its methodology darn near every iteration of this list.  But more importantly, when was it ever ON the GCA reservation?  When did it ever care if it was?

The bashing here to me is taken as a badge of honor for both sides.  I'd expect no less from the cognoscenti here.

But I'd also expect it to be praised out in the real world.... and it usually is.


TH

Tom - "On the reservation" was a sloppy choice of words on my part. Of course GD doesn't care to be beholden to anyone. Neither should it be. "The bashing here to me", as you call it, is in no way ad hominem on my part, as I explained in an earlier post on this thread. What I mean by off the reservation is my own sense that there are more and more courses on GD's top 100 that many GCA members don't think deserve to be there, or are significantly misplaced within the list. That's what makes a horse race, no ?

[Tom Huckaby]

I was recently privy to a GD's panelist's written assessment of a certain golf course that is not on the list and has been mentioned on this thread by many people as proof of the absurdity. The report was an amazingly thorough and well considered GCA analysis, all from a one time play. He gave the course what I thought was a very high score around 9 (either 8.9 or 9.2 I don't recall). He clearly took his job seriously and had a great eye and knowledge about Golf Course Architecture.

My question for anyone is... how many of the panelists do that extensive of a review for each course? It was 8 full pages in length.

Wow.  That is something.

I can only speak for myself... I do SOME textual review for each course, but nothing close to that.  GD does encourage us to provide some written explanations for sure... but that would have to be the outlier (or at least I think so - maybe I am the slacker - I have never done more than what would come out as one written page).

Adam - note also - we don't give overall scores; we just give scores for each criterion (listed by Garland on the previous page).



To Jkinney - totally understood -thanks for the clarification.

TH

[Garland Bayley]

OK, so such a green might contribute negatively to an overall score on this criterion... or perhaps the rater will adjust accordingly if it's a very cool green.

We are not slaves to any definition, Garland.   

Note also I said the wording could be improved.  In any case, what you posted was just the short summary of the criteria... we go to seminars and get much further guidance as to how to apply it all.

TH

That sounds like you put up seemingly objective criteria, and then are encouraged to be subjective. I.e., "if it's a very cool green".

[Tom Huckaby]

Garland - each person makes his own evaluations.  We follow the definitions and guidance as best as we can.  But obviously in the end there is subjectivity.

Can any evaluation be done without such?

In any case we are not "encouraged to be subjective."  We are given quite a lot of guidance as to what is expected.  But despite what many in here think, we are also human beings.

 

[Richard Choi]

The ascension of ANGC is mindboggling for what the course has become in recent years. If anything Digest should have led the appropriate assault and asked what happened to the course that existed prior to Hootie and company.

Richard, you keep on wrongly insisting that the larger the group the more likely they will move towards the general population. That's your opinion.

I think the fact that GD has the largest number of raters out of the magazines proves my point that they are more likely to be influenced by exclusivity and other benefits.

The ascension of ANGC is not mindboggling at all. Based on the questions they ask, it would have been mindboggling if they DIDN'T rise in the rankings.

One of the double point category is "RESISTANCE TO SCORING". That means that every time ANGC plants another group of trees, every time it adds another 30 or 40 yards to a hole, it's RESISTANCE TO SCORING number is going to go up and up and up.

While the guidance does state "while fair", that is just going to get lost by the fact that the rating category is named RESISTANCE TO SCORING. I will bet you a dollar that if they change the category name to "SCORING FAIRNESS" while keeping the exact same description, ANGC's ranking will go down.

The questions they ask are so general and so biased that it certainly explains why we see the results that we have today. Ask any pollster and they will tell you that GD questions are not adaquate for anything even remotely objective. If you really are serious about getting good data, then you need to ask much more comprehensive questions. You also need to ask the same questions in multiple ways so that you can ferret out biases.

Again, my point stands. If you are asking people for an arbitrary subjective opinion poll, you are going to get an arbitrary subjective results and you should not be surprised by that.

