2017 Golf Digest Top 100/200

[Tom_Doak]

Course rankings are not a "golf" thing ... they're a golf business thing.  Just consider when they got started, right about the same time the golf cart started taking over American courses.


They're a way for magazines [and their panelists], architects, superintendents, and developers to stroke their egos and/or make more money. 

[Carl Rogers]

Doesn't everyone have their own way of deriving rankings?
Doesn't the Confidential Guide have rankings?
It is the impossibility of creating a more universal consensus on how or what to rank is the unsolvable problem.


I have 3 problems I am unable to resolve with rankings in their present form in the Golf Media:
1. some if not many people and organizations do not clearly state their criteria, preferences & process of ranking.
2. many that rank do not have sufficient qualifications to rank golf courses.
3. the same words and phrases have different meanings to different people .... i.e. "resistance to scoring"


Several years back I started a thread with the title of "Who is qualified to rank?" .............  and quickly concluded I was not qualified.


I really enjoy read and re-read portions of the my 3 volumes of the CG on an ongoing basis.  Tom & group tell you where they are coming from.  They are consistent and convincing.

[Pat Alpaugh]

Absolutely true, Scott Warren. 

[Wayne_Freedman]

Tom,


I have never seen a category for tradition.
Ambience, yes.


If memory serves, the panelists have been pretty darned nice to your works.

That said, the numbers are the numbers.
As a GDP, I can tell you that we vote.
They tally.

Up until recently, after they tallied, they added points for "tradition" that changed the totals considerably and allowed them a lot of wiggle room.


I'm not sure if that is still a part of the process or not.

[Wayne_Freedman]

Of course panelists are subjective.

None of us have the expertise of an architect. Unless a panelist conceived a golf course and worked the problem, he will never know what went into it. He knows only the finished product. Imagine being an architect who's work was being scored by dilettantes.  It must be INFURIATING.

Like a good picture in which the photographer essentially 'hides his hand' in the post-production, a golf course is also a work of craftsmanship for the architect and builders. True craftsmen are so good that you never see evidence of their toil. Their final product just works. Or, maybe it almost works. What critics fail to realize is that 'almostness'  may reflect more unseen talent and effort than something with more star power.  The true craftsman, however,  will never tell.  He does not show his hand.

You are unlikely to to meet a panelist who does not consider himself an expert, but that doesn't make him one. At best, most of us are consumers...some more educated and experienced than others.

I have seen a full spectrum of panelists...from the embarrassing guy with the crappy swing taking a lesson on the range before his round, to the hard-core, golf history numbers quant who takes to the task most seriously.

We have many more of the former than the latter.   

Walk around with a guy like Joel Stewart, who started this thread. He misses nothing. 
Drains.
Grass types.
Mowing patterns.
Pin positions.
Bunker shapes, sizes, depths.
Environs. As a classicist, Joel recognizes elements of old holes integrated  into new ones. He sees how those elements might interact in different competitive circumstances or conditions. Joel is the very opinionated equivalent of an experienced, five-star foodie, only for golf courses.

What always baffles me...that if we took the  time that GD wanted us to take on every hole by hitting multiple shots from different positions, etc....the entire course would be backed up behind us. It would result in analysis paralysis.

For me, yeah, I work from our criteria. Sure, I write down some numbers.  As a consumer/panelist, I focus most on the experience. Not what I scored, assuming I scored (as if score matters in this process). 


I wish we had a category for the fun factor.

That they ask us to pay to be panelists is disappointing, but the golf journalism business is not doing well. Maybe we're supporting the program and paying their salaries.

I regard this as a form of volunteerism.  It costs us to take time off and to travel.  It is work to put up a fair set of numbers. And now, more courses are asking us to pay in order to play and post an evaluation. The latter is particularly irksome. They asked to be looked at.  Respect the process. Respect our effort to get there.

Done right, this is not 'free golf'. Not by a long shot. Kindly refrain from knocking the panelist until you have walked a few dozen courses in his shoes. As a panelist who takes this seriously, it is an honor to have been asked and to be trusted.

