Which Golf Publication's Course Rankings

[Doug Ralston]

Not every thread on this forum is to bash Golf Digest!

Why not?

Rankings are absurd, useless, and way too important to be so bad. Many courses live and die by being ranked, especially if they have little else to recommend them.

GD's State rankings border on criminal negligence. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a judge who knows enough to take the case.

Doug

[Tom Huckaby]

Mark P - the evidence keeps piling in.  See I told ya I coulda saved you the trouble....

 

[Kalen Braley]

Mark P - the evidence keeps piling in.  See I told ya I coulda saved you the trouble....

 

Huck,

I'm not trying to pile on GD's state list...they are all equally bad!!   

[Mark Pritchett]

I have to say Golf Digest's Georgia list is pretty good, South Carolina so-so. These are the two I am most familiar with.

Golfweeks state by state is a bit squirrely.

[Jim Colton]

I think GD sets itself up for scrutiny by calling its rankings 'the industry's gold standard.' and 'the most respected in the business'.  I don't know whether that's true or not, but they definitely believe it.  Unfortunately, the strength of the rankings tend to viewed by the existence (or lack) of outliers, and GD seems to lead in the category.  Golf Magazine seems to have fewer outliers.

GD tends to value Mr. Fazio's course highly.  Golfweek raters seem to enjoy C&C courses.  I'm not sure if Golf Mag has any bias.  The right answer is probably somewhere in between.  Somebody should just combine them and see if that provides a better answer.

[Scott Warren]

Whichever list ranks my course the highest that year.

[Mark Pritchett]

Golf Magazine seems to favor Pete Dye.

[Kyle Henderson]

To drastically oversimplify the issue, I put little stock in publications that fail to identify Ballyneal as a Top 100 course in the categories for which it qualifies.

You have a soul brother in Jim Tang, or so it would seem. 

I'd remind each of you of the words once sung by the great Michael Jackson ("on bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch girl") but I wouldn't expect you to take any heed.  Logic rarely flows well with fanaticism.

 

Damn skippy.

[Tom Huckaby]

"GD tends to value Mr. Fazio's course highly.  Golfweek raters seem to enjoy C&C courses."

Are you sure about that, Jim?

Just checked the GW Top 100 Modern, and by my count there are 7 C&C courses, FIFTEEN Fazio courses.

So yes, the GW list does include it's fair share of C&C courses.  Those boys do enjoy those.  But they sure don't hate Fazio.

As for GD, it's a tougher call given they don't separate modern and classical.  But Faz does get his love there (9 out of Top 100).  C&C isn't hated with their two.


Sorry, just had to correct this, another fallacy often perpetuated in here.

As for the the first part of your post, no quarrels there, heck we all have our opinions and I cannot quibble as there is no evidence one way or the other.

 

[Will MacEwen]

To drastically oversimplify the issue, I put little stock in publications that fail to identify Ballyneal as a Top 100 course in the categories for which it qualifies.

You have a soul brother in Jim Tang, or so it would seem. 

I'd remind each of you of the words once sung by the great Michael Jackson ("on bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch girl") but I wouldn't expect you to take any heed.  Logic rarely flows well with fanaticism.

 

Wasn't that the Osmonds?

[Tom Huckaby]

To drastically oversimplify the issue, I put little stock in publications that fail to identify Ballyneal as a Top 100 course in the categories for which it qualifies.

You have a soul brother in Jim Tang, or so it would seem. 

I'd remind each of you of the words once sung by the great Michael Jackson ("on bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch girl") but I wouldn't expect you to take any heed.  Logic rarely flows well with fanaticism.

 

Wasn't that the Osmonds?

YOU'RE RIGHT!

Little Donny Osmond.. oh well, same sorta voice, same time frame.

 

[Jim Colton]

"GD tends to value Mr. Fazio's course highly.  Golfweek raters seem to enjoy C&C courses."

Are you sure about that, Jim?

Just checked the GW Top 100 Modern, and by my count there are 7 C&C courses, FIFTEEN Fazio courses.

So yes, the GW list does include it's fair share of C&C courses.  Those boys do enjoy those.  But they sure don't hate Fazio.

As for GD, it's a tougher call given they don't separate modern and classical.  But Faz does get his love there (9 out of Top 100).  C&C isn't hated with their two.


Sorry, just had to correct this, another fallacy often perpetuated in here.

As for the the first part of your post, no quarrels there, heck we all have our opinions and I cannot quibble as there is no evidence one way or the other.

