New World Top 100 Courses Ranking Golf Magazine

[hollabachgt]

My comments were in response to another poster who was insinuated that Ran WAS manipulating the rankings. I was countering that comment saying that Ran's influence on the final rankings was not great enough for him to make the type statement originally insinuated. Please read the exchange again, it was the exact opposite of a cheap shot.

[LICC]

No one said he did. You are arguing with your straw man again.

[LICC]

You are missing the part of this where the new editor substantially reduced the size of the rater pool by removing a large number of people. Your percentages aren't as meaningful taking that into account.

[hollabachgt]

Find me the 2015 and 2017 lists to confirm. In 2007-2011 the rater panel was only 100 individuals.

[Chanceman]

Does anyone else get the feeling this is becoming a very circular and somewhat pointless discusson.

There are a number of people who consider that you need to have played a course to have a definitive opinion on its relative merits. For courses not played you put 2 and 2 together from rankings to work out what is worth playing. You then refine your opinion.

There are others, one in particular, who think it is quite ok to form a judgement on course rankings based on indirect sources, and then to assess the bias in those rankings. These are what I would call "armchair experts".

[Schley]

Raters for the GM ... having hard time with formatting.

 

[tboh]

Do you think that the Top rankings would be substantially different if done by "first-timers" who are not repeat raters or experts in anything but love of the game

Do you think that course reputation skews what should be true rankings

Does age skill level or gender make a difference

Do you think the spreads between #1-100 would be wider if done by "first-timers"

[LICC]

-Probably yes, but in some ways better and in other ways not.

-Yes

-Should not (although years of golfing experience does), yes, and somewhat yes

-I don’t understand the question

[tboh]

Just wonder if the differences in rankings would have a greater spread based on experiences w top tier courses ... it's really not a significant thought for most Wrxperts but i wonder if i was to go play Pine Valley then Pebble then Pinehurst then TOC would my spread between them be larger (or smaller) than the raters who have a familiarity

Dare to dream ...

[raynorfan1]

Yes but it would be worthless. If average people who loved food were ranking restaurants, McDonalds would come out on top.

[tboh]

Lolol ... prob true but i dont think mcds would be an option to rate ... anyway love the thread

[LICC]

I really hope you don’t mean this. I’ve never seen you be condescending before. The masses are too stupid to know what a good restaurant is ... ??

To bring this back to golf, the Golfadvisor website is probably the closest we have to mass public ratings, but the 5-star system they use isn’t enough to differentiate enough at the top-level of courses.

[tboh]

I guess my point was ... i dont think it matters who rates bc the top tier is the top tier ... whether its differentiated by reputation, history, location, access, affordability, architecture, condition, how you play that day, etc etc etc ill bet the changes in rank would be minute

i think it would be very interesting to see how golfers that are not "selected" as preferential raters would rank the top tier but we all know that would never happen

If i would go shoot 72 at TOC but then come to Pine Valley & shoot 89 im going to rate them differently no matter ... People are going to weigh the metrics differently ... yea what crump did hear architecturally is outstanding but screw that i took an 8 ... is that wrong? Not to me ...

Sorry for the ramble ... im going to eat my Mcmuffin now (thats a joke)

[raynorfan1]

Probably not McDonalds. But the “masses” would choose something like The Capital Grill as the “best” restaurant.

It’s true of criticism of any art form; experts are more capable of understanding the complexities of the form.

Think about it this way: Avengers: Infinity War won the People’s Choice Award as Best Movie...it was not considered for an Academy Award (except for visual effects).

[CMCSGolf]

I will say this approach is wrong if we are trying to identify the best golf courses. If we are ranking a list of great golf experiences for tboh, then taking score into it wouldn't be crazy because that obviously has an effect on your enjoyment. If we rank the best courses and you are factoring in score, then that list is not useful to anyone else. I don't think it's bad to look at a course and judge it if a player of your (or lesser) ability can't enjoy it because it's too hard or many forces carries, etc. But if you missed four 3 footers and are letting that effect your assessment of the course, we aren't really ranking courses any more.

[LICC]

The Academy awards are a good analogy. Does the best picture win most years or does the best politically marketed film among academy members win every year? I remember an article analyzing in hindsight all the best picture winners in history and making the case that over half were clearly the wrong selection. Film maker reputation, marketing, and politics distort the voting.