[Kevin_Reilly]

Wayne, "Tradition" was a component of the rankings many years ago, and was the subject of much discussion on this board in various threads.  Here's one, where one ex-GCAer in the second reply spelled out how "Tradition" was computed.  "Ambience" was a component of the Tradition score, but only comprised 40% of it.


http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php?topic=1787.1

[Jud_T]

The average club golfer who posts a handicap is 15 I believe.  The average golfer is therefore somewhat north of that number as many do not belong to a club or post at all.  What is the handicap of the average Digest panelist? 5? So, in addition to the overweening criteria they are beholden to, you have a large bell curve of players being represented by a not so fat tail of longer hitting flatbellies, many of whom view courses in the light of challenge for their games and fairness.  This takes the already garbage in, garbage out nature of this exercise to a level so as to make the results all but utterly useless to 85% of the golfing population who care about things other than bedpost notching, like fun for instance.  At least some GCA guys can get access without having to grovel...

[Jim Nugent]

Course rankings are not a "golf" thing ... they're a golf business thing.  Just consider when they got started, right about the same time the golf cart started taking over American courses.


They're a way for magazines [and their panelists], architects, superintendents, and developers to stroke their egos and/or make more money.

"Best of" lists exist in just about every field of human activity and endeavour, from universities,art, music and hospitals to scientists, authors, sports teams, athletes, movies, economics and journalism (man, those last two really show the absurdity of it all).  Seems to me more a human thing than a business thing. 

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Of course panelists are subjective.

None of us have the expertise of an architect. Unless a panelist conceived a golf course and worked the problem, he will never know what went into it. He knows only the finished product. Imagine being an architect who's work was being scored by dilettantes.  It must be INFURIATING.

Like a good picture in which the photographer essentially 'hides his hand' in the post-production, a golf course is also a work of craftsmanship for the architect and builders. True craftsmen are so good that you never see evidence of their toil. Their final product just works. Or, maybe it almost works. What critics fail to realize is that 'almostness'  may reflect more unseen talent and effort than something with more star power.  The true craftsman, however,  will never tell.  He does not show his hand.

You are unlikely to to meet a panelist who does not consider himself an expert, but that doesn't make him one. At best, most of us are consumers...some more educated and experienced than others.

I have seen a full spectrum of panelists...from the embarrassing guy with the crappy swing taking a lesson on the range before his round, to the hard-core, golf history numbers quant who takes to the task most seriously.

We have many more of the former than the latter.   

Walk around with a guy like Joel Stewart, who started this thread. He misses nothing. 
Drains.
Grass types.
Mowing patterns.
Pin positions.
Bunker shapes, sizes, depths.
Environs. As a classicist, Joel recognizes elements of old holes integrated  into new ones. He sees how those elements might interact in different competitive circumstances or conditions. Joel is the very opinionated equivalent of an experienced, five-star foodie, only for golf courses.

What always baffles me...that if we took the  time that GD wanted us to take on every hole by hitting multiple shots from different positions, etc....the entire course would be backed up behind us. It would result in analysis paralysis.

For me, yeah, I work from our criteria. Sure, I write down some numbers.  As a consumer/panelist, I focus most on the experience. Not what I scored, assuming I scored (as if score matters in this process). 


I wish we had a category for the fun factor.

That they ask us to pay to be panelists is disappointing, but the golf journalism business is not doing well. Maybe we're supporting the program and paying their salaries.

I regard this as a form of volunteerism.  It costs us to take time off and to travel.  It is work to put up a fair set of numbers. And now, more courses are asking us to pay in order to play and post an evaluation. The latter is particularly irksome. They asked to be looked at.  Respect the process. Respect our effort to get there.

Done right, this is not 'free golf'. Not by a long shot. Kindly refrain from knocking the panelist until you have walked a few dozen courses in his shoes. As a panelist who takes this seriously, it is an honor to have been asked and to be trusted.

Wayne,
I agree..I like to think when I am rating I see all of the things you mention as well as the overall experience of playing a golf course.
Of course we esters all see different things and I would agree that some eaters are under qualified for the "job" and in it for the wrong reasons, as exists in most voluntary pastimes.


Lists are lists full of clear yays and nays.
For the most part raters have the best intent and not biased by fringe benefits,as you correctly said we do so on our own dime, are not wined and dined, which only serves to make those instances when the ratters are " entertained" at lavish levels all the more distasteful .

[John Kavanaugh]

I regard this as a form of volunteerism.  It costs us to take time off and to travel.  It is work to put up a fair set of numbers. And now, more courses are asking us to pay in order to play and post an evaluation. The latter is particularly irksome. They asked to be looked at.  Respect the process. Respect our effort to get there.

