I�ve always felt that there is a huge bias in the golf course rating world. Admittedly great courses like Bethpage, Pebble Beach, Doral and Torrey Pines all deserve their lofty scores. But, how these scores are derived is what I find very suspect.
As far as I know, other than Top 50 or Top 100 lists, there are only two national guides that attempt to rate golf courses across the United States: Golf Digest & Zagat�s.
Just recently I ran across an article from the Orlando Sentinel that explores the ratings found at the website Golflink.com and its Top 100 List. The reporter mentions that Stoneybrook West, a $32/round course in Central Florida is ranked #27, higher than Sawgrass (#42) and Pebble Beach (#81). Even in Minnesota where I�m located, the only course rated in the Top 100 is Somerset Country Club (#64), and the two courses that are considered the best in the Twin Cities, Hazeltine (site of the 2009 PGA Championship) and TPC Blaine (site of the Senior Tour 3M Championship) don�t even show up. How can that be?
According to GolfLink�s own website: �the GolfLink Top 100 United States Golf Courses lists the best golf courses out of more than 20,000 public and private golf courses across the country (Note: according to the National Golf Foundation, there are approximately 16,000 courses in the USA). Where most golf magazines rate golf courses based solely on the subjective views and limited experience of a handful of editors, our list is calculated from a more objective range of factors, including the preferences of up to a million or more visitors to our web site every month. This makes our Top 100 United States Golf Courses list the definitive online guide to the best U.S. golf courses, and a great resource for figuring out where to play.�
Yeah, right!
The �scoring� is based on a 1-5 Star rating system in five categories: Amenities, Difficulty, Maintenance, Scenery and Value. Like Golf Digest and Zagat�s, to obtain a rating, all you need to do to become a rater is sign-up online. My big problem with this approach is that scores obtained this way can�t be trusted.
There is no qualifications, no training, no guidelines, just opinions. A course rater might be the club pro, the general manager, the cart girl and the clubhouse attendant all signing up to rate the course, all giving it 5 stars. Also, the scoring isn�t based on a tested set of factors like the USGA�s par and slope rating, just opinions from a bunch of anonymous golfers.
I think that the Orlando Sentinel reporter said it better than I would: �You�ve got to love that through the power of user-driven golf sites, golfers can generate a voice in an otherwise smug world of golf course design. No offense to Stoneybrook West, but it probably wouldn�t sniff the top 100 on a Golf Digest ranking.�
So much for accurate golf course rating.
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