New World Top 100 Courses Ranking Golf Magazine

[CMCSGolf]

Ok, if I understand you correctly, you don't like the results of the this group of subjective opinions, so you would like to have a different group of subjective opinions create the list that has a different perspective?

Even if Golf magazine doesn't publish a defines criteria, I'm sure if you asked any of the raters they would be able to tell you what they think is good or bad, which may or may not align with someone else. If you can't describe the quality of a good course does that mean a random muni in the middle of nowhere is equivalent to Augusta? Gary Player has said golf courses shouldn't be ranked, so that opinion is out there.

[jjr]

I'm in agreement that older historical tracks are getting the nod in this ranking.

I will state up front I'm a huge Alister fan, with that being said, I've been lucky enough to play #2 CPC more then 2 dozen times, IMO it is overrated. ( top 15 IMO) of the 100 courses listed I've only been able to play 13 of them.

From all I've read and pic's I've seen P.V. deserves #1 , I have only played 5 other courses in the top 30 (Pebble,Ballybunion,Pacific Dunes, Riviera & SF)

I do tend to appreciate the historic courses more then the new ones and if I had to pick 4 courses from the top 30 I haven't played they would be Crystal Downs,Augusta,Merion &P.V. in order.

I have to mention my appreciation for the older courses has to do with the beautiful bunkering, my favorite current designer is Coore & Crenshaw. ( I am US biased too, haven't traveled out of the states much but Waterville was my favorite in Ireland, didn't get up north or that may have changed)

 

[LICC]

I don’t want a singular set of subjective opinions common among a group in either direction. I want a group of raters with broad perspectives.

[hollabachgt]

you don’t want a singular set of subjective opinions common among a group in either direction. you want a group of raters with your perspective.

you clearly don't agree, but It does not appear that raters on this panel are narrow. They have viewed a tremendous range of courses at all corners of the world. The swings in rankings from year to year are is also representative of a rater base who's view is every evolving. People may be freaking out that Augusta National fell, but isn't that a good sign that no course is fixed and safe?

 

[LICC]

It clearly appears that the new ratings panel is greatly aligned with the style preferences of the new editor. You must be blind to not see that. I want a broad view incorporating varied preferences.

[hollabachgt]

How do you know that the panel is entirely new and not just the editor?

What about the makeup of this years top 100 is dramatically different than the 2017 top 100, or the 2015 top 100?

I would have hoped that the graph I posted a couple of times would have illustrated that the general make up of the top 100 does not change all that much from year to year. Of course as you've shows a lack of reading comprehension youself, all of this probably is just simply flying over your head.

[LICC]

And another one who just throws out personal insults when losing an argument.

Not all the panelists are new. There are some new ones and they cut a large number. Try reading the magazine before posting- the editor himself writes how the rankings took a dramatic shift this year.

[hollabachgt]

You've been tossing insults at me for pages, I hand one back and you get your panties in a bunch?

Since I'm so daft at reading, how about you help me out and share with me links about the change over in the panel and the "dramatic"shift in the rankings.

But I'd rather hear from YOU, where do YOU see the top 100 being dramatically different this year from 2017, and 2015?

[LICC]

I never once made a personal insult.

Buy the magazine, or even read the online pieces. There may be some more in the print version but I think the key write-ups are online too.

[medicoreMAgolfer]

I've tried to stay out of this back and forth, but two thoughts

Fazio and Nicklaus built the bulk of their golf courses in an era where real estate development and sale was the primary function of golf course construction. Almost by definition, those types of golf courses will not appear on these lists. With 80+ international raters, who on average have rated 191 courses and have played 69 top 100 courses, I feel like we're getting good depth of evaluationIF you do want to claim bias, though, there is one thing that was interesting - raters were given a list of ~430 courses to evaluate. I doubt that list excluded any courses that would have jumped up into the top 100, but maybe there was a hidden gem Fazio or Nicklaus course that was never even on the broader list to start

[LICC]

To be clear, I am not questioning the qualifications of the raters. I’m arguing against the lack of sufficient variety in style preference.

[Malvern]

I think its inevitable in a panel like this that you end up with some type of "group think" or a couple of differing camps rather than a whole bunch of disparate opinions. I don't actually think this is a bad thing.

As a rater its likely that someone else on the panel has seen more and perhaps has a more nuanced view of a course you love/hate. Unless you are going to stick rigidly to your belief and not listen to other input it may be that over time you are swayed by others, again for me, not a bad thing as we are trying to distill "great".