[Matt_Ward]

Richard:

The issue is not the size per se but the nature of the due diligence the magazine employs to make sure that they have the right pair of eyes doing the reviewing.

Yes, the ascension of ANGC is mind boggling. In years past Digest inserted categories like walkability and tradition into the mix because panelists had elevated other "new" courses (see the Shadow Creek impact) into the top 100 and clearly the outcry forced the hand of the magazine to include categories which were then calculated by insiders. If ever there was a clearer indicator that the raters were missing the boat it came with this intervention.

Let me further point that educated raters would have known -- or should know -- the history of a place like ANGC as tied specifically to its architecture and then see how the post Hootie inclusions fit or don't fit.

Credit GW for dropping ANGC on this score. I would think that the braintrust that operates Digest would have clearly seen how the inclusion of trees, the inane extension of a number of holes and the continued reliance on the "second cut", to name just a few of the hilarious mistakes made as a result of "Tiger proofing" -- the course would have dropped. Clearly, those who were responsible for providing the boost to ANGC failed to understand any of these items.

Digest has failed to move away from what its ratings were at the very beginning when they started rating them -- at that time they assembled the toughest courses with no other elements being considered. The refinement they demonstrated after that early glitch did show improvement. See the jump CP made from the late 70's to where you see it today as just one example.

Richard, the element of greatness about ANGC is that it ALREADY HAD PLENTY OF DEFENSES against scoring without THROWING IN OTHER ITEMS not tied to its core premise to start with.

In touch raters would easily see that for what they have done in the post Hootie era.

Part of being a rater is to take various categories and see how they match up to the genesis of what the club / course was about. ANGC has simply jettisoned their premise to be a reincarnation of a US Open site.

Richard, what you fail to grasp -- is the reason they get the results they have is that they have a plethora of people who are clueless on just what it is they are rating. No doubt there are exceptions to this but the totality of what Digest lists is clearly a case of sipping too much kool-aid with the ignorance flavor firmly in hand.

A good rater can discern plenty of things. You would dare suggest that some sort of form is the be-all / end-all to the process. As Adam mentioned panelists do provide thorough narrative statements and they can prove to be most helpful.

Get good raters is the botton line. Bias  / preferences will exist no matter what you attempt to do. But good raters - ones with a keen eye -- can certainly highlight and celebrate different designs of quality even though they have clear other preferences personally. What Doak accomplished in CG points that way.

You can put all the fine questions you want -- but if you have people incapable of really understanding what is they just played it won't matter one iota what they put down as numbers.

The overall findings by Digest are startling because so much of what is really first rate modern design has been left on the sidelines. Ballyneal and Kingsley are just two clear examples. There are a number of others.

Digest used to be the ultimate source for what made up great golf design. They have fallen off their pedestal. Start with really pruning the rating panel and create a true national panel and forward the others to the state / regional level. That's a start to turn things around.

[Richard Choi]

Matt, I do not necessarily disagree that GD raters leave a lot to be desired.

But that does not mean that your idea of "national" raters are going to be any better. Again, whenever you bring a group of people together, they will bring their own biases to the process. It does not matter if they are national or elite or whatever, you can't go against human nature...

...unless you specifically address those issues.

If you follow a more scientific grading process, then you would have a completely different system.

If this was a scientific grading process, you would hire a bunch of raters and train them intesively on how to judge a course. You drill them on golf course architecture and history, then you will take them out to various courses under a tutelege of a renowned expert, say TomD. Tom will tour these courses with raters and ask for their opinions and ratings and then critique them on their ratings.

After spending a great deal of time with TomD and once TomD is satisfied that they will deliver quality ratings, and only then will they be allowed to go on their own and rate various courses around the country.

If you are suggesting that we follow this type of process to create "elite" raters, then I can agree with you that GD list will improve dramatically.

However, if you are suggesting that they select "elite" raters and just let them go with not much more training than what they do now, I am highly skeptical that you will see any difference.

