Darius Oliver shits on Ran

[Wayne_Kozun]

This is in the Cape Wickham thread, but it is kind of buried:

[Wayne_Kozun]

Has Ran lost his title of "One of golf's most beloved figures"

[Thomas Dai]

Is it time for a Worlds Top-100 golf bitches/moans/grouches/whines/gripes/grumbles/put-downs/etc?
Just saying.


Atb

[Matt Schoolfield]

It looks like the links are failing because twitter is blocking their images being posted elsewhere. I've put them on a image sharing host:



While I agree with Oliver that it looks untoward, especially with any conflicts undisclosed, still, my thoughts can generally be summed up by: "I'm shocked, shocked, that there is gambling advertising going on in this casino magazine!"

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Joel_Stewart]

I didn't see Darius complaining when it was it was in his favor. He should have complained when Joe Passov was running the show and David Smith was buying off panelists.


With that said, Cape Wickham dropping at least 40 spots to fall off the list deserves some type of explanation?  It seems almost impossible unless one of the Jones brothers did a renovation.

[Peter Flory]

I don't have any details, but a possible explanation for such a remote course like that could be that the raters who were naturally drawn to it were the first ones out there.  Then, over time, the rest of the raters made their way out there to make sure that it was covered. 


It seems highly unlikely that the same raters had a return visit and amended their scores downward in such a short period of time. 

[Paul Rudovsky]

I played it back in 2016 (I think the year after it opened) and simply loved it.  Played 3 straight days and the steady winds were day 1--30mph, day 2--20 mph, and day 3--15 mph.  But I have talked with a good number of others who said they were there when the steady winds were 40-50mph making it literally unplayable.  That could explain some changes in ratings...but 40 spots is a lot

[Sean_A]

Two things. First, raters shouldn’t be talking about wind as part of an assessment unless they have well grounded experience with the course. Many plays over all seasons. Second, should a course be dinged for being unplayable in 40 or 50 mph winds? How many of our great courses become a joke in those conditions?


Ciao

[Adam Uttley]

Cape Wickham’s demotion is a huge error in my opinion.  I played it back in 2017 and it was outstanding and I thought better than both Barnbougle courses.  The other 4 or 5 guys that I know that have played it have all felt the same way.  The wind was strong when I played but the design caters for this with plenty of width for all but the most severe of days.  I have found Muirfield, Hoylake and especially Ardfin to be far more severe and unplayable in similar winds.  For it to fall out of the top 100 can only be down to a flawed system or politics but either way I think it undermined that magazine’s ranking

[Kyle Harris]

Two things. First, raters shouldn’t be talking about wind as part of an assessment unless they have well grounded experience with the course. Many plays over all seasons. Second, should a course be dinged for being unplayable in 40 or 50 mph winds? How many of our great courses become a joke in those conditions?


Ciao

Wind is no different than any other site conditions.


An over-bunkered course on a clay site should meet the same level of criticism as a golf course built on a site where a good portion of days have unplayable/ridiculous winds.


“Suited for the purpose” is fairly clear.

[Mark Pearce]

Two things. First, raters shouldn’t be talking about wind as part of an assessment unless they have well grounded experience with the course. Many plays over all seasons. Second, should a course be dinged for being unplayable in 40 or 50 mph winds? How many of our great courses become a joke in those conditions?


Ciao

No course is playable in 40mph winds.  It's not whether the course is playable in those winds that's the issue, though.  The issue is the frequency of days where the wind is too strong to play.

[Mark Pearce]

I have found Muirfield, Hoylake and especially Ardfin to be far more severe and unplayable in similar winds. 

Again, that's not the issue.  There are no more than a handful of days a year when the East Lothian wind make sMuirfield unplayable.  The suggestion is that Cape Whickham has a far higher frequency of days which are unplayable.  As I understand the criticism.

[Sean_A]

Two things. First, raters shouldn’t be talking about wind as part of an assessment unless they have well grounded experience with the course. Many plays over all seasons. Second, should a course be dinged for being unplayable in 40 or 50 mph winds? How many of our great courses become a joke in those conditions?


Ciao

No course is playable in 40mph winds.  It's not whether the course is playable in those winds that's the issue, though.  The issue is the frequency of days where the wind is too strong to play.

My assertion is that nowhere near enough people on the panel have played Cape Wickham enough times in all seasons to make this claim. Good evidence has been provided that Cape Wickham isn't anywhere near as windy as claimed. Of course, it could mean that the course isn't playable in much less wind. It wouldn't be the first time that golfers have wildly over-estimated the wind during a game of golf.


Ciao

[Sean Walsh]

Mark,


King Island is windier than Geelong and Moorabbin Airport but the difference isn’t stark


http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_098017.shtml
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_086077.shtml
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_087163.shtml


I played Cape Wickham in as strong a wind as I’d feel comfortable playing and it wasn’t just bearable it was still fun. I’d also bet Cape Wickham less days out of action for wind and climate than ranked courses in the NE America , Japan and other similar climates

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

I didn't see Darius complaining when it was it was in his favor. He should have complained when Joe Passov was running the show and David Smith was buying off panelists.


With that said, Cape Wickham dropping at least 40 spots to fall off the list deserves some type of explanation?  It seems almost impossible unless one of the Jones brothers did a renovation.

To be fair to Darius he was indeed VERY vocal about the previous GM regime and the corrupt goings on of Messrs Smith and JUmpin Joe.
In fact he was one of the first to support my rant on here , which ended up with a threatening phone  call from Time Warner telling me to retract my comments , he was equally appalled at behaviour back then that smelt funny.

[Adam Uttley]

I have found Muirfield, Hoylake and especially Ardfin to be far more severe and unplayable in similar winds. 

