New World Top 100 Courses Ranking Golf Magazine

[CMCSGolf]

Why would those courses not have been built? Courses built with the necessity of carts were built to sell real estate, not golf carts. You can take almost every cart course and build something similar on way less land. I never said you shouldn't use a cart, I said courses that are designed where you can only use a cart are automatically excluded from this list because of what they prefer. Hence, fewer post WW2 courses.

[Chanceman]

Your own opinions are welcome if you have any basis for them such as having played the course. But I'm sorry quoting the Facebook opinions of people who are everyday readers of Today's Golf are not what I would call serious contributions to this debate. Otherwise I will just quote Bobby Jones' opinions on the Old Course to you. Or Padraig Harrington who I heard recently say how strange it was that the oldest course, St Andrews, is still the best course. Or Tom Doak if you like.

[LICC]

The Golf Monthly editors were quoted. You seem to think anyone who has played the course must have the same opinion as you.

[Roadking2003]

They would not have been built because they would be very unattractive to golfers if there were no carts. Lots of courses are on land that would be very difficult to walk. Without carts, a few million golfers would not play and therefore the demand for courses would be much lower.

 

 

 

[Chanceman]

No, I just think to have an opinion on a golf course you need to have played it. But if you want others' opinions to help you I would ask those who have played it rather than golf journalists or their readers.

[FairwayFred]

Amen to this.

People that post opinions on courses they have not played crack me up.

[LICC]

You aren’t seeming to understand that I posted opinions of people who played the course. Some of whom make their living covering golf. And it sounds like @Roadking2003 has played it and his opinion strongly differs.

[FairwayFred]

Minimalism has virtually nothing to do with trees. There are plenty of courses that Coore/Crenshaw or Doak built that have plenty of trees (the ones built on sites that naturally have trees). They aren't going to plant a bunch of trees on a course built on a treeless site like a Sand Hills or Pacific Dunes but to say that they are "riding a wave of treeless is better" is a ridiculous thing to say and not at all based in reality.

[FairwayFred]

You aren't seeming to understand that I'm making a general statement not necessarily talking to you. I think anyone that has a set opinion about a course they haven't seen or played is completely ridiculous and it always makes me laugh.

I'm not talking specifically about St. Andrews I'm talking about every course. I'd agree with those that say TOC isn't worthy of being the 3rd best course in the world. I only have 2 rounds on it almost 10 years ago but I spend ALOT of time in Scotland and my desire to play elsewhere is stronger than my desire to return to TOC so I haven't been back since. That might change in 2020 we will see.

[LICC]

The more I looked into it, the more interesting it is how polarizing the Old Course has been for decades. You can go back to Bernard Darwin and see the same discussion that we are having now.

[Schley]

In general taking a forest and cutting down some trees isn't going to work, because the grass won't get the air circulation and sun it needs to thrive, thus it does play a part to a certain extent, but not part of minimalism. It is just needed for building a course that has good grass. Doak tore down a forest to "find" Tara Iti. If you look at even the classic courses, very few were heavily treed. Many had trees planted over the years and encroached on the original design and went unchecked for years as people think trees are good and don't take them out. Yes they are, but not necessarily for golf courses in large numbers.

[FairwayFred]

Yes this is true. Most of the classic tree lined parkland courses you find in the Midwest and east coast were not nearly as heavily treed when they were originally built.

[hollabachgt]

The Golf Magazine rankings have always skewed to pre-war courses. This is nothing new. In 2017 48 of the top 100 were build between 1900 and 1940 and that was the lowest count since 1985. For most of the 90's, that count was up to 57 golden age courses.

[LICC]

And it looks like the rankings have swung even more to an old course bias with the new editor. There actually are 78 US courses of the 150 in this recent ranking. Sebonack is not one of the top 78 courses in the US?

[hollabachgt]

It appears there are 49 courses in the top 100 built between 1900 and 1940 in this years rankings, so only 1 more than 2017. I would not say that is a substantial swing, especially considering from 1987-2003 that number never dropped below 55.

it seems more like you’re trying to push a personal agenda vs really looking at historical trends and evaluation. At the end of the day these rankings are worth only the cost of the ink to print them on the page.

[LICC]

You should make sure you are not completely wrong about your facts before making a snide remark. 72 of the 100 courses in this year’s ranking were built before 1948. The only ones of those 72 built after 1937 were Peachtree and 9 holes of Prairie Dunes.

I have no agenda whatsoever. I have an opinion that the rankings have a fundamental flaw of bias favoring the old courses.

[hollabachgt]

 

[LICC]

Really? You didn’t even look at the courses? This isn’t subjective. Just open the article and look at the courses. 71 of the 100 built before 1940.

