GCA.com Favorites—The Results

[Ira Fishman]

We received 40 submissions. 657 different courses were named at least once.


Average Ranking for Courses Listed At Least 10 Times


Cypress Point—2.73
TOC—7.85
NGLA—8.20
Royal Dornoch—8.86
Pinehurst 2–9.21
Pine Valley—9.40
North Berwick—11.37
Merion—11.40
Sunningdale Old—12.30
Pebble Beach—12.45
Pacific Dunes—14.04
Bandon Dunes—15.67
Royal Melbourne—16.82
Royal County Down—16.90
Tobacco Road—17.00
Old Mac—17.71
Yale—17.92
Pasatiempo—19.00
Ballybunion—19.57
Muirfield—19.64
Lahinch—21.67
Swinley Forest—22.30


Adding Courses Listed Between 5-9 Times


Cypress Point—2.73
TOC—7.85
NGLA—8.20
Sand Hills—8.78
Royal Dornoch—8.86
Pinehurst 2–9.21
Pine Valley—9.40
Old Town Club—9.83
Ballyneal—10.11
Garden City—10.33
Chambers Bay—10.88
North Berwick—11.37
Merion—11.40
Sunningdale Old—12.30
Pebble Beach—12.45
Oakmont—12.75
Shinnecock—14.00
Pacific Dunes—14.04
Augusta National—14.20
Rustic Canyon—14.83
Somerset Hills—15.33
Crystal Downs—15.63
Bandon Dunes—15.67
Barnbougle Dunes—16.00
Brora-16.11
Kingston Heath—16.60
LACC North—16.60
Royal Melbourne—16.82
Royal County Down—16.90
Tobacco Road—17.00
Mid Pines—17.33
Turnberry—17.67
Old Mac—17.71
Cruden Bay—17.71
Lawsonia—17.83
Yale—17.92
Rye—18.00
Sleepy Hollow—18.00
Fisher’s Island—18.11
Pasatiempo—19.00
Yeamans Hall—19.14
Woking—19.17
Shoreacres—19.33
Prairie Dunes—19.44
Ballybunion—19.57
Kapalua Plantation—19.60
Muirfield—19.64
Dismal River Red—19.71
Caledonia—21.00
San Francisco GC—21.60
Lahinch—21.67
Pennard—21.67
Pine Needles—22.20
Machrihanish—22.29
Prestwick—22.29
Swinley Forest—22.30
Chicago Golf—22.50
Royal St George’s (Sandwich)—22.67
Maidstone—22.71
Royal Portrush—23.25
Bethpage Black—23.33
Elie—23.80
Kingsley Club—24.71
Walton Heath Old—25.14
Arcadia Bluffs—26.17
Carnoustie—27.50
Deal—28.40
Portmarnock—30.00
Whistling Straights—31.20


Important Reminder: The request was to list your favorite courses and not the courses you think are the best courses. Both are subjective, but favorite more so.


Important Second Reminder: The exercise is purely for fun. The methodology is not perfect and never was intended to be.


Thanks to you participants for doing so and thanks to all for your patience as my colleagues tabulated the results.


Stay safe!


Ira

[Tommy Williamsen]

Interesting. Btw, you have North Berwick listed twice.

[Ira Fishman]

Interesting. Btw, you have North Berwick listed twice.

Tommy,


There are two overlapping lists. The first are courses named 10 or more times. The second includes those named more than 5 times. TOC not surprisingly was named the most times followed by Pacific Dunes and North Berwick.


I really did not see any surprises except for the gap between Cypress and the rest. Perhaps Tobacco Road ended up higher than I would have guessed because it gets a lot of polarized comments, but I have not played it so my guess is just a guess.


Ira

[John Kavanaugh]

The fact that less than 25% of the participants have played Sand Hills but made it on to Cypress Point causes me to question everything I have ever held dear.

[Ira Fishman]

The fact that less than 25% of the participants have played Sand Hills but made it on to Cypress Point causes me to question everything I have ever held dear.

