A Few Rambling Golf Digest Ranking Thoughts...

/
  • I know I say this every time, but it's very hard to get past Medinah No. 3 as the 11th best course in America, ahead of Sand Hills, National Golf Links, Fishers Island, and Pinehurst. You can find more subtly, character and nuance in one hole than Medinah has in all 18. There's a reason Medinah has constantly been under construction (and surely will be again someday soon.)
  • The GolfClubAtlas gang is perplexed by Riviera's drop to No. 61, from 47th in 2005 and somewhere in the mid-20s in 2003. Apparently they've forgotten that a certain architect has treated George Thomas's masterful design like a Rottweiler treats a fire hydrant? Is this really that difficult to understand?

  • San Francisco Golf Club drops six spots after a restrained, first-class restoration by Tom Doak and crew? Depressing.

ratingcriteria.gif

  • Of the courses leaving the list (box left), Crooked Stick is the only surprise. More stunning is the continued exclusion of Baltimore Country Club (Five Farms) and Eastward Ho!  Resistance to Scoring has to be killing those two.
  • Speaking of the most ridiculous of all architectural evaluation categories, check out the bottom ten of 2007's top 100 in resistance to scoring: Laurel Valley, Kittansett, Estancia, Camargo, Maidstone, Milwaukee, Sage Valley, Sanctuary, Shoreacres, and Valley Club. Four of those courses would rate in the all-time most fun (they're in bold, in case there was any doubt). I'd consider each a model for ideal design. They're walkable, fun, quirky, enjoyable for all and filled with just enough nuance to keep a good player honest.
  • Ron Whitten writes: "In just the past two years, a number of former 100 Greatest courses have undergone major remodeling programs, including Atlanta Athletic Club, Bel-Air, Bellerive, Jupiter Hills, Oak Tree and Stanwich (Golf Digest's Best New Remodel of 2006). All that these courses need now are the minimum 40 panelist evaluations to qualify for reconsideration on the 100 Greatest."  Bel-Air undergoing major remodeling the last two years? Try the last forty!  

  • Ron Whitten writes: "The lesson for contenders and pretenders: If you're not improving, you're probably not moving. Not onto America's 100 Greatest, at least."  Now, I'm all for the restoration movement and blowing up dogs like Bellerive, but is constant improvement a message that needs to be sent?  Thoughts?

What Tree Management Can Do For You...

/
Bradley Klein on Augusta National's drop in the Golfweek Top 100 Classic Course ranking :
 The biggest news this year is that the country's most prominent championship venue has lost valuable ground. After years of renovation and modernization designed to keep Augusta National a fresh test for the Masters, the storied 1933 co-design by Alister MacKenzie and Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones today clings to a spot among the very elite, having fallen seven spots in the last year to No. 10.

It's a rating that folks at most courses would die for. But for students of architecture (including our team of 410 raters), the slide is what happens when a prominent course stretches and narrows itself contrary to its original design intent. In an era when virtually every other championship course is removing trees to recapture interesting angles of play, Augusta National in Augusta, Ga., (joined only by Atlanta's East Lake Golf Club, which dropped from No. 48 to No. 52) is that rare classic layout that's still planting them.

The two newcomers to the Classic list, No. 82 Eastward Ho! Country Club in Chatham, Mass. and No. 83 Engineers Club in Roslyn, N.Y., both got there through sustained restoration programs that included greens recapture, putting back lost bunkers and sustained tree management.

Golfweek's 2007 Rankings

/

I got my first look at the Golfweek Top 100 (not posted online). Obviously it was hard not to giggle at the site of Augusta National dropping from 3rd to 10th (Dr. MacKenzie, Bobby Jones and every other golfer with use of their eyes has been wondering what took so long). It was also great to see Herbert Fowler's Eastward Ho! finally get the recognition it deserves by making the list, though this essentially ends its reign as the best kept secret in America.

On the modern side, Rustic Canyon is somehow hanging on at No. 100 in spite of well, we won't go there.  Not making the list was Erin Hills, the new Hurdzan-Fry-Whitten design outside of Milwaukee. Golfweek's Brad Klein obviously didn't give it a very high score:

Errant Hills Award: Erin Hills, Hartford, Wisc. A much-ballyhooed new co-design of Golf Digest architecture editor Ron Whitten and professional designers Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry. Too bad it opened a season early in late 2006, though inadequate fescue turf cover is the least of this sprawling daily fee’s problems. The U.S. Golf Association heralds it as a likely future U.S. Open site, but the routing is a mess, in large part because Whitten insisted on moving no dirt at all – thereby taking trendy “minimalism” to its absurd extreme. The raw site is great, but half a dozen holes are inexcusably awkward and much of the bunkering is overexcavated and unmaintainable. The 593-yard par-5 10th hole offers a blind, fall away Biarritz green; the short par-4 second putting surface ends before it begins; and the completely blind par-3 seventh “Dell Hole” plays up and over to the bottom of a vast taco shell. They should have thought “inside the bun” on this one.