 

Tom,

Not sure if this is a valid comparison, but if you combine the GW Classic and Modern lists using their point system, I get 8 Fazio courses in the top 100:

Shadow Creek - 27 (GD 41)
Wade Hampton - 44 (17)
Dallas National - 64 (59)
World Woods PB - 74 (x)
Galloway National - 77 (70)
Black Diamond 93 (89)
Quail Hollow 99 (x)
Karsten Creek 100 (x)

The GD Fazio courses in the Top 100, but not in the GW Top 100 are:
Victoria National 24 (GW 129)
Butler National 37 (125)
Flint Hills 68 (174)
Jupiter Hills 82 (158)
Preserve 78 (114)

If you assume 105 for Karsten (it's the first public top 100 not in the overall top 100) and 145 for the others, then these 13 courses average 74 in the GD ratings and 98 in the GW rankings.

[Tom Huckaby]

Jim:

The GW raters have confirmed many times on this site that you CANNOT combine modern and classical to give one list; the lists for each are relative only to those on the list - the numbers do not give an overall value.  So what you did is indeed invalid.

In any case, the bottom line remains this:  Fazio gets lots of love from the GW guys, as I said.  15 in the Top 100, well... it's hard to say that they clearly prefer C&C (as you seemed to imply).

As for relating it to GD, it's rather impossible to do given their wussy (er I mean bifurcated) system.

[Jim Colton]

Jim:

The GW raters have confirmed many times on this site that you CANNOT combine modern and classical to give one list; the lists for each are relative only to those on the list - the numbers do not give an overall value.  So what you did is indeed invalid.

In any case, the bottom line remains this:  Fazio gets lots of love from the GW guys, as I said.  15 in the Top 100, well... it's hard to say that they clearly prefer C&C (as you seemed to imply).

As for relating it to GD, it's rather impossible to do given their wussy (er I mean bifurcated) system.

Tom,

I'm not sure how it's an invalid comparison.  9 of the 10 criteria are the same for GW raters, and they provide an overall ranking on a 10-point scale that is the same for both modern and classic.  It's not like they are judging one set on one scale and the other set on a different scale.  As far as I can tell, the score is the raters average with some fixing for outliers.  The numbers tend to be higher at the top for the classics, but that would be true for all of the ratings, where the classic courses dominate the top of the overall ratings.

If you don't like the GW200 comparison, then how about this: take just the modern courses on the GD list and compare it to the GW Modern list.

Wade Hampton 3 (17 GW)
Victoria National 6 (63)
Butler National 12 (59)
Shadow Creek 15 (10)
The Quarry at La Quinta 17 (x)
Dallas National 27 (25)
Flint Hills 29 (89)
Galloway National 32 (34)
The Preserve 36 (50)
The Estancia Club 39 (79)
Eagle Point 40 (X)
Sage Valley 43 (X)
Black Diamond Ranch 44 (41)
Hudson National 49 (X)

Even if you assume 102 for the 4 non top-100's, that an average modern rating of 28 in GD and 62.5 in GW.  You say FIFTEEN in the top 100 is a lot of love from the GW guys, how about FOURTEEN in the top 55 for GD?

[Tom Huckaby]

Jim - very simple - they only compare modern to modern, classical to classical.  So something that gets 81 points or whatever on one list does NOT equal a course that gets 81 on the other list.  The criteria they use is meaningless... The points they give are relative only to the others on their list.. they are based on RANKINGS (ie a 9 means top 10, 8 means top 30, etc.).  Hopefully you can see that a Top 200 combining their two lists is completely invalid. 

The GW folks themselves have indeed confirmed this many, many times in here.

In any case, again, I am not trying to say GD doesn't love Fazio MORE than GW does.  Hell, that may or may not be true.  Again, there really is no way to tell and the two lists are done so differently.  But quite obviously the GD fellows give lots of love to Fazio ALSO.

What is OBVIOUS AND CLEAR is that a lot of love is given to Fazio on the GW list.  It's just not true to say they clearly love C&C more.  Oh I'm sure you're gonna come up with some point system in which C&C is shown to score higher.  The C&C courses are more at the top than the Fazio courses.  But in terms of quantity.. well... 15 in the Top 100 does speak volumes.

[Mark Pritchett]

Tom Fazio has 14 in the Golf Digest Top 100 and 23 in the Golfweek Top 200.  So the percentages are close enough to support Tom Huckaby here. 

[Jim Colton]

In any case, again, I am not trying to say GD doesn't love Fazio MORE than GW does.  Hell, that may or may not be true.  

I would've thought this was OBVIOUS and CLEAR with Fazio having more courses at the upper echelon of the courses built after 1960.  Fazio has 14 of the top 50 of those in the  GD Top 100 built since 1960.  He has 8 of the top 50 in GW Modern.  That's an apples to apples comparison.  There are only a couple instances, World Woods and Karsten Creek, of a top 50 modern in GW that isn't top 50 in GD post-1960.  But there are 8 such examples for Golf Digest.

This is not to say he doesn't deserve it or GD is wrong and GW is right.  He's simply either got relatively more fans among the GD panelists or the GD criteria is geared to favor his courses.  You call it a fallacy while it looks like a real and significant difference to me based merely on the numbers.