Like most cut lines, more than 10 can create false distinctions. 11 lists included Cypress Point, and 9 included Sand Hills. But the gap between CPC and the rest remains surprising. Perhaps because the criterion was favorite and not best, a difficult course like Pine Valley came in lower than on the magazine rankings. Plus Gca.com does have self-selected tastes which is why there are not too many surprises.


Ira

[John Kavanaugh]

I've always been far more interested in why people play courses than what they think. Thanks for the work you did on this project as it has sparked my imagination.

[Greg Gilson]

Ira, thank you for your work on this. Without getting into any argy/bargy over the ordering, any course on this list is clearly worth making the effort to visit.


On that basis, there are some nice entries here that I have not played & now go on my list of "courses to play before I hang up my passport":


Old Town Club
Lawsonia (booked for Sept but cancelled trip because of CV)
Rye
Sleepy Hollow
Arcadia Bluffs


Thanks again

[Ira Fishman]

JK and Greg,


I actually did almost none of the work. Two of my colleagues volunteered to do it. They are Spreadsheet junkies. More importantly, they are at the beginning of their gca journeys. They were excited to "discover" Brora and Woking 25 years before I did which I hope will serve them well.


In looking again at the results, I have dismissed Chambers Bay since the US Open. It may deserve reconsideration.


Ira

[Greg Gilson]

Ira, do not dismiss Chambers Bay. The USGA (& the competitors) did it no favours. I appreciate the difficulties maintaining fescue on a public facility with a short , high volume season. However, irrespective of conditions it is really fun course providing lots of shot options in a beautiful setting.

[Jim Sherma]

Ira - it would be interesting to see some of the other courses named.

[Peter Pallotta]

I wish I knew either statistics (one of only two classes I ever dropped in university) or psychology (the second of two classes I dropped in university). Then I might understand or explain or at least riff on these results, ie that this most 'subjective' of lists (our favourites) aligns so closely with a seemingly 'objective' consensus (everybody's favourites, for the last 20 years or so). Are we everybody, or is everybody us?

[John Kavanaugh]

It’s 40 people who think their opinion matters enough or so little to dilute it by mixing it in with 39 other opinions.


No one even questioned the possibility that someone played Sand Hills and didn’t include it on their list. I have little doubt this did in fact happen with Tobacco Road.

[Jeff Schley]

I wish I knew either statistics (one of only two classes I ever dropped in university) or psychology (the second of two classes I dropped in university). Then I might understand or explain or at least riff on these results, ie that this most 'subjective' of lists (our favourites) aligns so closely with a seemingly 'objective' consensus (everybody's favourites, for the last 20 years or so). Are we everybody, or is everybody us?

Not an expert, but familiar with statistics.  You need three things to find the necessary sample size to reflect the entire population size. Confidence level (95 or 99%), confidence interval, population.

Confidence level I selected at 95%, which is typical.  The confidence interval is tricky for this as the there was no list to pick from and spontaneous in response. In addition there was no limit on the number of responses so that in itself probably blows this out of the water.  We need three items for this (sample size, selection %, population) However, I see that 22 courses were selected 10 or more times (taking a leap of faith that the cutoff of 10 matters), then you have a 25% selection percentage. Sample size is 40 and the population I selected 300 as the population, as to guess the "active posters" who may have the option to participate.  The higher the population you select the more sample you need to be accurate obviously. I get a +/- of 12.5% confidence interval.


So what did we get?  If we assume 95% CL, then plug in the 12.5% CI, along with a 300 population you get 51 samples needed to be accurate.  If you go up to 400 population you need 53, 500 population you need 55.


So was it accurate?  I would guess probably not, with several areas that stand out.  First and principally this wasn't a random sample, people had to volunteer, which in and of itself takes away the "random" sample being random. Second, even if it was random there was no limit on the number of responses, which would need to be standard. So as Ira said, fun yes indeed, accurate and worthy of being representative of the site?  Certainly not for various reasons.

[Sean_A]

The notion of favourite strikes me as antithical to group think. Knowing the list maker for favourites is essential because it is a such a personal expression. That said, the interest for me in this exercise are the courses mentioned maybe 2 or 3 times. That could be the sweet spot leading to courses I don't know very well.