[raynorfan1]

Totally. But that doesn't make the Peoples Choice a better alternative.

[vallygolf]

Love this analagy: The masses arent too stupid to know what a good restaurant is, but we generally are too stupid to know what good food is. No way that the masses could discern the difference between the top `100 restaurants in the world. The sentiment that most would run to their comfort zone IMO is correct. It may not be McD's but mac and cheese is winning any preference race over bacon wrapped scallops. I just watched this exact scene play out at my office work party. Held it at a fine dining establishment and watched my youngish employees (most under 25 YO) spurn scallops, and crispy pork belly for mac and cheese.

[Shilgy]

True of the whole thread....below is your comment from the Donald Ross thread. How can you really discuss the rankings with this belief?All opinions about courses are subjective and course ratings are based on subjective standards. Whether someone believes Ross courses are overrated or not is subjective opinion.

[tiderider]

NLU Podcast, Episode 264: Playing the Top 100 Courses in the World w/ Simon Holt from No Laying Up - Golf Podcast

very, very good listen ...

 

edit: it's actually a great listen ... well worth an hour of time for a golfer that follows lists ...

 

[Roadking2003]

I think the ratings would be vastly different if done by your average golfer. Particularly if those golfers had no prior knowledge of the history and rankings.

[Roadking2003]

Experts define what is good so their opinions naturally fall in line with their definition of beauty.

When it comes to subjective evaluations like art and golf courses, expert opinions are not better. They just get more attention because they are experts.

 

As Golf Magazine said, the only opinion that matters is your own.

[Roadking2003]

The best picture always wins because "best picture" is defined by what the voters think is best picture. If the voters think the best picture award should go to the movie with the most T&A, then that is the best picture.

 

It's 100% subjective.

[LICC]

Excellent point. It would be interesting to take a range of 100 average golfers, not hackers but say 10-15 handicap golfers, and had them play the 400+ courses in the GM pool and rate them, and see how the results would differ. Likely that some courses may be rated higher just on superior conditioning and/or aesthetics and scenery. But others would likely be rated lower because history or exclusivity aren’t factored in too much as I think they are now.

[raynorfan1]

I've played a good number of the courses on the list, with a mix of other players - some "experts" in the business and a lot of "average" (10 - 15 handicap) golfers. In my experience, the "average" golfers over-weight exclusivity and history far more than the "professional" group.

[LICC]

They overweight history? Other than a handful of courses, I wouldn't think most average golfers (other than geeks like us) are familiar enough to have it skew their view. And do they overweight the exclusivity or is it the fancy look of the clubhouse, the superior conditioning, etc.?

[raynorfan1]

I guarantee you that if you ran the rankings regime as you described, Augusta National would be the #1 course by a mile.

One of the courses that I play a lot has a handful of "famous" shots in its past. The amateurs, who only know about the course from TV? They love to "try" the famous shots. The pros never do. It's not the history of the course that people know about, it's the history of the famous moments in tournament golf that skew "average" golfers' view of the course.

[LICC]

I would think those courses aren't more than a very small handful, and more based on their current fame. If the average golfers played Myopia, I don't think the fact it hosted 4 US Opens a hundred years ago would factor into their ratings. The fact that Bobby Jones won a US Open at Interlachen wouldn't cause an overrating by average golfers, I don't think. Now If either course for some reason got into the regular rotation again, it would probably have an effect because of current exposure.

[Roadking2003]

"Skew" meaning to get it right? If 100 average golfers would rate ANGC #1 by a mile, then it is the best course in the world.

[Roadking2003]

I've done quite a few golf trips and after each one I ask all of the participants to rank the courses we played. The group usually ranges from 4 to 14 cappers and most are retired. They frequently rank the courses much different from how the "experts" rank courses. I think that's because we are there to have fun and whatever contributes to having fun at a course is good. None of the group could give a rats azz about Doak's architecture books. If good architecture doesn't contribute to enjoying the course, then it's useless.

For example, here is how we (ten golfers) ranked the courses on a recent trip. No instructions were given on what to consider for the ranking.

Cabot LinksFox Harb'rCabot CliffsLinks at BrunelloOnly one out of ten ranked Cabot Cliffs as #1, and seven out of ten ranked Cabot Links as #1. The "experts" would go ballistic to see us rank Fox Harb'r above Cabot Cliffs.