[Jim McCann]

Lists, lists and even more damned lists…

The Top 100 Golf Courses website has just completed the update of its rankings for the following countries/territories:

Wales (Top 30),
Northern Ireland (Top 25),
Republic of Ireland (Top 100),
Scotland (Top 100),
England (Top 100),
Great Britain & Ireland (Top 100),
Continental Europe (Top 100),
New Zealand (Top 40),
Australia (Top 100),
South Africa (Top 100),
Caribbean (Top 50),
South America (includes Argentina Top 20),
Middle East (includes UAE Top 10),
Asia (includes China Top 20),
Mexico (Top 25),
Canada (Top 100),
USA (Top 100),
World (Top 100)

The following link will take you to a page where you can select a list that may be of particular interest:    

http://www.top100golfcourses.co.uk/htmlsite/news.asp

I realize such grand scale vulgarity can offend golfing sensibilities so please accept my apologies if this thread causes any upset.  

On the other hand, for those who secretly DO like to peruse such golfing lists, and I suspect there’s more who do than will actually admit
to it, your opinion of the Top100 efforts might be of interest to others on gca.

 

[Anthony Gray]

  Nice website for course junkies. Very well done.

  Anthony

[Jud_T]

Kingsley 1 spot above Victoria National!  Take that Kavanaugh....

[Scott Warren]

Jim,

How was the Australian list compiled?

[Adrian_Stiff]

Jim - How are these ratings compiled, is it just opinion and if so whose.

[Mac Plumart]

Regarding how this list is compiled, it is right there on the website...bottom of this page.

http://www.top100golfcourses.co.uk/htmlsite/aboutus.asp

[Scott Warren]

Brian,

I agree that is the website's greatest use: "I'm going to Portugal, what is potentially good near Lisbon?" Then other sources to narrow the list so one doesn't, as you say for example, come all the way to Sydney from OS and pay hundreds to play Royal Sydney.

[Don Hyslop]

Glad to see that Ian Andrews'work at Highland Links has been recognized with the Stanley Thompson course moving back to the number one rating in Canada.

[Jim McCann]

Scott, Adrian

Further to Mac Plumart's reply above, the Oz chart (like all the other charts) is an amalgam of a) historical data taken from golf
publications, b) our own listings (going back to when the website was formed in 2004), and c) on the ground input from trusted
correspondents in the field, along with the reviews of ordinary golfers.

Several gca people were asked this time to provide rankings for Australian courses that they had played and their data was factored into
the final Oz listings by Keith Baxter, the Top100 Editor-in-Chief.

[Mark Johnson]

great site, but

Butler national down 44 spots to 88..    Seriously???

[jonathan_becker]

great site, but

Butler national down 44 spots to 88..    Seriously???

That's the thing about rankings.  They're not going to please everyone.

I'm very familiar with Butler and a few years back I would have thought "44" would have been a good spot.  Golf Digest had it #21(?) a few rankings back as well.  Anyway, what I'm getting at is that I've seen a fair amount of ranked courses in the past 4 years and Butler being "88" now sounds about right to me based on what I've seen.  Of course, that's just my opinion.

[Andy Troeger]

great site, but

Butler national down 44 spots to 88..    Seriously???

I wouldn't rank it all--its hard but not great and not even very unique with the trees gone on #7/18.

[paul cowley]

'Liking' the site.

[Mark Saltzman]

Re the Ontario (Canada) rankings, I think they are very well done -- they align very closely with my own opinions (I have seen all but two on the list).

Still cannot understand how Kawartha goes unnoticed by another rating panel - I encourage anyone in the area to make the effort to see it: http://onegolferstravels.blogspot.com/2011/12/kawartha-golf-cc.html

In the US, I believe Wine Valley should be listed (at the very least) in the Best in State Rankings.  Ditto for Dismal River and Prairie Club (Dunes).

Dormie and Mountaintop not considered for Best in State in NC?

Shooting Star in Wyoming?

Overall, though, a good list all-around.

[Robert Mercer Deruntz]

Quite a few surprises in the US list.  Butler and Medinah are not top 100 courses when Engineers and Rustic Canyon fail to make the list

[Tony_Muldoon]

Is it PC that produces a seperate Northern Ireland list and then an Ireland one which only includes the courses of Eire?


Makes little sense to me and limits the use to visiting golfers.

[Matt_Cohn]

great site, but

Butler national down 44 spots to 88..    Seriously???

I think the question is more, "How does a course that hasn't made significant changes drop 44 spots in the ranking?" Same thing with Spyglass - nothing has really changed there the past couple of years yet it dropped 30 spots.

[Mark Chaplin]

Brian - what is there to avoid about Royal Sydney? It's a solid course close to the city centre, excellent accommodation, decent food and you can get a ferry from across the road to the city.

[Sean_A]

I think this site is far and away the best for searching out possible courses to play.  The rankings too are better than the big mags, but still lacking in digging a little deeper.  I suspect, the England, Wales etc and Gems lists are a way to shed light on the 2nd and 3rd tier courses, but it would be nice if some (Pennard is a an example) were promoted to the top.

