I’m a
gigantic hypocrite when it comes to the ranking of golf courses.
I admit that
I use the rankings as a guide for places to travel and have played the great
majority of the courses on the various lists over the years. The rankings are useful for this purpose.
Where I
become frustrated with the rankings is in how people believe that the only
courses worth playing in a given area are the ones on a list. When I travel I don’t limit myself to just
the courses on a particular list. I
always take the time to seek out the “hidden gems,” the local municipals that
everybody talks about, the sporty courses that are too short for modern
standards but still a ton of fun to play, the course that is just far enough
away to be inconvenient to get to.
Unfortunately I’m one of the few that does this.
The best
example I can give of this is the DC area.
Everybody comes into town to play the Blue course at Congressional. The Blue course exists on the various lists
because of its history and presence on TV and in the media. Raters and people trying to play a list come
into town, play the Blue and leave. They
don’t realize that the Blue is just one of many great courses in the DC
area. Columbia(pictured below), Chevy Chase, Burning
Tree, and Woodmont (North) are all courses that could be better than the Blue
in my opinion.
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| Columbia Country Club 18th Hole Courtesy of Jon Cavalier |
If we expand
to Baltimore we find yet another example.
Everybody wants to play the East course at Baltimore Country Club, which
they should, because it really is one of the best Tillinghast courses in the
country. But again, they will only play
it or maybe try to play Caves Valley, the high profile Fazio course that has
been in top 100 lists over the years.
They will never play Woodholme, an amazing Herbert Strong course that is
much better than Caves, and may even challenge BCC for sheer fun.
This brings
up the biggest problem with rankings. Raters
and list seekers are very hesitant to try a course not already on the
rankings. Rankings are flawed by their
nature and beyond the top 40 or 50 about 250 courses are worthy of
consideration for the top 100 and yet some of these will never have a chance
because of their location and lack of marketing. Some high-end destination courses with high
budgets can get the word out and entice people to their remote locations like
Rock Creek Cattle, Dismal River, Gozzer Ranch, etc.
The best example of this I can give is
Davenport Country Club in Davenport, Iowa(pictured below). Davenport is in my top 50 golf courses played. It absolutely belongs in all of the top 100 lists after an amazing renovation by Ron Forse & Jim Nagle, but it will never be
on most of the lists because of the requirement for a certain number of raters
to see the course and most raters aren’t willing to drive 2 ½ hours each way to
see a course they haven’t heard of. I
beg every rater I meet to play Davenport and yet I doubt many will actually do
it.
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| Davenport Country Club 18th hole |
If you are a
rater or somebody trying to play a list please do some research before you
travel to an area. You might find some
of the courses not on a list to be more enjoyable and better than the ones you are
traveling to see. I’ve included a list
below for some well-traveled areas:
Atlanta Palmetto,
Rivermont
Baltimore Green
Spring Valley, Woodholme
Boston Whitinsville
Chicago Cedar
Rapids, Davenport, Old Elm
Dallas/Fort
Worth Shady Oaks
Detroit Franklin
Hills, Indianwood(Old)
Long Island Engineers,
St George’s
Los Angeles Lakeside,
Santa Ana, Wilshire
Philadephia Gulph
Mills, Llanerch, Radnor Valley
Pittsburgh Bedford
Springs, Rolling Rock, Sunnehanna
San
Francisco Meadow
Club, Orinda
Washington
DC Columbia
Westchester
County Fenway,
Tamarack