[LICC]

It doesn’t sound like they all get into a room and discuss it and vote. These people are scattered all over the world.

[Roadking2003]

Yes, the raters are narrow. Just look at the results.

 

[Roadking2003]

Exactly. You can manipulate the results by selecting the raters that agree with you.

[Roadking2003]

"My view (FWIW) is that it's their magazine, they can create whatever criteria they want. Personally, I think their view of "great" is too narrow and monotonous for my taste, but I'm not offended that they have different preferences than I do."

 

Raynor, I agree. I'm not offended by the list but I do recognize that their criteria is very limited. Most of us rate golf courses based on much different criteria. Millions of golfers enjoy the courses Morrissett has shunned more than the courses he names as the best.

 

Every "best in the world" list is subjective. Morrissett's list is just more aligned with his limited bias than most other lists.

 

 

[Schley]

They didn't get together to rate, they filled out the survey individually and I think that has more validity for no one was able to sway any opinions. It's like when the police interview witnesses, they don't do it together, they do it separately to get unvarnished and independent perspectives. I think that is a major positive, not a negative. I also like the make up of the panel quite well which fits my taste for golf courses.

Also we are talking Top 100 in the World, not USA so theoretically this will be the Top 79 next year with 21 more to be announced.

 

1/1 Pine Valley

2/2 Cypress Point Club

3/4 Shinnecock Hills Golf Club

4/5 National Golf Links of America

5/8 Oakmont Country Club

6/9 Augusta National Golf Club

7/11 Pebble Beach Golf Links

8/14 Sand Hills Golf Club

9/15 Merion Golf Club

10/16 Pinehurst Country Club

11/18 Fishers Island Club

12/19 Chicago Golf Club

13/20 Los Angeles Country Club

14/23 Winged Foot Golf Club

15/24 Pacific Dunes

16/25 Crystal Downs Country Club

17/26 Friar's Head

18/28 Riviera Country Club

19/30 San Francisco Golf Club

20/31 Prairie Dunes Country Club

21/34 Seminole Golf Club

22/38 The Country Club

23/42 Somerset Hills Country Club

24/45 Shoreacres

25/47 Garden City Golf Club

26/49 Southern Hills Country Club

27/50 California Golf Club of San Francisco

28/52 Camargo Club

29/53 Bethpage Black

30/57 Ballyneal

31/58 Kiawah Island (Ocean)

32/62 Winged Foot (East)

33/64 Maidstone Club

34/68 TPC Sawgrass

35/69 Whistling Straits

36/72 Oakland Hills Country Club

37/74 Quaker Ridge Golf Club

38/76 Sleepy Hollow Country Club

39/79 Olympic Club

40/80 Bandon Dunes

41/81 Inverness Club

42/83 Course At Yale

43/84 The Golf Club (OH)

44/85 Muirfield Village Golf Club

45/87 Bandon Trails

46/91 Peachtree Golf Club

47/92 Myopia Hunt Club

48/98 Ohoopee Match Club

49/99 Rock Creek Cattle Company NEXT 50

50-100Baltusrol (Lower)

50-100Baltusrol (Upper)

50-100Bandon (Old Macdonald)

50-100Bel-Air

50-100Congaree

50-100Eastwood Ho!

50-100Essex County Club

50-100Harbour Town

50-100Kittansett Club

50-100Lawsonia (Links)

50-100Mid Ocean

50-100Monterey Peninsula (Shores)

50-100Moraine

50-100Oak Hill (East)

50-100Old Sandwich

50-100Old Town Club

50-100Pasatiempo

50-100Pikewood National

50-100Piping Rock

50-100Plainfield Country

50-100Ridgewood CC (West/East)

50-100Sand Valley

50-100Spyglass Hill

50-100Streamsong (Red)

50-100The Creek Club

50-100Valley Club of Montecito

50-100Wade Hampton

50-100White Bear Yacht Club

50-100Wolf Point

50-100Yeamans Hall

[FairwayFred]

Except that every rater for Golf Magazine determines their own criteria so how do you know that "most of us" rate courses using different criteria? The other rankings have set criteria that they use wouldn't that make each of their criteria more limited than the Golf Magazine by definition?

 

What exactly do you base this statement on:

"Millions of golfers enjoy the courses Morrissett has shunned more than the courses he names as the best."

Have you polled millions of golfers on their thoughts on the subject? Can you share your findings with us? You act like this list is severely different than it used to be or than other lists out there and thats just not true.