[Jim Colton]

Jim - very simple - they only compare modern to modern, classical to classical.  So something that gets 81 points or whatever on one list does NOT equal a course that gets 81 on the other list.  The criteria they use is meaningless... The points they give are relative only to the others on their list.. they are based on RANKINGS (ie a 9 means top 10, 8 means top 30, etc.).  Hopefully you can see that a Top 200 combining their two lists is completely invalid. 

Also, how does GW compile their best in state list then?  Isn't that a mix of classic and modern?  Is there an adjustment process?  I see Caledonia (6.73) is ahead of Dunes Club (6.70) in South Carolina, and the few other examples also fall in line.

It's hard to believe that you shouldn't or can't combine the list when the magazine appears to be doing exactly that.

[Mark Pritchett]

The Golfweek state rankings only include public courses.

[Jim Colton]

Both the public and the resort rankings combine both Modern and Classic courses.  Aside from two examples, the resort rankings rank order the same as the overall score.  Not sure how Cascata snuck in there.

1. Pacific Dunes   9.23
2. Pebble Beach Golf Links    9
3. Whistling Straits (Straits)   8.69
4. Pinehurst (No. 2)   8.49
5. Bandon Dunes   8.28
6. Shadow Creek Golf Club   8.11
7. TPC Sawgrass   7.87
8. Spyglass Hill Golf Club   7.87
9. Kiawah Island Golf Resort (Ocean)      7.82
10. Bandon Trails   7.52
11. Blackwolf Run (River)   7.37
12. Harbour Town Golf Links   7.42
13. The Homestead Resort (Cascades)   7.32
14. Pine Needles Country Club   7.1
15. Kapalua Resort (Plantation)    6.96
16. We-Ko-Pa Golf Club (Saguaro)    6.96
17. Sea Island Golf Club (Seaside)   6.84
18. Princeville (Prince)   6.83
19. Cascata   
20. Crosswater at Sunriver Resort   6.73
21. Dunes Golf & Beach Club   6.7

Tom says combining them is invalid, but it sure does seem like they are highly correlated, doesn't it?  In fact, if you had to guess at what the combined top 200 GW would be, wouldn't combining the two be the most educated guess?  You'd probably be 98% of the way to the right answer.  That seems close enough to be able to draw some reasonable conclusions from it.

[Matt MacIver]

http://www.top100golfcourses.co.uk/htmlsite/country.asp?id=177

This is the list I look at first, and the most often as it has lots of info. 

[Tom Huckaby]

Jim:

GW raters several times have explained why one cannot combine their lists; perhaps one will chime in and explain it again better than I have.  It really is the truth; the lists you cite for examples are done with a different methodology than Top 100 Modern and Top 100 classical.

But again, it really doesn't matter.

Your initial statement was:

"GD tends to value Mr. Fazio's course highly.  Golfweek raters seem to enjoy C&C courses." My feeling is the facts don't support that; I'd say each panel has plenty of love for both of them no matter how you look at it.  How about we just leave it at that?

TH

[Jim Colton]

Huck,

I'd say you took a look at some simple numbers and called my assertion a fallacy. I'd say that I took a reasonable approach and came up with a different conclusion. You implied that I was perpetuating some myth, when all I was doing was analyzing a set of numbers and drawing some rationale conclusions from them. You can't honestly say that it's unreasonable for me to come to the conclusion that Tommy Faz gets more love, rightly or wrongly, on GD than he does on GW. There are numerous examples to support that.  I wasn't pulling it out of thin air to bash GD or Tom Fazio. I actually looked at my personal rankings relative to the magazines and I have an even stronger pro-fazio bias than GD does!

[Tom Huckaby]

Jim:

What we have here is a basic misunderstanding.

The fallacy I attributed to you was that GW raters have NO LOVE for Fazio.  If that is indeed not at what you implied, then fair enough.  My apologies.

I still don't think the facts support that GD has more love for Fazio than does GW; for the primary reason that the two methodologies are so very different that there is no way to tell.  But we shall agree to disagree about that, I suppose.

In any case this all hearkens back to stuff way before your time here.... the real myth that Fazio sucks, GW raters get that and show it in their ratings.  I know that is not what you said, so my apologies for hitting on that rather than what you truly meant.

It's very sore subject, that's all.  We GD guys get kinda tired of it from time to time and decide to fight back.  I guess I just need to pick the right enemies!
 

[Jim Tang]

Jim and Huck -

Can't we all just be friends?!

Ten years ago I would have said GD was the gold standard.  I believe they've been ranking courses the longest of the three publications discussed here.  More recently, I really don't know what to think of the rankings.  The entire process seems fairly political and I put less faith in them.

I will say it has to be a daunting task to come up w/ a Top 100 list every other year and, if nothing else, the lists provide excellent material for debate and bruised egos.