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GJ, I just don't think you give enough credit to the rest of the courses in the world. ...
What on earth could possibly bring you to that conclusion?
GJ:
Well, first of all, I have no idea who you are, what you know about golf, or what you've seen yourself. How many of the top 100 courses have you seen?
The 63rd ranked course in the world according to the last GOLF Magazine rankings was Southern Hills in Oklahoma. Have you ever been there? How would you compare it to Trump International? Which has the better set of greens? Which course do you think Tommy Bolt or Ray Floyd or Tiger Woods would vote for?
The last five courses in that ranking (96-100) were Tokyo Golf Club, The Valley Club of Montecito, Highland Links, Durban Country Club, and Cabo del Sol (Ocean). To be fair, I think Durban's inclusion is a bit suspect, and that some people vote for it in order to include a course from South Africa in the top 100 ... but still, it has four or five holes that are just magical. How many holes at Trump International compare to the 3rd or 8th or 17th at Durban CC?
And have you seen the other four courses? They are just awesome. You walk off the 18th green wanting to go right back out and try them again. Somewhere along the way you've thought that it doesn't get any better than this. But there are still 95 courses ranked above them, and most of those have a case to be ranked above them.
None of these rankings are really worth a crap ... but the courses that they include certainly are. Anyone who proclaims a new course ought to be in a certain spot is skipping several steps ahead of himself. First you've got to get there, and then the course has to impress you, and then you have to be able to understand why you're impressed. And then you can start thinking about where the course ought to fit into the rankings ... if you've played enough of the others to be able to compare.