[Sean_A]

Whether or not a course is worth travelling for is a statement of quality. Whether or not you would travel a longer distance for one course compared to another is a question of opinion and personal ranking.

Jim

You lost me with the above.  Surely in both instances, its a matter of opinion.

Ciao

[Nigel Islam]

Whether or not a course is worth travelling for is a statement of quality. Whether or not you would travel a longer distance for one course compared to another is a question of opinion and personal ranking.

Jim

You lost me with the above.  Surely in both instances, its a matter of opinion.

Ciao

I think what Jim is saying is that Medinah and Shoreacres are both 7s. The person travelling a few hours to see one may be a huge fan of Championship courses or he may be a huge Raynor fan. It doesn't change the fact they are both 7s (according to TD), but personal opinion will dictate which is more desirable.

[Tom_Doak]

I was always under the impression that the Doak Scale had an element of regionality.  That is, a 6 in a golf-rich area like Westchester is not necessarily comparable to a 6 in an area like, say, Newport Coast.

Now I think the Doak Scale (maybe for all others than Doak) has become a straight ranking scale.  That is how I use it, though I have been prompted to call my scale the Mark Scale.

To me, the rough calculations are:

10: World top-10
9: World top-50
8: World top-100
7: US top-100
6: US top 100 Modern/Classic
5: US top 200 Modern/Classic.

Mark:  You can make the Mark scale anything you want, but your equivalents at the bottom of your post were never the intention of the Doak scale, even though many people [even, at time, I myself] have fallen into using it that way.  But it's not supposed to be.  I want to be able to recommend North Berwick very very highly, without telling people I think it's in the world top 50.  I want to be able to recommend a place like Kington or The Himalayan without making any comparison to, say, Quaker Ridge, because they are nothing at all like Quaker Ridge.  The only thing they have in common is that I think you ought to see them -- and sitting here this morning, I would have to say that while neither Kington or The Himalayan is a BETTER golf course than Quaker Ridge, I would recommend seeing either of them first.

There was not meant to be much regionality in the numbers assigned.  For example, there are not many great courses in South Korea, from what I understand ... but if I gave the best of them a 7 or an 8 because of that, it might encourage some people to fly all the way to South Korea to see it, and they would be mightily disappointed to find they'd flown halfway around the world to play a 6.

Still, there is likely some regional bias.  When one is rating courses in Philadelphia, for example, there are so many courses which are about equal in quality, but giving them all 6's or all 7's does not serve the purpose of helping the reader decide which to play.

[Jim Sherma]

Whether or not a course is worth travelling for is a statement of quality. Whether or not you would travel a longer distance for one course compared to another is a question of opinion and personal ranking.

Jim

You lost me with the above.  Surely in both instances, its a matter of opinion.

Ciao

Sean

Nigel pretty much has it right. I wanted to convey that courses that are worth a given rating should be independent of how many other courses there are at that rating. Once you start putting limits as to the number of courses given a certain Doak Rating then you lose the purpose of the definitions. Tom explains it much better in his response. I do disagree with his last paragraph about Philly however:

Still, there is likely some regional bias.  When one is rating courses in Philadelphia, for example, there are so many courses which are about equal in quality, but giving them all 6's or all 7's does not serve the purpose of helping the reader decide which to play.

If they are truly all about equal in quality then using the Doak Scale to differentiate them is erroneous in my opinion. If they are all 6's or 7's then say that and have your personal preferences stated as a side bar.

[Doug Siebert]

Doug

Which then gets back to it depending on who you recommending courses to.  But in the Doak case, he is talking about generic recommendations without the luxury of knowing the audience.  Of course the book originally wasn't meant for mass consumption - there lies the problem of using the scale for a generic audience.  Its very easy to not be keen on a course yet highly recommend it.  Its also very easy to be very keen on a course and yet not highly recommend it.  The perceived quality of a course is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to recos.  

Ciao  

Why would you recommend a course you don't like?  That's sort of like a friend trying to set you up with a girl and you ask if she's hot and he says "well, I don't think so, but she's fine for you!"

Doug

For instance, I don't care for Carnoustie.  So what?  Its a famous championship course highly though of by loads of industry scribes etc.  Why wouldn't I generically recommend it?  So yes, its not okay for me, but fine for others.  Whats the problem?

Ciao

What do you care if others think highly of it?  I'm pretty sure Tom was rating courses based on what he thought of them, without regard to what the "industry scribes" think.  If his ratings had taken what others think into account they wouldn't have been nearly as controversial, nor would we still be discussing them a couple decades later.  Nobody needs another Golfweek top 100.

If I was visiting where you live and wanted your recommendation for places to play, I'd expect I'd be getting your opinion.  If you lived near Carnoustie and I'd never played there before, you might tell me "if I were you, I'd skip it and visit Crail instead".  You might add that others think more highly of Carnoustie, or you might figure I can look up the opinion of others as easily you can tell me and leave it to me to do that research if I choose.

The advice someone offers is based on the value it offers to others.  The reason the Doak Scale has endured is that a lot of people have found his ratings useful to them.  He might not bat 100% as far as his recommendations matching my opinions, but he's pretty good - he gets Carnoustie right at least

[Sean_A]

Doug

I usually don't care if others think highly of a course if I don't unless I think perhaps I just didn't get it, but that isn't the issue.  Sticking with Carnoustie as the example, I think it is a very good course, just not the type of design which does a lot for me - thats just one opinion.  I readily accept that courses can be good or great and well worth playing even though I don't care for them.  Because I don't personally love Carnoustie is no reason to bury my head in the sand and not acknowledge its quality as a generic recommendation.  I wouldn't push people toward Carnoustie if they weren't considering it anyway, but I wouldn't say skip Carnoustie if folks want to go there or if they will be nearby.  Why would I?  Carnoustie is a higly respected course by practically everybody who knows it?  

Now, I would say folks shouldn't leave Carnoustie without playing the Burnside.  I prefer it to the big course, but I wouldn't say it is better nor would I normally say it should be seen over the big course.  I would say the punter will get the exact same clubhouse, town, views etc experience (which isn't up to much!) on a well designed and much more affordable course than the Champ.  But that is merely my own values coming to the fore as I don't have a strong desire to play great/famous courses just because they are great/famous.  Some folks don't care about anything else but course quality and on that score, even though I think it is over-rated and not really able to hang with the big boys of GB&I, it is undeniable that Carnoustie is far better than competent design.  Thats how I feel about many championship courses, but they have the rep and whatever else, that rep matters to travelling golfers.  It would be a totally different story if I knew you well, knew exactly what you were looking for etc, but that isn't what the Conf Guide has become.  It is a generic book of recommendations.  

Ciao

[Jud_T]

The problem is that all of us want to distill things down to a number.  It gives a pretense of certainly to something which is open to interpretation.  It's also easy for the lazy and upwardly mobile golfer. I've been guilty of this when using the CG to plan trips even if that wasn't Tom's intention.  

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