I scored it a 3. I would like to know what Tom would score it if he was forced too.
I focused on what a 4 and a 5 are, and a 6 is a golf course that would be close to GB & I top 100, a 7 would be a course between 51-100 and anything better than 8 is top 25 stuff.
It was a difficult one to number though because if you are a fan of the stuff we like on here, then its a must see.
Paul Turner certainly had it right: if I'd included Painswick in The Confidential Guide, I would have put it in a box, to draw attention to it.
If forced to give it a number, back then at least, I think I would probably have given it a 4. It's certainly more interesting than the average course, so I'd want that to be clear. But, I gave a 4 to several courses which I thought were too weird or too short for a significant percentage of connoisseurs to enjoy ... in fact, I think I included that in the definition of a 4 that I put in the book. [I believe Merion West was one other course that received a 4 for some of the same reasons.]
Honestly, part of the number rankings were considered based on who I thought my audience would be, and whether they would agree with my own feelings. I wasn't sure back then whether Ben Crenshaw and Bill Shean and George Peper and the other 37 recipients of the original book would be open to a course like Merion West, or Pennard [which I gave a 6 even though I love it], or certainly Painswick. Heck, I'm not even sure if I would have been open to Painswick if I had seen it 30 years ago ... playing it multiple times in the Buda Cup, and especially that great match I played with Rich Goodale and Peter McEvoy, was what helped convince me that even the best players would really enjoy it. So, I think at this stage I would probably give the course a 5 or a 6 if I was rating it for the Guide.
However, as much as people here use the Doak Scale, I wish you'd all keep in mind that the numbers were really just a back-up to what I was actually WRITING about each course I reviewed, and that the review itself is more important.