Every club should read the above before they try to charge a rater for playing. Do you really want to piss them off before they even get to the first tee?

[Jerry Kluger]

I would venture to guess that if you take any of the top 5, if not top 10, on any list that you could make an argument why any of those courses is the best of them all but does it really matter when you are up at that level.  The same can be said in most courses within a certain rating group and I would bet that as you get further down the list the comparable group would get larger.

[BCowan]

I regard this as a form of volunteerism.  It costs us to take time off and to travel.  It is work to put up a fair set of numbers. And now, more courses are asking us to pay in order to play and post an evaluation. The latter is particularly irksome. They asked to be looked at.  Respect the process. Respect our effort to get there.

Every club should read the above before they try to charge a rater for playing. Do you really want to piss them off before they even get to the first tee?

''It's Work''



Still can't wrap my head around the notion that rating courses is ''work'' and expecting free green fees for the great access it provides, oh and they might have to rank a few public tracks.   I see a lot of parallels with Golf Now....

[Frank M]

thank you

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,

If memory serves, the panelists have been pretty darned nice to your works.

Wayne,


Yes, if I just have on my architect hat, I'd certainly be better off just shutting up and graciously accepting all the recognition my courses have gotten.


But I think it's fair to say I've seen more sides of this argument than most others who comment on it. 


I ran one of the ranking processes for 10 years, so I feel partly responsible for creating the monster.  I've watched as people who I'd recommended for the panel went from being grateful to help, to saying "I am the one who got [course X] into the top 100," as though they were more important than their peers, or they were owed something for it.


I've had the red carpet rolled out for me at various places, to varying degrees of discomfort about what they expected in return ... while I observe other panelists post pictures of how well they were treated on Instagram, and wonder about their lack of discomfort.


I've been in green committee meetings at famous courses where they fretted about a slip in their ranking and wondered if they should do something to the course as a result; and in one extreme instance, was told that a course was making modifications based on feedback from a small group of panelists who had been provided special access. 


I've been in the pro shop and watched maybe a dozen head pros of famous courses deal with panelists trying to subvert the rules of engagement, and then listened to those pros grumble about it afterward.


And I've gone from my courses being overlooked because panelists didn't know my name, to having some panelists think I can do no wrong, and others typecast all of my work with the same broad brush.


In short, I would love to believe that the rankings are all on the level and that every course gets an equal shot at success without bias toward who the architect was, but I've seen a lot of things in these various roles that lead me to believe that's not the case, and I feel some responsibility to point that out because I know how important it is within our business.


I'm not complaining for my own work on this thread; as you say, I've done quite well.  And there are tons of people who have helped me along the way, including mentors, clients, talented associates, and more a few panelists.  But at some point, it goes back to the golf courses we've built, rather than the people who are judging them, doesn't it?  If it's really about the work of the panelists, does that not kind of miss the whole point of the exercise?

[Anthony Gholz]

Remember that GD started his as "Most Testing"  sounds like resistance to scoring to me

[MCirba]

Would 2016 be horribly complete without the annual bash the ratings and raters thread on GCA?


I'd only add that many/most of us would never have learned much about architectiure and/or the variety and plethora of great courses around the globe without the ratings  efforts of Whitten, Klein, Pepper, Doak, et.al.,  particularly in the pre-Internet era of the 70s into the early 2000's.


So sure...fire away.  They are a subjective human endeavor and further flawed by the frailties of human vanity and weakness.  I could write for hours on their imperfections.


But like democracy, it's the best system we got.


Happy New Year you crazy bunch of architectural afficianados.

[Thomas Dai]

Remember that GD started his as "Most Testing"  sounds like resistance to scoring to me

If I'm not mistaken the photo above is of Point O' Woods GC.....although the course itself doesn't seem to be included in the listings above.
Curious that the article is headed "America's 100 most TESTING courses".
Atb

[Tom_Doak]

Yes, that's the 9th hole at Point O'Woods ...


And it was listed in the third 10 back then!

[John Kavanaugh]

Happy New Years from Stockholm. I wish all you raters were here with me in time for one more free round. Eastern time that is, bitches.

[Thomas Dai]

Yes, that's the 9th hole at Point O'Woods ...
And it was listed in the third 10 back then!

Oh yes, so it is, I would never have thought to look that high up! I wonder where PO'W would be in various listings these days? The early CG book givs PO'W a rating of 6 on the DS scale.
Atb

[MCirba]

Happy New Years from Stockholm. I wish all you raters were here with me in time for one more free round. Eastern time that is, bitches.