 

Also you continue to seem to ascribe sinister motives behind Ran Morissette and how he is running the list. You have used terms like "shunned", "limited bias", "agenda" in just the last 2 pages of this thread. Can you please tell us what you believe his hidden and sinister agenda is? Is it possible he just has his opinion on what makes a course great and that's maybe different from yours rather than whatever sinister motivation that you think is behind his actions? Have you ever met the man and do you know anything about him aside from his GCA affiliation?

[FairwayFred]

Maybe someone should do a list of best courses by architect. Then you could pick the ones you like and go from there.

[FairwayFred]

Keeping on the topic of rankings in general, how do people feel about the Golf Week list that is broken into Classic and Modern courses. Do you find this more helpful? Do you think it helps remove bias?

 

Every time one of these lists comes out bias is always one of the main discussions and it's usually about modern v older courses. Is splitting them up the best way to deal with that?

[Schley]

Fred,

 

Good topic. I don't mind the Golfweek list at all. The main reason I even reference lists is to decide which courses to play when I travel and in general they do identify the best courses in an area. If you look at any city/state and ranked the courses of that state you could be fairly close to which ones are the best. Where the debate happens is when looking at the USA or UK or world as a whole, which ones would rank over others.

 

I like the discussion as long as we understand there are multiple methods and mine isn't the best to anyone except me.

[Schley]

top100golfcourses.com is the only one that does this and I really like that feature as I don't think any other place does. It is a great way to look at an architects body of work. The debatable who gets credit is not defined well however.

[LICC]

I never implied the way they collect the survey is a negative. I was responding to a comment that members of the panel can sway one another during the voting process and how I think that it wouldn’t work that way. I’m guessing the bias comes with how the editor changed the makeup of the panel in the first place, which resulted in rankings biased to his style preferences. This is his first year doing this and I hope in future years he continues to grow the number of raters and brings on more people with varied perspectives to make this less skewed to particular style preferences

[LICC]

But this isn’t the Ran Morrisset Top 100 World Golf Course Ranking. This is the Golf Magazine Top 100 Ranking. I like that he changed the standards for being a rater and it’s fine if he ensures that his preferred style preferences get due consideration, but he should take care to ensure that the rankings don’t overly skew the other way either

[Schley]

Acutally yes it is Ran Morrisett's rankings.

You have GM, GD, top100golfcourses, others in the ratings game. GM has made a turn (IMO for the better) to have their editor (Ran) change their rankings. Someone has to manage the process and be responsible and Ran is a wonderful person to do so. The idea that you need more than 80 people who are subject matter experts I don't necessarily agree with, I don't know there are 80 people in the world whose rankings I trust. I'd rather it shrink to be honest with you. It isn't the end all be all, you have other rankings you have refer to who have criteria you may like more. I love the change GM has made and brought it closer to a view of someone who I have the utmost trust in (Ran). Change is hard for many so critisicm is part of that. I embrace the process they have started and excited for more commentary/features around their direction. Others may not and that is their choice. I'm not recruiting people to have to agree with me, for in the end my opinion is the only one that matters to me. The public will let GM know if this is embraced or not, but I for one am in the I love the change camp.

[Schley]

You call it bias and I call it more accurate. Rating golf courses is rating art, there are some courses that are masterpieces, the top 100 rankings is trying to identify the masterpieces not how all 30,000 golf courses in the world rank from 1-30,000. In football you have coaches who select their players, I don't have to wonder if a player on the Patriots is a good player, my quality assurance is that Bill Belichick thinks so and bets his team's success on that player. Good enough for me.

[FairwayFred]

And it isn't Ran Morriset Top 100. It's based on an entire panels opinion and I'm sure Rans personal Top 100 would look quite a bit different. Look, Golf Magazine hired him to do a job and that's what he has done. It's not like he was an unknown to GM when he was hired. I'm sure they knew his views on courses and I'd have to imagine it's one of the reasons that he was given the position.

[FairwayFred]

How about this question. Is this and all other major world rankings biased towards courses in the USA?

[Chanceman]

It is what it is - who really cares - and does it matter? Old courses were here first and are rightly revered. New courses have to be better to succeed and so have to try new ideas. Some of those stick, some dont. We move on. Far too much hot air. We all have a different opinion but St Andrews is not going to lose popularty because some online amateur golf course nerds beg to differ. Nor will Oakmont or Pebble Beach or Ballybunion. Golfweek, Golf Digest, Golf Mag, Choose which shade of vanilla you like.

[Malvern]

The golf world is Golf world is pretty small, who knows a heap of them might be on a forum that's not WRX. We have just got email in Australia so they might be communicating via that medium.