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redanman says:

 

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                 redanman blogspot   is where you'll find running commentary and links to other topics

2010 Golfweek’s Top 100 Course Lists

 

2010 Golfweek’s Best Classic Courses Top 20

1. Pine Valley Golf Club     
2. Cypress Point Club 
3. Shinnecock Hills Golf Club 
4. National Golf Links of America   
5. Merion Golf Club - East
6. Oakmont Country Club 
7. Crystal Downs
8. Pebble Beach Golf Links               
9. Augusta National Golf Club       
10. Fishers Island Golf Club             
11. San Francisco Golf Club             
12. Chicago Golf Club       
13. Prairie Dunes Country Club       
14. Seminole Golf Club     
15. Pinehurst Resort  # 2             
16. Winged Foot Golf Club West
17. Oakland Hills CC South           
18. Garden City Golf Club
19. Bethpage State Park (Black)     
20. The Country Club Composite

 

2010 redanman 25 Classics of Note - Fun, Exciting, Quality Courses - the Four on Top and the rest - and why

 

Pine Valley GC - more architecture than you know what to do with - populated by gentlemen - America's Best Club

Shinnecock Hills GC - America's Best competition Golf Course - Stanford White & The Hamptons

National Golf Links of America - Scotland's Gift to America with Charles Blair Macdonald's love

Cypress Point Club - The Best Setting in America that has a top Architectural Gem of a Golf Course

 

Aronimink GC - Sublime combination of difficulty without extreme penality

Augusta National - It is Augusta - I have to Include it, but I don't want to - no respect for the spirit of Golf - but Home of The Masters®

Chicago GC - Seth Raynor improved on Charles Blair Macdonald - America's Best Neighborhood Club

Crystal Downs - Green Complexes bordering on the ridiculous with 2 or 4 of America's Greatest Holes

Fishers Island - Incomparable Setting, great concentration of quality and you get a boat ride

Garden City GC - One of America's Time Capsules - The Ultimate Men Only Club

Kittansett Club - A single amateur designer improving on a master in perhaps America's most peaceful setting

Lehigh CC - The Finest Routing on a severe property.  Also America's most under-appreciated club by its Membership.

Maidstone Club - Old Time Style in a Majestic Club

Merion GC East - The definitive routing on a small plot

Myopia Hunt Club - 19th Century American Golf

Oakmont - Balls to The Wall - You are a dead man if you try to fake it here

Pasatiempo - Literally - Passing the Time - Good enough for MacKenzie's Home

Pebble Beach - It's Pebble Beach - I have to include it - It could have had a better routing

Pinehurst #2 - Donald Ross spent much of his life here

Plainfield CC - Donald Ross's Best Combination of Routing, Greensites and a Modern Club with a Superb Restoration

Prairie Dunes CC - Nine from Perry and nine from J. Press

San Francisco GC - Tillinghast in The Fog

Sankaty Head Golf Club - The closest to Links in feel for all 18 holes to be found in America

Seminole Golf Club - The Course and The Seasonal Club you want Forever

Valley Club of Montecito - The Clubhouse you want forever in the town and climate you want to live forever

2010 Golfweek’s Best Classic Courses The Rest

 

21. Los Angeles CC North

22. Olympic Club Lake
23. Riviera Country Club   
24. Camargo Club
25. Southern Hills Country Club       
26. Shoreacres   

27. Wannamoisett Country Club     
28. Somerset Hills Country Club     
29. Plainfield Country Club               
30. Pasatiempo   
31. Maidstone Club             

32. Myopia Hunt Club         
33. Winged Foot Golf Club East
34. Oak Hill Country Club East

35. Peachtree Golf Club   
36. Baltusrol Golf Club Lower       
37. Inverness Club             

38. Quaker Ridge               
39. Yeamans Hall Club     
40. Baltimore Country Club East   
41. Valley Club of Montecito             
42. Olympia Fields CC North         
43. Piping Rock Club  
44. Milwaukee Country Club
45. Newport Country Club 
46. Salem Country Club 
47. The Course at Yale     
48. Scioto Country Club 
49. Homestead Resort Cascades
50. Colonial Country Club

51. Interlachen Country Club           
52. Holston Hills Country Club         
53. East Lake Golf Club     

54. California Golf Club     
55. Kittansett Club               

56. Aronimink Golf Club   
57. Lawsonia Golf Club

58. Cherry Hills Country Club           
59. Baltusrol Golf Club (Upper)       

60. White Bear Yacht Club
61. Fenway Golf Club 
62. Medinah Country Club # 3)
63. Essex County Club       
64. NCR Country Club South

65. Lancaster Country Club             
66. Franklin Hills Country Club   
67. Mountain Lake             
68. Congressional CC - Blue
69. Pine Needles Country Club  

70. Minikahda Club

71. Ekwanok Country Club               
72. Huntingdon Valley Country Club         
73. Whippoorwill Country Club     
74. Brookside Country
75. St. Louis Country Club
76. Rolling Green Golf Course         