So glad to have finally met you in person this year John.  You need to link me up with that election night podcast from Rogan.  Happy New Year you passionate man.

[Wayne_Freedman]

Not true.


Flatbellies?
C'mon.
Never assume. You know the rest to that one.
Yes, on paper, GD prefers low handicap players because they are knowledgable. Many players used to be 5's or less, certainly, but the ravages of age take their tolls. On bodies, at least. Conversely, the ravages of age and experience add wisdom.

A bad player may never be able to see a course as  good players do, but good players are more than capable of understanding the challenges faced by lesser ones.

Especially formerly good players who have seen their scores inflate as much as their flatbellies.
 

The average club golfer who posts a handicap is 15 I believe.  The average golfer is therefore somewhat north of that number as many do not belong to a club or post at all.  What is the handicap of the average Digest panelist? 5? So, in addition to the overweening criteria they are beholden to, you have a large bell curve of players being represented by a not so fat tail of longer hitting flatbellies, many of whom view courses in the light of challenge for their games and fairness.  This takes the already garbage in, garbage out nature of this exercise to a level so as to make the results all but utterly useless to 85% of the golfing population who care about things other than bedpost notching, like fun for instance.  At least some GCA guys can get access without having to grovel...

[BCowan]

Yes, that's the 9th hole at Point O'Woods ...
And it was listed in the third 10 back then!

Oh yes, so it is, I would never have thought to look that high up! I wonder where PO'W would be in various listings these days? The early CG book givs PO'W a rating of 6 on the DS scale.
Atb

It's ranked 14 in the state by MI GCAers.  5 courses have been built since thatlist went out.  We have it at 6.6. 

[Wayne_Freedman]

Sorry you feel that way, Frank.
Rather than debate with you because we will never agree (these are the holidays, after all), I prescribe a smile pill.


Check back in the morning.

Of course panelists are subjective.

It's not just panelists that are subjective, but rankings...period.

None of us have the expertise of an architect. Unless a panelist conceived a golf course and worked the problem, he will never know what went into it. He knows only the finished product. Imagine being an architect who's work was being scored by dilettantes.  It must be INFURIATING.

Why does anyone need the expertise of a golf course architect to analyze a golf course according to a very specific set of criteria? Why is it that so many people believe only the architect understands golf? Why is it that anyone believes anyone understands golf for anything other than what golf is to them? Why is it anyone believes a ranking can be definitive without question?

The basis of any ranking is its criteria, if you disagree with it, then it's not a ranking you should care about, but it doesn't make it wrong. Everything is assessed by its final product. As a golfer, I don't want to know what goes into it. It's like complaining people don't like a crappy song because they don't know the effort that went into making that crappy song...it's crappy. 

Like a good picture in which the photographer essentially 'hides his hand' in the post-production, a golf course is also a work of craftsmanship for the architect and builders. True craftsmen are so good that you never see evidence of their toil. Their final product just works. Or, maybe it almost works. What critics fail to realize is that 'almostness'  may reflect more unseen talent and effort than something with more star power.  The true craftsman, however,  will never tell.  He does not show his hand.

You are unlikely to to meet a panelist who does not consider himself an expert, but that doesn't make him one. At best, most of us are consumers...some more educated and experienced than others.

I have seen a full spectrum of panelists...from the embarrassing guy with the crappy swing taking a lesson on the range before his round, to the hard-core, golf history numbers quant who takes to the task most seriously.

Why can't a guy/girl with a crappy swing taking a lesson before the round not be as educated and experienced and take the task of rating just as serious as a hardcore golf history numbers person? No ranking or rating is objective. As far as I'm concerned all raters are experts in their own opinions. That is what they are after all, aren't they? Their opinions?

We have many more of the former than the latter.   

Walk around with a guy like Joel Stewart, who started this thread. He misses nothing. 
Drains.
Grass types.
Mowing patterns.
Pin positions.
Bunker shapes, sizes, depths.
Environs. As a classicist, Joel recognizes elements of old holes integrated  into new ones. He sees how those elements might interact in different competitive circumstances or conditions. Joel is the very opinionated equivalent of an experienced, five-star foodie, only for golf courses.

What always baffles me...that if we took the  time that GD wanted us to take on every hole by hitting multiple shots from different positions, etc....the entire course would be backed up behind us. It would result in analysis paralysis.

