Greg,
they have it on their website, but it is only in German. So this is my translation to it:
THIS IS HOW THE GJ RANKING WORKS
We work with a 100 point system for the course testing, though you will see an index on the ranking. This is why:
The last 306 candidates for the 100 best courses in europe were ranked with the 100 point system. After that we eliminated the category condition, because the condition is especially dependant on the season, month, day or even hour. For an absolut fair and comparable result we would have to play all the courses in the same season and same weather which is impossible.
If we would have eliminated the 12 point for the condition from the beginning, there would have been a big confusion. For an example: The Stadium Course at Bro Hof Slott GC recently ranked with 91 points (published GJ 6/14). Without the condition it would only get 79 points. So instead of confusing by publishing two different results, we worked with an Index.
First step: calculating an average value of all of the tested courses (basic index) and set it to 100. Because Europes courses are very high leveled and very close to another, we received a lot of identical results. So we specified further if 10 or even 15 of the courses were on the same rank. With the three categories, requirements (Anspruch), Design and setting, we calculated a bonus, which we added to their basic index, but without changing the overall ranking itself.
THIS IS HOW GJ RANKS
Demand
mostly decided through the general Course Rating, for countries with SSS-System there is a special Formula. men's and women's tees are included in the rating. After the officially defined level of difficulty our Rater will evalutate.
condition
maximum 12 points. quality of greens, fairways, approaches, bunkers, rough... only a snapshot of the day the Rater was playing there.
design
maximum 24 points. It doesn't matter if the routing or layout is from a famous architect. The core question: Is it fun?
Whether the round of golf has enough variation and also offers enough strategic choices or thinking, we check with a list. This list has more than two dozen criterias: form, size, ondulations of the greens, gradient and length of fairways, location of sand and water hazards, fairness, memorability...
setting
if the course is pleasing to the eye it can earn up to 20 points. Displeasing are: power lines, wind wheel, too many Villas on the side of the Fairway, Noice....
Service
maximum of 15 Punkte. The offer of practice areas, also the restaurant and locker rooms, cars and ballwasher (
GJ even says on their website that they don't give a full point for ballwashers...)
Bonus
up to 5 extra points for the golfer's dream destination: TOC, Pebble, Valderrama...
GJ Index
With this number the golfer is able to find the price-performance value of each course in a second. If it is 1.0 there is a good relation between the quality and the costs. Higher Index courses are cheap, in the case of a 0.x the price is too expensive.