Golf, Golf Digest Present Peculiar "Best New Course" Awards

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As the golf industry no longer churns out courses or even sees consistency in the renovation market, Golf and Golf Digest struggle to present their annual year-end "Best New" awards with any consistency. Or logic.

Golf's is an odd list given the international courses few in its U.S.-based readership will play. Then there is the blessing of Streamsong Black as the year's "best new course of the year" and Sand Valley as the year's "best new course you can play." Even though Streamsong is a resort you very much can play, with the Black opening in September.

The Golf categories:

BEST NEW COURSE YOU CAN PLAY

BEST NEW COURSE OF THE YEAR

BEST NEW PRIVATE COURSE/INTERNATIONAL COURSE

RENOVATION OF THE YEAR

BEST NEW COURSE YOU CAN PLAY (HONORABLE MENTION)

SPECIAL CITATION: Spectacular New Short Courses

Congratulations to all who won, even though we don't know why or who picked you under what criteria.

Golf Digest's categories appear to make a little more sense, though what is presented ultimately is pretty confusing.

In 2014Gamble Sands was deemed the best new course in America.

In 2015, Golf Digest acknowledged 10 best new courses, 10 best remodels that somehow couldn’t find space for Winged Foot East, where the restoration work re-opened in 2015 has been lauded for sensitively recapturing an American classic. Given that Golf Digest pays dues for two of its editorial members to be Winged Foot members, a not-enough-votes excuse seems a stretch.

2016 saw three each of a Best New Private, Public and Remodeled categories. Still no luck for Winged Foot East. But the awards featured extensive panelist comments that added some fun reading.

And now in 2017 the marketplace forced another new approach, with this explanation from Golf Digest:

Still not enough new courses to warrant New Public and New Private categories, so the 15 new courses nominated for consideration competed in a single Best New Courses race. But with 85 remodeled courses nominated, we decided to split our Best New Remodel survey into three categories to reflect the wide range of projects in today’s design industry. Major Remodel involves a total redesign with little regard to the original architecture. Renovation improves a design but sticks to the original routing. Restoration strives to honor the original architecture. What about “blow-up” jobs, where an existing course is so drastically altered (“blown up”) that it hardly resembles the original? That was up to each architect and individual club to decide whether to compete as a Best New candidate or Best Major Remodel.

The list produced some pretty strange results, most notably with the once-loved Quail Hollow, now loathed by some tour players who just a few years ago were declaring it one of the PGA Tour's best venues. After last year's PGA Championship, most expect the club to remedy the gruesome 4th hole addition, an absurd mess of a hole. That did not stop the panel for giving high marks and placing Quail Hollow as their second best remodel behind Jackson and Kahn'sFazio's MPCC Dunes remodel.

Even though the project was largely envisioned and carried out by Fazio's former shapers, Golf Digest gave all the credit to Fazio. The club's own first placque acknowledges all of the aforementioned names.

Most inexplicably, Torrey Pines North, which stuck to its original routing except for flipping the nines, finished third in major remodel when it was pretty clearly just an insipid renovation. Did switching nines really become grounds for a major remodel label? 

The TPC Sawgrass won for best renovation with its new turf and one redesigned hole. On that basis, it may be eligible annually given its turbulent renovation history.

The Old White TPC won its second best new award, having won the best new remodel in 2007. And even though it won this time under the restoration label, Keith Foster made significant changes to the award winner. He restored around the remodel. Got that?

Something tells me after looking at the Golf Digest selections, the panel would not care for the things Matt Ginella and I presented as our ways of evaluating golf courses. From Morning Drive's Design Week:

Videos: Our Ultimate 18's, What's Yours?

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For this week's Design Week on Morning Drive, Matt Ginella and I revealed our Ultimate 18’s in golf. I went the route of selecting a course I'd want to play everyday, which meant picking some "stretches" of holes I love (North Berwick and Essex County) at the expense perhaps of a few great holes. And I had great fun putting them in order, ultimately going with all links going out and inland American holes coming in (sorry Australia).

Ginella kept true to holes where they land in the rankings and to courses open to the public.

The segments are below and I hope they'd inspire you to pick your ultimate 18's. I found the process great fun both in reflecting on holes I'd never grow tired of playing, but also in the creative act of placing them in the sequence I'd want to encounter their challenges.

Besides getting to rekindle fond memories and appreciation for the architecture you've experienced, the placing of the puzzle pieces into a routing is quite fun. And if you feel compelled, list your courses below. There are no wrong answers, it's your Ultimate 18!

Our front nine favortes from the Ultimate 18 lists.


Our back nine favorites of the Ultimate 18 lists.

Golf On TV: Is It Time For More Second Screen Analysis?

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Martin Kaufmann at Golfweek poses a fair question following last week's Hero World Challenge, where Morning Drive and Golf Central pre-game coverage followed Tiger Woods from the range through his first few shots.

As Kaufmann notes, the more analytical, observational coverage reminded him that most golf broadcasting is forced to state the obvious--Frank Chirkinian's worst nightmare--depriving viewers of more meaningful insights. On "eavesdropping" on Brandel Chamblee, Frank Nobilo and Trevor Immelman's discussions, Kaufmann writes...

From time to time, I’ve broached the idea of testing anchor-less coverage – just smart golf guys talking golf. There wouldn’t be any play-by-play because we can see what’s happening, but there might be a need for enhanced graphics.

There’s some precedent for this. Three months ago I pointed to an MLB Network experiment called a SABRcast – a play on sabermetrics – in which four analysts “called” a game in San Francisco from a studio in New Jersey. They didn’t do play-by-play; instead, their conversation was topical, based heavily on analytics. The conversation was smart and insightful, just as it was last week as Chamblee, Nobilo and Immelman watched Woods.

Kaufmann goes on to suggest it's time for a second screen alternative that let's golf fans stream or choose the feed analysis they want. Thoughts?

"Ben Crenshaw and Luke Wilson form a Pro-Am team to protect an Austin treasure and Civil Rights landmark"

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Garden and Gun's Tom Cooper--because who doesn't garden and shoot things--looks at the Save Muny fight through the eyes of its most famous supporters,

Cooper on actor Luke Wilson's involvement:

Ever since that decision, Muny has become a cause célèbre in Austin, and a nonprofit organization named Save Muny has become the organizing force, recruiting local notables such as Willie Nelson and his son Lukas to help with the efforts. Which brings us back to Luke Wilson. The forty-six-year-old grew up in Dallas, and his two brothers, Owen and Andrew, both attended UT–Austin. A competent golfer himself, he’s played Muny many times and last year invested in an Austin company, Criquet, that makes retro-looking golf shirts. Criquet adopted Save Muny as its signature cause and enlisted Wilson to lend his star power. Last April, at Criquet’s annual 19th Hole party, a rollicking fund-raiser for Save Muny, a round of golf with Wilson and Crenshaw went for $25,000 at auction, raising enough to cover the nonprofit’s annual operating costs.