Again, that's not the issue.  There are no more than a handful of days a year when the East Lothian wind make sMuirfield unplayable.  The suggestion is that Cape Whickham has a far higher frequency of days which are unplayable.  As I understand the criticism.

The data suggests otherwise, as this excellent article from David Jones details. 

https://www.ukgolfguy.com/golf-blog/2023-golf-magazine-world-top100

Plus I don’t know how many raters take the trouble to look into frequency of wind after they’ve played it.  Some might, but it would likely be a small proportion, so as Sean says raters are judging on their own on-the-day wind experience which isn’t right.

Ardfin is also a windy site, but a lot narrower and more penal.  Yet it closes from Oct-Mar so no rater can have played it in the windier months.  Cape Wickham is open year-round; I don’t think it should be penalised for this.

I’ll re-assert that it’s fall is due to a flawed system or politics.

[Sean_A]

Mark,


King Island is windier than Geelong and Moorabbin Airport but the difference isn’t stark


http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_098017.shtml
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_086077.shtml
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_087163.shtml


I played Cape Wickham in as strong a wind as I’d feel comfortable playing and it wasn’t just bearable it was still fun. I’d also bet Cape Wickham less days out of action for wind and climate than ranked courses in the NE America , Japan and other similar climates

This is true. Nobody dinks N American courses for being shut in winter. Hell, Augusta is shut in summer because of their grass choice! It seems like there may have been an arbitrary line drawn with Cape Wickham.  As I said before, unless one has extensive experience with a course, wind shouldn't be a factor in the assessment. Much the same could said about conditioning.

Ciao

[Niall C]

Sean


Are you suggesting that if it is too windy on the day of their visit that the rater not provide a rating ?


Niall

[John Mayhugh]

With that said, Cape Wickham dropping at least 40 spots to fall off the list deserves some type of explanation?  It seems almost impossible unless one of the Jones brothers did a renovation.

This is gold.

I don't have any details, but a possible explanation for such a remote course like that could be that the raters who were naturally drawn to it were the first ones out there.  Then, over time, the rest of the raters made their way out there to make sure that it was covered. 


It seems highly unlikely that the same raters had a return visit and amended their scores downward in such a short period of time.

This is what I thought as well. One problem with a very high initial ranking - it will result in more people making their way to the course with very high expectations. This has happened with a lot of new courses - high ratings at opening aren't sustained. I've no idea if that's the case with Cape Wickham. I haven't seen the course but definitely hope to do so sometime.

The supposed motives of Ran and the panel are where Oliver gets ridiculous.

[Sean_A]

Sean


Are you suggesting that if it is too windy on the day of their visit that the rater not provide a rating ?


Niall

Not at all. But have reasonable expectations. We don’t expect parkland courses to be dry after torrential rain.


I think the simple answer about courses dropping is due to similar quality. When courses are divided by tenths of a point any minor blip can cause change on small panel. How many times have I heard that courses between 75 and 150 are interchangeable, or somethings similar. I said it before, when a new editor comes in it will take 3-5 editions to settle things down.


Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

I’m wondering if in a perverse sort of way the revised positioning of Cape Wickham in the latest Golf Mag Top-100 listing and the comments and publicity it’s attracted will actually help the number of visitors and the popularity of Cape Wickham and King Island golf generally (and given its location just up the road Ocean Dunes too)? Isn’t there a saying about all publicity being good publicity.
Atb

[Jerry Kluger]

Am I missing something here:  Is this not the same Darius Oliver who was one of the principals in the ratings given to the courses in "The Confidential Guide"? There seems to be an inherent inconsistency in his giving his ratings in a book done with two of the individuals that he is now complaining about. Should we now dismiss his evaluations in "The Confidential Guide" or should we just throw the books away?


Regarding the wind issue one could argue that a rater should not play a course in order to give an evaluation as he/she cannot see all of the critical elements of the course when concentrating on playing the course. Can a rater really evaluate a course built on a windy site if the date he plays the wind is down?

[Andrew Harvie]

Me personally, I'm not going to put much weight in an opinion from the guy whose website ranks his own golf course 10th in the world, Bandon Trails over Pinehurst No. 2, Sheep Ranch at 49th in the world over Winged Foot West, among others. He's more than welcome to trash his co-authors, I guess, but I find it extremely odd + everything Darius does, from an outside perspective, seems slimy and ill-intentioned to promote his own website/reputation/design work, etc.


I do like the sentence of "more curious is elevation of Rock Creek in Montana, a nice course that is now ranked #73 on the entire planet." That's cheeky, I enjoyed reading it (deserving at 73rd in my mind... not so much to Darius it sounds like!).

[jeffwarne]

Could it be as simple as ?


1.Australia being entirely shut down for a Loooong time during the pandemic, airfares being sky high until very recently from the hangovers of the pandemic, resulting in fewer International raters making the trek?
-an objective problem.



2.Some tabloidish issues regarding credit for who designed the course?
 -a subjective problem

[Tim Gallant]

Two things. First, raters shouldn’t be talking about wind as part of an assessment unless they have well grounded experience with the course. Many plays over all seasons. Second, should a course be dinged for being unplayable in 40 or 50 mph winds? How many of our great courses become a joke in those conditions?


Ciao

No course is playable in 40mph winds.  It's not whether the course is playable in those winds that's the issue, though.  The issue is the frequency of days where the wind is too strong to play.

Mark, attached is a photo of the anemometer in the R&A on the day we played the Old. Could you hold an Open there that day? No. But aside from a few tricky putts, I had more fun in that round than I can remember. It did settle down a bit on the back to apprx. 30mph, but seeing the course like that made me realise it truly is the greatest course in the world. Because it was so wide, and the greens so large you could actually play and have fun