2006 Golf Digest Best New

/

Golf Digest unveils its latest Best New Courses awards, and a couple of things stand out.

After a decade of using a $50 green fee to separate affordable from upscale public courses, we believe an increase to $75 reflects the economic landscape of the times.

Sheesh, couldn't even raise it to $60?

No major embarrassments like last year's award of a Best New Remodel to a former Best New Course Award winner, though the panel gives longtime Top 100 course Stanwich the Best New Remodel. And since Tom Fazio did the work, the course is setting itself up nicely for another Best New Remodel award in ten years.

Here's the best new private list, the best new upscale public list, the best new affordable list, and the best new Canadian courses.

The Music Ranking Has Arrived...

/

musickennyg.jpgI know you've been wondering if Marty Roe is finally going to get the recognition he deserves. Well it seems so!

Check out Golf Digest's latest list, their top 100 musicians, or at least, people who play instruments and golf. That doesn't guarantee you've heard of them.

However they did okay by putting Lloyd Cole on there at #11. Especially since he just loves rankings of all kinds. And he's only ten spots behind the Coltrane of my generation, Kenny G.  That's Steve Coltrane of Macon's very own Lou E. Armstrong Band.

Golfweek's Best New 2006

/
Golfweek unveils it's 2006 list of best new courses...from 2004-05. The top 10:
1. Bandon Trails
Bandon, Ore.
Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw, 2005

2. Old Sandwich Golf Club
Plymouth, Mass.
Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw, 2004

3. Trump National Golf Club
Bedminster, N.J.
Tom Fazio, 2004

4. Lakota Canyon Ranch Golf Club
New Castle, Colo.
Jim Engh, 2005

5. Boston Golf Club
Hingham, Mass.
Gil Hanse, 2005

6. Forest Creek Golf Club – North Course
Southern Pines, N.C.
Tom Fazio, 2005

7. Pronghorn Club – Nicklaus Course
Bend, Ore.
Jack Nicklaus, 2004

8. May River Course at Palmetto Bluff
Bluffton, S.C.
Jack Nicklaus, 2004

9. Stone Eagle Golf Club
Palm Desert, Calif.
Tom Doak, 2005

10. The Territory
Duncan, Okla.
Randy Heckenkemper, 2005

Golfweek's America's Best

/

A more readable version of the latest Golfweek ranking is available online. Here is Brad Klein's summary. This link will take you to the Top 100 Modern and the Top 100 Classic. And here is the State-by-State public access list.

Notable moves on the Classic list:

 3. (4) Augusta National - Wow, amazing how many panelists get there each year to see the changes!
 10. (13) Prairie Dunes Country Club - Dave Axland bunker work must be going over nicely...
 11. (14) Chicago Golf Club - Restoration work and Walker Cup pay off...
 13. (10) Pinehurst No. 2 - USGA setup taking away some of the fun and sandy charm?
 17. (19) Oakland Hills Country Club (South) - And yet it's going under the knife...
 28. (30) Plainfield Country Club - The same year Golf Digest inexplicably drops it from the list...
 33. (50) Pasatiempo Golf Club - Restoration by Team Doak is going over nicely...
 34. (58) Congressional Country Club (Blue) - Look what hosting the Booz Allen can do...
 78. (84) Bel-Air Country Club - Someone likes that blinding white sand...
 90. (NR) Atlantic City Country Club* - Ultra exclusive course finally gets enough votes 

Newcomers to the Modern list:

