Niall,
Well done - you've hit the nail squarely on the head by posing the question "how many courses on the list have people actually played?"
I frown when armchair critics bleat that 100 courses is too high a number to rank because, in their opinion, there are only such and such a number worth the bother to compare against each other. How can they possibly know this if they haven't played many/most of those that they feel should be disregarded?
Scotland boasts an excellent Top 50 and a very strong third quartile of courses, then you can argue over the next 25 positions between at least 50 very good club courses. A top 100 for Scotland represents the best 17% of layouts in the country and I for one am really happy to see more of the second tier tracks gain exposure at the expense of the usual suspects where all the tourists visit.
If it wasn't for more expansive lists like this one I'd have missed many genuine nuggets that are really worth playing, like Kilmacolm and
Forfar, to quote but two.
I haven't played four of the Golf World Scots Top100 (these are unranked "gems" on the
www.top100golfcourses.co.uk chart) but I intend to remedy that situation very shortly indeed.
Some of the sniffy "experts" on this site who love to disparage golfing lists and, by inference, those associated with the creation/update of such lists, should get over the fact that rankings are here to stay. If the great golfing public didn't want them, they'd have died a death by now...