Ciao

[Mark Pearce]

Mostly pretty good.  But Elie 67th in Scotland?  That's absurd beyond belief. 

[Adrian_Stiff]

I actually think the rankings are shite when you go deeper in the numbers, the regional ratings are totally laughable when you go past the best 4 or 5 in the counties, the formulae is very strange you can get some bobo to 6ball his own crap course and 1ball the great course next door and skew the rankings. Some bobo with no knowledge can slate a golf course because the greens are hollow tined or because he saw some golfer play and not put his divot back, now you can sift through that sort of info on the site and make up your own mind but when their scores count its tripe. There was a chap in our area who did this to a lot of courses and he eventually lost his job though the info is still on this site.

At the end of the day you go by the traffic coming through your door and how much the green fee is, that is more objective way of whats best and whats not though location plays an obvious part as well.

I think a good set of ratings could be achieved by creating a panel in each county, probably a minimum of 10 competent persons  per county that decide the order of the best to worst in that county (probably no reason to go past 20), providing those people are fair you would get a much truer position of whats best in the county, those 10 competent people create a top 20 of the courses in their county and the touching counties, if they do not have knowledge of a course they mark the fact they have 'no knowledge' that help factors the regional courses in the country/GB&I perspective, if you get a bobo opinion in there (like #Painswick being the no1 course in Gloucestershire) you disqualify it, you give criteria how to mark a golf course clearly trying to educate the rater as to what he should score for and what does not matter.

I might have a go at it via facebook if I can get some others to help moderate it.

[Kevin Pallier]

Jim,

How was the Australian list compiled?

Scott

I've known Keith for a number of years and know he used the recent Golf Australia listing + my own. Am not sure how he incorporated same.

Jim

I think the Australian list is much better than it has in the past

[Sean_A]

Adrian

A problem with your take is getting enough people who care about what #17 in Worcestershire is and getting enough people who have played all the candidates per county.  It doesn't make much difference if 10 people have seen all the courses in question as that sample of raters is far too small.  For most counties, once we get below 5 courses (even less for some counties) it doesn't matter where the courses are rated because they aren't really being recommended.  Sure, we may find the odd course here and there which stands out, but in the main it will be a stream of similiar quality courses which don't make an impression. 

I think a county list is better by listing the courses which are in the top 100 or were in the discussion for top 100 - so maybe a few hundred courses overall.  Then, add gem courses to each county list of courses which the raters/editors believe are worthy of mentioning for whatever reason(s).  In other words, courses they would recommend even though they aren't ranked highly. 

For instance, looking at Worcestershire. 

I would probbaly rate the following three as candidates for top 100 England:
Harborne
Edgbaston
Worcester

I can also see an argument for Blackwell.  There may be votes for Redditch, Kidderminster, Mosely, Worcestershire and Kings Norton - though I am hard pressed to see why.  So my rating of Worcestershire would be:

1.Harborne
2.Edgbaston
3.Worcester
Gem: Blackwell

Looking at Top100, 10 courses are listed.  All four of the above are listed.  It doesn't really matter which order, but listing six more dilutes the important information of recommending the best.  Making the list longer doesn't help the golfer who knows anything about courses in the Midlands - meaning he can leave the county and play a better course perhaps the same distance as he would have travelled to play a dud which is listed in WORCS.  To me, rankings have to be about the best and avoid listing mediocre courses (usually for sake of completeness).  I don't understand the compulsion to list courses which raters themselves wouldn't drive 10 miles and pay the green fee.

Ciao

[Adrian_Stiff]

Sean - I dont disagree with what you are saying but to get to the point of getting the fairest ratings you have to go beyond the 100 to get the 100 as you said you might need to go to 300. You quite often 'tote' courses that you love that are well below the radar, thats a good thing or certainly is not a bad thing. County ratings can mere into regional and can merge into national, my point is it is much better to start off deciding A is better than B is better than C. The best knowledge would come from within the counties as there would lots that have played the local courses and you would get a much fairer top 10, as you say it might be insignificant what the 17th course is in Worcester but some counties may have 50 courses of significance, Surrey would be one. Its the principle that matters, I suggested a minimum of 10 raters, no reason why it might not be a 110 opinions as long as you have an objective method to weed out the bobo opinion. I think you might be suprised in the importance of ratings, when brought up here the threads often go into several pages, whilst many bulk at another list, its often because they see a crazy ranking. I quite like a star system  or similar but some years ago Golf Monthly did a Gold, Silver, Bronze award, some awards were given with the rater being one of the clubs own members and one course got a Gold that ieally is a 'must avoid course'. I am familiar with my county and I think its much easier to be up to date with courses close to you than obviously miles away, so my point is that ratings are best done on a more local basis and then they can be collated by another method.

[Sven Nilsen]

The U.S. State lists are laughable.  If you're having a bad day and need a good laugh, check out the Indiana ranking.

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