77. Indianwood Country Club Old
78. Bel-Air Country Club 
79. Canterbury Golf Club
80. Taconic Golf Club 
81. Lehigh Country Club
82. Country Club of Fairfield             
83. Creek Club     
84. Fox Chapel Golf Club 
85. Ridgewood Country Club E&W 
86. Philadelphia CC
87. Northland Country Club
88. Eastward Ho!
89. Sankaty Head Golf Club 
90. Country Club of Buffalo
91. Old Town Club             

92. Skokie Country Club 
93. Westchester Country Club
94. Laurel Valley Country Club   

95. Moraine Country Club
96. Point O’Woods G&CC 
97. Palmetto Club       
98. Hollywood Golf Club 
99. Beverly Country Club 
100. Dunes Golf & Beach Club 

 

 2010 Golfweek’s Top 100 Course Lists

 

2010 Golfweek’s Best Modern Courses Top 40

1. Sand Hills Golf Club
2. Pacific Dunes
3. Whistling Straits Straits
4. Bandon Dunes
5. Ballyneal
6. Sebonack Golf Club
7. The Golf Club
8. Pete Dye Golf Club
9. Friar’s Head 

10. Shadow Creek Golf Club 
11. Muirfield Village Golf Club
12. Old Sandwich Golf Club
13. Kinloch Golf Club
14. Spyglass Hill Golf Club               
15. Honors Club
16. TPC Sawgrass

17. Ocean Course at Kiawah

18. Wade Hampton Club   
19. Kingsley Club

20. Chambers Bay Golf

21. Calusa Pines Golf Club

22. Colorado Golf Club

23. Bayonne Golf Club
24. Dunes Club   
25. Dallas National Golf Club
26. Wild Horse Golf Club
27. Mayacama Golf Club   
28. Bandon Trails     

29. Castle Pines Golf Club
30. World Woods GC Pine Barrens
31. Harbour Town Golf Club
32. Desert Forest Golf Club
33. Monterey Peninsula CC Shore
34. Double Eagle Golf Club 
35. Galloway National Golf Club

36. Boston Golf Club
37. Arcadia Bluffs               
38. Gozzer Ranch
39. Blackwolf Run River
40. Pronghorn –  Fazio

The next 60

41. Fallen Oak Golf Club   
42. Paa-Ko Ridge Golf Club           
43. Black Diamond Ranch Quarry
44. The Club at Cuscowilla               
45. Whispering Pines Golf Club     
46. Sutton Bay Club           
47. The Preserve
48. Karsten Creek Golf Club             
49. The Club at Black Rock               

50. Quail Hollow Club       
51. Trump National Golf
52. Forest Highlands GC Canyon
53. Long Cove Club           
54. Wolf Run         
55. The Rim         
56. Butler National Golf Club           
57. Sea Island GC Seaside           
58. Lahontan Golf Club     
59. Atlantic Golf Club         
60. The Concession 

61. Olde Farm Golf Club   
62. Kapalua GC Plantation
63. Lost Dunes Golf Club
64. Cog Hill GC No. 4
65. Eugene Country Club 
66. Cassique
67. Victoria National Golf Club         
68. Black Sheep Golf Club              
69. Shoal Creek Golf Course          
70. Sanctuary     
71. Hidden Creek Golf

72. Briggs Ranch Golf Club               

73. Powder Horn GC Mountain/Stag     
74. Hazeltine National Golf Club     
75. We-Ko-Pa GC Saguaro
76. Estancia         
77. Black Mesa Golf Club 
78. Crooked Stick Golf Club             
79. Greywalls at Marquette GC         
80. Golf Club at Ravenna 
81. Jupiter Hills Club Hills
82. Pumpkin Ridge GC Witch Hollow           
83. Ocean Forest Golf Club               
84. Southern Highlands GC
85. The Stone Canyon Club             
86. Whisper Rock GC (Upper)         
87. Olde Stone   
88. Valhalla Golf Club       
89. Robert Trent Jones Golf Club     
90. Forest Dunes Golf Club               
91. Oak Tree National Golf Club     
92. Princeville GC Prince               
93. Harvester Golf Club     
94. Frederica Golf Club   
95. Secession Golf Club   
96. Quintero G&CC             
97. Links of North Dakota 
98. Caledonia Golf & Fish Club       
99. Forest Creek GC (North)             
100. Windsong Farms Golf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Famous Men Corner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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It's not how you play that matters, it's how you handle how you play. 

Taken from Aldous Huxley:  “Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.”

As the gentleman in this case at Crail!  BK, you're a good sport.

 

redanman says: based on making the Doak Scale more user friendly

0

Willfully & Intentionally awful - a complete failure at attempting greatness without understanding

3

Your Average Course

5 or no redanman notation

An Average Notable/Good Course

7 or redanman 0*

Starting to be World-Class

8 or redanman * - **

redanman **

9 or redanman ***

Basically As Good As It Gets

10

The Holy Grail

 

The Doak Scale - my comments

 

A very useful method of comparing golf courses based upon architectural merit, basically what is truly important about a golf course.  This is taken directly from  The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses by Tom Doak - one of golf architecture's best modern books, currently unavailable outside the secondary/resale market for somewhere between $300-$1500 depending on the particular bound edition.  The original iteration of the book, handed out as a noteboook to a few pals is really not available, so valuing it is pointless.