Ciao

[Ira Fishman]

It’s 40 people who think their opinion matters enough or so little to dilute it by mixing it in with 39 other opinions.


No one even questioned the possibility that someone played Sand Hills and didn’t include it on their list. I have little doubt this did in fact happen with Tobacco Road.

JK,


I actually did think about the question of courses being left off of lists entirely, but there was no way to ask the question until the results were in. People of course are now free to say if the left off a course that otherwise had a decent average rating.


Ira

[Ira Fishman]

The notion of favourite strikes me as antithical to group think. Knowing the list maker for favourites is essential because it is a such a personal expression. That said, the interest for me in this exercise are the courses mentioned maybe 2 or 3 times. That could be the sweet spot leading to courses I don't know very well.

Ciao

Sean, I looked at the list and did not see many courses listed 2-4 times that otherwise do not get discussed on here. Many are exclusive US private clubs that hard to access, and many are UK clubs that are not on the American tour roster.


What did stand out on further review is how few times courses that are accessible and discussed here frequently were listed. 27 people listed TOC (not surprising) but only 3 listings for Kingsbarns. Others:


Harbortown--3
Kiawah Ocean--4
Southern Pines--3
Bandon Trails--3
Royal County Down--2
Streamsong Blue-2
Streamsong Red--1
Castle Stuart--1
Dooks--2


Three that were listed 3 times that I do not remember getting much discussion on gca.com: Capilano, La Purisima, and Wild Horse.


Once again, it is not a statistically valid sample size, but still some of the courses not listed more strikes me as surprising. It could be value for money factors into how people think about "favorite" or that some did not get that many plays to begin with because of the price tag.


Ira

[Bernie Bell]

Ira - Did any of these publics get more than one vote?

Galen Hall
Leatherstocking
Ocean City - Newport Bay
Seven Oaks

[Ira Fishman]

Ira - Did any of these publics get more than one vote?

Galen Hall
Leatherstocking
Ocean City - Newport Bay
Seven Oaks

Bernie,


None of them did.

[Tom_Doak]

Ira - Did any of these publics get more than one vote?

Galen Hall
Leatherstocking
Ocean City - Newport Bay
Seven Oaks

Leatherstocking is a cool course.  It would be maybe 300th on my list, if I had listed a lot more than 25 or 50 or however many I did.


That was always going to be the down side of the process used in this survey.  It was very much like the original GOLF Magazine top 50 courses in the World, which only asked each panelist for their top ten . . . a system that led to several courses in Asia making the list with only one or two votes each!

[Ira Fishman]

Ira - Did any of these publics get more than one vote?

Galen Hall
Leatherstocking
Ocean City - Newport Bay
Seven Oaks

Leatherstocking is a cool course.  It would be maybe 300th on my list, if I had listed a lot more than 25 or 50 or however many I did.


That was always going to be the down side of the process used in this survey.  It was very much like the original GOLF Magazine top 50 courses in the World, which only asked each panelist for their top ten . . . a system that led to several courses in Asia making the list with only one or two votes each!

In retrospect, I should have encouraged more submissions by not stating originally that only registered members should submit. The methodology, as noted several times, was not intended to be rigorous, but more data might make the exercise more interesting, particularly given registered members probably tend toward the school of thought that tends to be predominant on the site. 10 courses clearly would be too few. 50 probably ended up being too much. My rough sense is that 35-40 would have enough variety but enabled more people to submit. Despite the appearance created on here to the contrary, I am not sure that there really are a large number of people who have traveled far and wide.


On the other hand, it ended up being an awfully solid list with no obvious outliers. Probably because it reflects that predominant school of thought. To JK’s previous point, perhaps for all such exercises, one of the interesting things to know is if someone did not list a “top” course at all. I did not have Bandon Dunes on my list which did much “better” than I would have expected. I also did not have either Castle Stuart or Kingsbarns, and it looks like more people agreed with me than I would have guessed.




Ira