[Matt_Ward]

Richard:

Do yourself a favor -- look at what Digest now calls top 100 courses and go back say about 10-15 years ago. If you have your eyes open you'll see what I am speaking about.

My practical idea of newly constituted "national raters" are those who have been selected because they are among the very best at what they do. They have the background, they make the travels, they can make the analysis required to do the invaluable cross comparisons that are missed now.

Richard, you need not keep repeating ad naseum the idea that people won't have preferences. They clearly do. Let me point out for the 4th time that if you read Doak's CG book he freely acknowledges his own preferences but that doesn't mean he can't recognize other great courses -- even if they don't fit his game or design outlines to the max degree. The same can be said of national raters fully capable in doing no less. You keep on throwing forward the preposterous idea "you can't go against human nature."

That's rubbish.

Then you throw forward another non-supportable idea on creating a "more scientific grading process." Really? Richard, this is a subjective process -- we all know that -- I'm assuming you know that to. The issue I mentioned --which you simply forgot or didn't understand is that when you favor the Yellow Pages gathering of raters you get wrong numbers from them.

I mentioned what a rater should know about a place like ANGC. People who voted for it did so because of the "aura" of the place and simply failed to connect the dots on what the genesis of ANGC is about. The post Hootie ANGC has no place being included with a top ten -- let alone being singled out as the #1 course. When raters don't demonstrate a basic understanding of the changes made -- how they have impacted upon the fundamental nature of what made ANGC so great to start with -- then you have clueless people. The same can be said of any number of other additions made with this poll.

I'll say this again -- Ballyneal and Kingsley Club are certifiable top 100 courses. They were badly missed and for a publication that sticks its chest out as THE golf publication the editors need to insert themselves no less than when they inserted the twin categories of walkability and tradition in the mixture after the Shadow Creek fiasco.

I'm not in favor of a boot camp approach you outlined. I see that with the GW groupthink approach -- the idea to orientate is one thing -- to get exact conformity is not the point.   

Richard, there are plenty of well-suited and well-prepared people who could step easily forward and do what I have suggested. Some of them are already Digest raters now. The problem is when you add people from the deep left field seats and put a NY Yankee uniform on them they don't become major league players simply because they have pinstripes on their bodies.

Digest's biggest problem has been from the false premise that adding more and more raters will provide better coverage. It has not. In today's Internet age you don't neen an army to find out what's happening and what needs to be visited / played. There is a critical dimension between state / regional raters and those at the national level. Marry the two together and you have a wealth of good solid info. The due diligence for any pub is not ingraining a certain style into the mind of people who already "get it."

[Joe Hancock]

I don't know what "ad na(u)seum" means......I'll go look it up to see if it applies here....

[Paul Jones]

http://www.golfdigest.com/rankings/courses/greatest/2009/05/100_greatestgolfcourses

[Jeff Doerr]

Interesting that 40 to 100 is a 3 point spread. 1 to 3 is a 3 point spread. Augusta and Pine Valley destroyed the competition...

#1 ANGC - 73.39
#2 PV - 73.03
#3 Shinnecock - 70.25
#4 CPC - 69.84
#24 Victoria national - 64.95
#40 Inverness - 63.79
#100 Crooked Stick - 60.81

[Andy Troeger]

For those of you that have commented about why Golf Digest panelists don't regularly participate here (other than the five or so of us that do)--is there any question why? Heck, if I read all this stuff without having participated here I don't think I'd bother either.  I'm grateful that I'm at a conference and thus have a good excuse not to check in.

Any ratings list is a compilation of the opinions of the people comprising the panel. If you don't agree with the list so be it--I have some significant differences with some aspects of this new list too and in some cases agree with what posters have said regarding certain courses. However, I would prefer if posters here would respect the right of other people to have opinions on golf courses--its very apparent that some of you think that GCA'ers are the only ones with any credible opinions.