 

This is a much mis-understood scale, first off it it not linear, I'd describe it as logarithmic - exponential if you will with the whimsical "0" thrown in for a good laugh. Secondly, it deals specifically with golf courses that ask a lot of questions - my terminology.  Golf at its best is a series of questions to be answered.  The best of courses which are very very rare are perhaps best described as Mackenzian Ideal.  Doak's "Hero" if you will is Alister Mackenzie.  Mackenzie thought the ideal golf course should be accessible to players of all levels (within reason) and ask a different set of questions to various golfers to use my terminology.  Doak's scale perhaps ignores this concept a little in that many of the 8's, 9's and very rare 10's (And there is no 11!)  are often geared to the proficient golfer, a necessary exception if one really contemplates this concept of greatness. No one in their right mind would downgrade Pine Valley to a 9 (there are no decimals, either) because it suffers fools (and foozlers) poorly.  Pine Valley is a quintissential 10 in that there is arguably more architecture per square meter than on any other course in the world. Another 10 is the Sublime National Golf Links of America which while having as much architecture in 98% of its acreage, better accommodates the weaker player as if one looks extremely carefully, it is much more egalitarian than Pine Valley - nearly always providing an alternate route at the cost of a stroke or two.

 

To me, one of the greatest tests of a great course is to play the game "What is the weakest hole?".  Pine Valley and NGLA are both winners at this game with several holes mentioned (depending on one's tastes) when this game is played.  Certainly the Old Course at St. Andrews in Fife is very close to Mackenzian as it is a 10 and accommodates all manner of players.

 

Keep this scale in mind as I will be incorporating it into my course reviews and there will be another page on the website wherein I repeat this list with a few well-know examples of each numerical level.  I do tend to think of courses as groups of equals as seen on my blogspot site, I don't care which among equals is better and it may change day to day.  Tom is brutally honest and I try to be as well, but it is his scale and must be given the honour of devising any similar imitating scale.  These are to me more approachable than Top Lists that are rigid (Usually comprised of rigid lists of many skilled opiners)  in that most can agree on equals. If you've never seen it enjoy and study this methodology, if you are familiar with it, study it even harder as I find most who fancy themselves critics are too quick to throw out 8, 9 and 10 - very tall orders to fill.  To the uninitiated everyting 7 (or even 6) and above is a 10- remember that. this is all about hair-splitting.  One must put away his own biases (and mine will show through, too, occasionally) as have Tom's (Crystal Downs does not fit his own criteria) and commonly among critics a favorite architect - be it Ross, Braid, Thompson or Coore and Crenshaw (even Doak) gets preferred status.

 

Above all, this is not life nor death, have fun.  Then again, golf is somewhere between a religion and a disease, isn't it? 

The Doak Scale -Verbatim as penned by Tom Doak in A Confidential Guide to Golf Courses 

 

0

A course so contrived and unnatural that it may poison your mind, one I cannot recommend under any circumstances. Reserved for courses that wasted ridiculous sums of money in their construction, and probably shouldn’t have been built in the first place.  

1

A very basic golf course, with clear architectural malpractice and/or poor maintenance. Avoid even if you’re desperate for a game. 

2

A mediocre golf course with little or no architectural interest, but nothing really horrible. As my friend Dave Richards summed up: “Play it in a scramble, and drink a lot of beer.” 

3

About the level of the average golf course in the world. (Since I don’t go out of my way to see average courses, my scale is deliberately skewed to split hairs among the good, the better and the best.)

4

A modestly interesting course, with a couple of distinctive holes among the 18, or at least some scenic interest and decent golf. Also reserved for some very good courses that are much too short and narrow to provide sufficient challenge for accomplished golfers. 

5

Well above the average golf course, but the middle of my scale. A good course to choose if you’re in the vicinity and looking for a game, but don’t spend another day away from home to see it, unless your home is in Alaska.

6

A very good course, definitely worth a game if you’re in town, but not necessarily worth a special trip to see. It shouldn’t disappoint you. 

7

An excellent course, worth checking out if you get anywhere within 100 miles. You can expect to find soundly designed, interesting holes, good course conditioning and a pretty setting, if not necessarily anything unique to the world of golf. 

8

One of the very best courses in its region (although there are more 8s in some places, and none in others), and worth a special trip to see.

Could have some drawbacks, but these will clearly be spelled out, and it will make up for them with something really special in addition to the generally excellent layout.

9

An outstanding course—certainly one of the best in the world—with no weaknesses in regard to condition, length or poor holes. You should see this course sometime in your life.

10

Nearly perfect; if you skipped even one hole, you would miss something worth seeing. If you haven’t seen all the courses in this category, you don’t know how good golf architecture can get. Call your travel agent—immediately.

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