For me, yeah, I work from our criteria. Sure, I write down some numbers.  As a consumer/panelist, I focus most on the experience. Not what I scored, assuming I scored (as if score matters in this process). 

I wish we had a category for the fun factor.

That they ask us to pay to be panelists is disappointing, but the golf journalism business is not doing well. Maybe we're supporting the program and paying their salaries.

I regard this as a form of volunteerism.  It costs us to take time off and to travel.  It is work to put up a fair set of numbers. And now, more courses are asking us to pay in order to play and post an evaluation. The latter is particularly irksome. They asked to be looked at.  Respect the process. Respect our effort to get there.

Sounds like the classic cake and eat it too scenario here. I'm going to hazard a guess and say not everyone wants to be "looked at" and many don't respect the process as much as you do. To volunteer you have to provide some kind of service. You can regard your rating however you want, but the only thing you are volunteering for is the organization you are conducting the rankings for, not the golf course.   

Done right, this is not 'free golf'. Not by a long shot. Kindly refrain from knocking the panelist until you have walked a few dozen courses in his shoes. As a panelist who takes this seriously, it is an honor to have been asked and to be trusted.

I think people should be able to form whatever opinion they want of panelists, rankings, ratings, whatever. You make it sound like you have it really tough. If your shoes are so hard to walk in...why walk in them?

[Wayne_Freedman]

Tom,


I agree with  everything you said. Have seen such behavior wherever people curry favor, and not only on golf courses. It's human nature.


I have done exceptionally well at winning awards in my field, but no longer enter. Now, instead, I run one of those contests and have witnessed disgusting, embarrassing behavior by some people, and all to win a little gold statue. They have never learned that awards come from a purity of purpose and execution. Awards rarely go to those people who set winning them as a goal.

Awards best serve up-and-comers looking to get some notice and establish themselves. After that, step aside. Otherwise, expect frustration. Anyone who wins awards and establishes himself in the field realizes soon enough that often, judges know far less than the entrants. To be on the receiving end of such ignorance is frustrating, indeed.


See People's Choice Awards.
Or, Forrest Gump winning a Best Picture Oscar over Shawshank Redemption.


I volunteer as a panelist, now, because they respected my opinion enough to ask me. In turn, I do my best to lend credibility to the process, and do so with humility.

Contrary to what many on this forum choose to think, that little white card carries with it a responsibility. Sure, it can get us onto some very nice courses.  However, for every Tom Doak course, I also go out of my way to visit an unheralded one. Those guys need the looks.

Tom,

If memory serves, the panelists have been pretty darned nice to your works.

Wayne,


Yes, if I just have on my architect hat, I'd certainly be better off just shutting up and graciously accepting all the recognition my courses have gotten.


But I think it's fair to say I've seen more sides of this argument than most others who comment on it. 


I ran one of the ranking processes for 10 years, so I feel partly responsible for creating the monster.  I've watched as people who I'd recommended for the panel went from being grateful to help, to saying "I am the one who got [course X] into the top 100," as though they were more important than their peers, or they were owed something for it.


I've had the red carpet rolled out for me at various places, to varying degrees of discomfort about what they expected in return ... while I observe other panelists post pictures of how well they were treated on Instagram, and wonder about their lack of discomfort.


I've been in green committee meetings at famous courses where they fretted about a slip in their ranking and wondered if they should do something to the course as a result; and in one extreme instance, was told that a course was making modifications based on feedback from a small group of panelists who had been provided special access. 


I've been in the pro shop and watched maybe a dozen head pros of famous courses deal with panelists trying to subvert the rules of engagement, and then listened to those pros grumble about it afterward.


And I've gone from my courses being overlooked because panelists didn't know my name, to having some panelists think I can do no wrong, and others typecast all of my work with the same broad brush.


In short, I would love to believe that the rankings are all on the level and that every course gets an equal shot at success without bias toward who the architect was, but I've seen a lot of things in these various roles that lead me to believe that's not the case, and I feel some responsibility to point that out because I know how important it is within our business.


I'm not complaining for my own work on this thread; as you say, I've done quite well.  And there are tons of people who have helped me along the way, including mentors, clients, talented associates, and more a few panelists.  But at some point, it goes back to the golf courses we've built, rather than the people who are judging them, doesn't it?  If it's really about the work of the panelists, does that not kind of miss the whole point of the exercise?