[Jim Nugent]

Interesting that 40 to 100 is a 3 point spread. 1 to 3 is a 3 point spread. Augusta and Pine Valley destroyed the competition...

#1 ANGC - 73.39
#2 PV - 73.03
#3 Shinnecock - 70.25
#4 CPC - 69.84
#24 Victoria national - 64.95
#40 Inverness - 63.79
#100 Crooked Stick - 60.81

What do the points mean?  e.g. are they supposed to measure how good the courses actually are, the way feet and inches measure a person's height?  Or do they just rank the courses, like coming in 3rd on the money winner's list means you beat all other golfers except two. 

[Jason McNamara]

#40 Inverness - 63.79
#100 Crooked Stick - 60.81

What do the points mean?   

Jim, Sorry I can't supply all the specific categories that go into the total, however...

The points mean that realistically, there should simply be a general "Second 50" ranking for 51-100, because -according to the raters- there's not that much of a difference. 

(This board has a couple stats nerds, iirc.  Someone should be able to tell us how many thousand raters we'd need before we could truly say that the #70 course is better than the #90 course.  NB:  Those numbers are simply examples, not knowing which courses they actually are.)

[Jim Franklin]

It is only a list fellas, but the scary thing is, I bet the general golfing public probably agrees with this list moreso than the opinions of the treehouse. While I am a GD guy, I tend to think along the treehouse lines in terms of courses (love Ballyneal, Sahalee not so much), but my golfing friends for example prefer The Bridge to Friars Head. I have not played The Bridge so cannot comment but I loved Friars Head.

No list is perfect and this one is far from it, but the general golfing public probably agrees with it.

[Jay Kirkpatrick]

I don't understand why people can't just accept the different lists for what they are.  Golfweek has the benefit of including an extra 100 courses.  With that, they piss off less people.  GD has their set of rules, and while we might not all agree with them, I kind of like having three completely unique lists.  It allows us to recognize more new courses that we might not be exposed to otherwise.  In the end, golf course rating is highly subjective.  Perhaps GCA should tone down the criticism and listen to the arguments in hopes of seeing things from a different perpective.

[PThomas]

the pictures in the issue are awesome....i  almost started drooling at the newsstand looking at them!

[Nick Cauley]

Has anyone seen or heard the best in state ranking???

[Jeff Doerr]

Interesting that 40 to 100 is a 3 point spread. 1 to 3 is a 3 point spread. Augusta and Pine Valley destroyed the competition...

#1 ANGC - 73.39
#2 PV - 73.03
#3 Shinnecock - 70.25
#4 CPC - 69.84
#24 Victoria national - 64.95
#40 Inverness - 63.79
#100 Crooked Stick - 60.81

If there is someone who understands stats, it seems to me that ANGC and PV are really elevated to a new level. What I wanted to get at in this post is the significance that seems to be in the numbers.

To me this ranking states that these two have set the bar and no other courses are that close.

The numbers say that these two courses approach GCA perfection...

I do believe it is a significant shift to put ANGC #1 and to rank these two courses so far ahead of the rest.

[Matt_Ward]

Jim F:

FYI -- the general golfing public also views McDonald's as cuisine food.

Jay K:

Let me ask you this -- do you expect a magazine of Digest's standing to put forward a list that really is THAT weak ?

If you take the position that the list is THAT strong -- please elaborate on the choices you think are well done.

Jay, you say to tone down the criticism -- try to realize that of all courses -- the ascension of ANGC to the top spot is the one that cries out the loudest. Are you not aware of what the course was about -- pre Hootie -- and what it has now become -- post Hootie. Candidly, the criticism of that layout is spot on given how the course played so well for so many years.

If there's an argument that can be made to defend that choice as America's #1 course I'd love to hear it.

You state the obvious -- no doubt subjectivity is always involved. The issue is the understanding of what quality architecture is about. If anyone knows the majesty of what ANGC once was -- then it would be as clear as sunshine on a cloudless day that the end result is simply not credible.