Some things are easy to quantify while other things are downright impossible to put a marked value upon. Sometimes you know that something is of high quality, but its determination is purely objective. The things that are easy to quantify are often purely statistical. We can readily identify who leads the majors in home runs, who scores the most points over the course of a season, and who rushed for the most yards over the course of a career. However, it”s hard to identify the best automobile, the finest wine or the most beautiful woman. It”s all a matter of taste or choice or preference.
The same value system can be debated when we talk about rating golf courses to determine the best ones or the top 100 or the best in the state. Within the last month I”ve played venerable Harding Park in San Francisco, site of this year”s Presidents Cup Matches, as well as walked Stonebrae Golf Club in Hayward, site of a recent Nationwide Tour event. I would willingly play Harding Park again, a most memorable and historic course that I”ve already played some 50-plus times.
Sitting atop a proverbial wind tunnel atop the East Bay Hills, I would never consider my golfing life incomplete should I never tee it up at Stonebrae. Yes, I know, it was designed by David McLay Kidd, best known for his work at Bandon Dunes and the seventh course at St. Andrews in Scotland, but I find nothing truly special about Stonebrae. It”s just a tough, target-golf type of a course. In fact, if I had a chance to play a first round at Stonebrae or a 55th round at Harding Park, I”d opt for Harding. It”s just a matter of personal taste.
Over the past couple of months, golf magazines such as Golf Digest and Golf Week have come out with the annual listings of America”s top golf courses. I am always fascinated by these listings, but I also value their exactness in the same way I value a listing of the best steakhouses in Kansas City. What difference is there between No. 1 and No. 66 on a golf course rating scale? After all, we”re probably talking about the site of the Masters, Augusta National, versus the site of multiple United States Open contests, namely Congressional.
Golf Week”s listings are of interest because they refuse to compare eras. They have a listing of the top 100 classic courses, topped by such gems as Cypress Point, Pine Valley and Shinnecock, to go along with a top 100 of modern-day courses (post 1960) that include Sand Hills, Pacific Dunes and Whistling Straits. Golf Digest fails to distinguish between classical and modern courses. However, their top three include Augusta Nationals, Pine Valley and Shinnecock, with Sand Hills being listed at No. 13, Pacific Dunes at 14, and Whistling Straits at 22. Obviously we”re talking about subjective ratings here, and the folks at Golf Digest prefer the old-style courses to the modern-era gems.
Of course, time changes impressions too. One of the pieces of golf memorabilia I own is a Golf Digest that came out in November of 1973. That edition marked the very first time Golf Digest rated courses. They ranked things a little differently than they do today. Instead of ranking courses by a specific number, they instead had a top 10, second 10, third 10, fourth 10, fifth 10 and a second 50. The top 10 was listed alphabetically.
Since that first ranking 36 years ago, many new courses of note have opened. Yet looking back at that inaugural listing is a bit of an eye opener. Augusta and Pine Valley were in the top 10 along with other longtime gems such as Pebble Beach, Pinehurst and Oakmont. Somehow Medinah was in there too, never to return. Cypress Point was in the grouping of the fifth 10, meaning it was ranked somewhere between 41-50. So much for being the Sistine Chapel of Golf.
The course I grew up on, Beverly Country Club in Chicago, was listed among the second 50 along with such highly regarded courses as San Francisco Golf Club, 2008 United States Open site Torrey Pines, Bethpage, the site of this year”s U.S. Open, and the Stanford University Golf Club. Yet big business probably had a bit of a reputation in those days as far as golf courses went with top-100 courses rankings. It included National Cash Registry Country Club, Firestone Country Club, Goodyear Golf and Country Club, and, most amazingly, Disney World Golf Club. Today, only Firestone”s reputation prevails.
With so many courses of note out their vying for credibility as well as a share of the market, magazines no longer just limit themselves to a top-100 ranking. Golf Digest also ranks the top 100 public courses, the top 100 outside America”s borders, the 50 toughest courses, and the 50 best golf hotel courses. They even had a listing of the best course, state by state. In California, Santa Rosa”s Mayacama Golf Club, designed by Jack Nicklaus, is ranked No. 11 whereas Alister Mackenzie”s Pasatiempo Golf Course in Santa Cruz comes in No. 18. I see Pasatiempo as the far superior course. A little farther down the listing is Trump National in Los Angeles. Who says you can”t buy legitimacy, even in the staid, conservative world of golf?
From a historical perspective, Crystal Downs in northern Michigan ranks as one of the best golf experiences I”ve ever had. The day was great, the foursome was outstanding, and the course remains one of the more cleverly designed works that I”ve ever played. It”s probably in my own personal five. Yet in 1973, it wasn”t even ranked in the top 100. Today, it”s No. 16 in Golf Digest and it”s No. 8 among Golf Week”s top classic courses. Somehow, it wasn”t even noticed when it was 42 years old, but now that it has turned a ripe old 78 years of age, it is highly regarded. Or maybe the raters just didn”t play much golf in a remote area of the upper Midwest.
Lucky for those of us who play golf in Lake County, we don”t have too many worries about debating great local golf courses. All of them make the ranking among the top five courses in Lake County. There”s no argument there.