>> No. 17: Bandon Trails, Bandon, Ore. Coore and Crenshaw
>> No. 31: Old Sandwich Golf Club, Plymouth, Mass. Coore and Crenshaw
>> No. 39: Briggs Ranch Golf Club, San Antonio. Tom Fazio
>> No. 41: Monterey Peninsula Country Club (Shore Course), Pebble Beach, Calif. Mike Strantz
>> No. 44: Trump National Golf Cub, Bedminster, N.J. Tommy Fazio and "The Donald"
>> No. 46: Lakota Canyon, New Castle, Colo. Jim Engh
>> No. 49: Boston Golf Club, Hingham, Mass. Gil Hanse
>> No. 51: Black Rock, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Jim Engh
>> No. 67: Whisper Rock (Lower Course), Scottsdale, Ariz. Gary Stephenson/Phil Mickelson
>> No. 68: Forest Creek Golf Club (North Course), Southern Pines, N.C. Tom Fazio
>> No. 71: Pronghorn (Nicklaus Course), Bend, Ore. Jack Nicklaus
>> No. 83: Sage Valley Golf Club, Graniteville, S.C. Tom Fazio
>> No. 99: Seven Canyons, Sedona, Ariz. Routing by Ken Kavanaugh, the rest by Tom Weiskopf
>> No. 100: May River Course at Palmetto Bluffs, Bluffton, S.C.  Jack Nicklaus

 

Peper: I "created a monster"

/

ShadowsM06_0.gifFormer Golf Magazine editor George Peper's latest mea culpa comes in the form of a cover story lead in the new Links:

Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time. The magazine got great publicity and sold more ads and copies, and I was proud of our biennial list, the first to rank courses from one to 100. Over time, however, I came to realize I’d created a monster.
...
Among golfers, we’ve seen the spawning of a new species: the conspicuous course collector, whose life mission is to play as many of the Top 100 as possible. Then there is the subspecies, the conspicuous club joiner, who collects Top 100 memberships as if they were bag tags—which essentially they are.

This wretched excess would be harmless if not for two problems. First, the lists are inherently flawed. No matter how experienced and knowledgeable, a selection panel will not—cannot—get the ratings right, simply because there is no “right.” Rankings are no more than a collective guess, an objective average of subjective opinions.
And... 
The GOLF panel also includes public relations execs, resort owners, tour operators, photographers, writers and others with close links to courses. The last I knew, all these conflict-of-interest votes counted.
Uh George, you left out the multiple USGA staffers to. Well at least you are mentioning the rest now! Continue...
I have little knowledge of the Golf Digest panel, except that it includes more than 800 low-handicap golfers, whose identities, unlike GOLF’s panelists, are kept anonymous. With a group that size, some raters inevitably will be more knowledgeable and responsible than others. I’m also not sure whether all low handicappers may be able to judge the capacity of a course to be enjoyed by all levels of player.

Amen to this...

The second weakness of the rankings is more important. The magic number—100—is simply too small. There are more than 30,000 courses in the world; to celebrate only 100 is ludicrous. Hell, there are 100 great courses within a three-hour drive of Manhattan!

Page 2 includes his list of the ten most overrated. Shockingly, none were designed by good buddy Rees Jones!

Best New Remodel of a Best New

/

The envelope please...

The first ever winner of the unofficial Golf Digest Best New-Best New Remodel (that's a renovation of a former Best New winner) goes to...Colleton River, where Jack Nicklaus recently remodeled his 1993 Golf Digest Best New Private Course winner.

Colleton River placed 4th on this year's inaugural Best New Remodel list, so Nicklaus edged out his 7th place remodel of Loxahatchee, the 1985 Best New Private winner that also apparently required an overhaul despite the Golf Digest panel's initial euphoria.

Word is that in early 2025, Jack will re-install the dreaded chocolate drop mounds he just took out at Loxahatchee, and the course will have a chance to win 2026's first ever, Best New-Best New-Best New Remodel.

Early prediction: Pelican Hill, a 1992 Best New winner currently under renovation, is a lock to win the 2007 Best New-Best New Remodel.


2005 Golf Digest Best New Awards

/

The 2005 Golf Digest Best New Course awards are now posted online.

Here's Ron Whitten's write up explaining the year of firsts (hint, you may wonder if only Midwest raters voted this year).

Here's the Best New Private article and list where Fazio's Alotian Club edged out Lohman and Benkusky's Canyata and Hanse's Boston GC.

Here's the Best New Upscale article and list where Brauer's The Wilderness at Fortune Bay edged out Lohman/Benkusky's Mattaponi Springs GC and DeVries's Marquette GC.

Here's the Best New Affordable article and list where Hurdzan's Bully Pulpit edged out Walker's Arrowhead Pointe at Richard B. Russell (!?) and Hills' and Forrest's Eagle Ridge.

Here's the Best New Canadian article and list where Cooke and Carleton's Dakota Dunes edged out Hurdzan and Fry's Georgian Bay Club.

And finally, the inaugural Best New Remodel article and list, where Silva's restoration of Brookside edged out Strantz's remodel of Monterey Peninsula Shore.