[hollabachgt]

In both of my replies I defined my range of interest as the golden era, from 1900-1940. This was the greatest area of my focus and the period of time with the highest concentration of courses represented in the rankings. I was not snide, I was not insulting, if you took it that way that I'd suggest you take a step back from something as trivial as a publications rankings.

I did look back at the rankings since Golf Magazine began publishing them in 1979, 27 courses have appeared on the rankings every year they've been published. When the list was expanded from 50-100 in 1985 another 20 courses have been on the list since. So nearly 1/2 of the current rankings have been there for the past 35 years. Of the following courses, which ones should be removed from the top 100? What would you replace them with?Since 1979

Pine Valley, Cypress Point, St. Andrews Links-Old, Shinnecock Hills, Royal County Down, Royal Melbourne-West or Comp, Oakmont, Augusta National, Pebble Beach, Muirfield, Merion-East, Pinehurst-#2, Trump Turnberry-Ailsa, Ballybunion-Old, Winged Foot-West, Riviera, Carnoustie-Championship, Royal St. George's, Seminole, Hirono, Royal Birkdale, Portmarnock, Southern Hills, Royal Troon-Old, Oakland Hills-South, Olympic-Lake, Muirfield VillageSince 1983

Prairie Dunes, Woodhall Spa-Hotchkin, Los Angeles-North, Quaker Ridge, Casa de Campo-Teeth of the Dog, The Golf Club, Royal Portrush-Dunluce, TPC Sawgrass-Stadium, Sunningdale-OldSince 1985

Kingston Heath, Inverness, San Francisco, National Golf Links, Royal Liverpool, The Country Club-Main or Composite, Chicago, Somerset Hills, Walton Heath-Old, Maidstone, Garden City

 

[az2au]

After playing over so many different courses in 30 countries the thing I’ve learned is that I never know for sure what I’ll like. If I had to guess though, I’d say that older courses are under-represented instead of over. If you knew me at all you’d know that I think nearly everything new is better in all aspects of life. I can’t thing of a single other type of thing where o prefer old over new but I always seem to love older courses. I’m guessing one of the reasons is I really struggle to appreciate any course where I cannot walk but it is true regardless.

 

As to the Old, the first time I played it I thought it was mediocre. After playing it another 10+ times it is one of my favorite places in the world. I’ve seen it in all conditions and realize how brilliant it is. I totally get how someone playing a couple of times, especially in calm conditions, doesn’t think that much of it. I feel like if it were only the history of the place I would have loved it right away.

 

[hollabachgt]

It appears my last reply is in approval hell. But if you look at my previous comments I defined the range of 1900-1940.

 

Also, how do you think I generated the graph if I hadn’t looked at the rankings?

[Malvern]

Figure I must represent some of the new bias as two of my favourite places to play, Cal Club (+23) and Somerset Hills (+33) are significant movers up the list. I'm also happy (it's the wrong word) to see Pebble out of the top 10. These ratings "disputes" go on forever and presumably that's why they are published.

We had a big trip to Scotland/NW England and East Coast US recently, none of us could agree on rating criteria, the best we got to for purposes of differentiation was where would you like to play a couple of times a year vs where would you be a member. I would not be a member at Turnberry, Shinnecock or Oakmont but would certainly rank them high in the play category.

[LICC]

There are 71 courses of the 100 in the current ranking that were built before 1940. Not 55 or whatever number you keep insisting on.

[CMCSGolf]

Once again, in my post I did not say carts should not exist. I stated that this ranking has a preference for courses where carts are not mandatory, which they are for many courses built in the last 6 decades and that could explain the preference for older courses. You don't need a cart to play Shinnecock and I grant that there are people who cannot walk and a cart allows them to play. Housing development courses that require carts are not friendly to walkers in the same way walking courses can be friendly to carts. I'll let you have the last work on this and won't be engaging with you further, since It seems like you're deliberately misreading my posts.

[LICC]

Ok, so you are excluding pre-1900 courses for this discussion. How does that relate to a discussion on older course bias?

[LICC]

Upon quick glance, remove Oakland Hills, Inverness, Olympic, Garden City

[raynorfan1]

And replace with....?

Sebonack, I could see.

Shadow Creek, maybe.

[LICC]

Sure, those two. Or Punta Espada, Wade Hampton, Kingsley, Boston GC

[Schley]

So you have played these courses then to make a determination of their exclusion/inclusion?

I have played 2 of them and one of them I would agree for excluding, the other I can't see how you can exclude it. I try to refrain from commenting much about courses I haven't played/seen, but when I do I refer to TCG as a good opinion.

[LICC]

Or on the Next 50 list, Baltusrol (both courses), Lawsonia, Moraine, Creek Club, and Old Town Club.

Not on the list: Sebonack, Shadow Creek, Punta Espada, Wade Hampton, Kingsley, Boston GC, Mayacama, Dismal River, Chambers Bay, Manele, Erin Hills, Makai, Alotian, Victoria National