[Jeff_Brauer]

What comes through to me is, most folks would basically say a qualified rater agrees with their point of view.  While others are completely off their rockers.  Which just goes to show why there should be three distinct lists.


I never minded the GD list.  At least in breaking things down to 10 point categories, in theory you minimize the subjectivity, providing raters only judge, say, aesthetics when checking those boxes.  I think the fear is for any rater that they are fearful of being too far out of the loop on a ranking, because, if the head of the system disagrees with you, you may be out.   See above.


I was on the Dallas Morning News panel for a while.  I dropped it because I really didn't care enough to do a good job for them.  The only thing I consistently did was rank my own courses somewhat lower than I thought they should be, to make sure I seemed fair.  Of course, anyone in the biz has some ax to grind, so we don't know if everyone defers as much as they should on whatever course they are most vested in, for work, play, or just passion.

[Tom_Doak]

Since Ted has stated none of the panels got the rankings right, please share with the group your Top 100 and then we can rate you.

Good idea!

[Tom_Doak]

In other words: if one of the qualities of a great course is its uniqueness and individuality, why is *comparing* it to other courses all that relevant, and why is there a high value placed on having well-travelled panelists who *can* make such comparisons?

How can you know whether something is unique or commonplace, if you haven't seen a lot of its peers?


I never wonder why someone who has seen one Seth Raynor course would love it.  Where I wonder is when someone who has seen a dozen of them insists they are all great, and can't discern between them.


However, going back to Ira's post, I don't think that having just architects rate courses is really the best approach.  That's just too *meta* for me, having a bunch of guys think about architecture for architecture's sake.  It will give you an interesting list, and a different list . . . but at the end of the day golf courses are meant for golfers, so the true judge of them should be a cross-section of golfers.

[Ira Fishman]

I take all rankings with a grain of salt, particularly when they need to make fine distinctions among excellent courses. However, I do like getting different perspectives and then matching them against the views of the posters here who tend to have similar tastes to mine. The perspectives of architects would be meta, but it would be an important perspective.


Unfortunately, not enough people, architects or not, are going to do something like the CG or Courses by Country where there are both a numerical rating and more importantly a qualitative explanation. As I have noted before, I like Top100 Courses because people frequently give detailed information about their views of a course.


Ira

[Steve Lapper]

Never mind!

[jeffwarne]

Maybe this is a separate thread....or two...or three.


1. Can a course be great with several pedestrian holes?
 I say yes and that my biggest pet peeve with most modern golf(besides 6 sets of tees ,monostand turf and huge scale )
...is the need for every hole to be "great", and the need to "fix" any hole that isn't.


I think of my favorite courses -Augusta CC, Palmetto, Myopia, Southampton, Durness,Sleepy Hollow,Portsalon,Northwest,Deal,NGLA, Maidstone- even Goat Hill.
Every single one has a somewhat pedestrian starting hole and a few later in the round.
I just feel the flow suffers when every single hole aspires to be great.
Pine Valley just isn't my favorite course,but I loved Merion.... I like the rhythm and flow of inspiration shots be scattered and grouped randomly,preferably around some unique land feature, keeping the player engaged, but not beating the crap out of the players struggling to hold it together. Even a course like Dunfanaghy excites me, despite multiple so called pedestrian holes, as there are a couple of stretches that really get the blood flowing and are anticipated.


2. What is the worth of uniqueness? of the setting, the landforms and the design.
For that matter even the number of holes..
I see more and more similarity in modern courses and redos and at some point I'm kind've over a sea of sand surrounding the fairway and green, especially on a hot summer day. Yep, heresy I know.
Worse yet, a sea of fescure, designed for pictures and to wave in the wind. Don't think for a second that is low maintenance.
I don't really see that happening that often in nature-only on modern golf courses.
Then there's the AWFUL pine straw circles around the trees at ANGC.


Texture
Give me a random  boulder, a unique tree, a ghost tree, some beautiful strategic native flower, heather,native bush such as blueberries/bayberries, random bluestem plants,not generic fescue) to play around/avoid(even if inpenetrable)something that provides seasonality, but give me some room away from it as well(even if that means just breaking out the mower), and don't symmetrically/proportionatley surround the play areas with that substance on every hole.


In a perfect world, something that honors/preserves the property's history, is attractive to look at (if you're into local flora and fauna as I am) but also some degree of playability if one errs either via strategy or randomness or both.


The raters I speak to don't really talk about that....and some actually take copious notes.
Imagine seeing an attractive woman and needing to take notes to remember her attractiveness level.
But I digress....

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