Carl,
An occasionally blemished qualitative exercise....yes...A "fraud," hardly.
Rob,
Your buddy represents some minute set of golf pros, certainly not a majority, and I don't know of, or have ever heard of any whose job security rested on their club's ratings. I call BS on this convoluted logic.
David,
You are right in that absent any substantive review, the readers in general won't likely know of a place. That said, in the NY-NJ-CT Metro area, many of the raters are admired, respected or influential amongst their peers and that's good enough for us.
John,
Publishing our names is not something we have a say over or have historically cared much about. Only Ran asks every year so he can see his names in lights on Broadway when they run through them at 4am in Times Square on the coldest day of the year!
Keith,
Only rarely--maybe once every other year--are there any kind of organized (and loosely at best) GM outings. When these occur, they are usually attended by 10 or fewer people at most. Actually, GM Panelists are better known for occasionally traveling in small hunter-killer packs and eating only raw Korean BBQ or Fugo fish...it explains our high turnover....let's be sure to keep those well-fueled rumors afloat!