"B-List" Courses

[tincup]

For almost 10 years now, I have been accumulating rankings for PGA2000 courses as we play them. These rankings are not just my opinion, but almost always consider the opinions of other players too. This is the source of my A-List of courses (downloadable from the Utilities area). Right now, there are 418 courses on that A-List... 25.9% of the 1615 courses available.

The “B-List”
There are another 394 (another 24.4% of the total) courses which I classify as “nice, but not quite A-list caliber”. I call this my “B-List”. There are many reasons why a course might not make it to the A-List…
-Spikes on the greens
-Really grainy textures
-One or more unfair greens
-Creases
-Sun spots
-Rankers were in an grouchy mood
-… and so on.

In fact, some courses migrate back and forth between the A and B list. Admittedly, some of the courses were ranked years ago and rankings may not be accurate by today’s standards. Plus, course ranking is very subjective business. So it is an on-going process.

I thought it might be useful to give the “B-List” courses some visibility. There really are some pretty nice courses on that list. We have added an item in the Utilities area called Dar's B-List Courses. The list will be in both Excel and Notepad format, so everyone should be able to read one or the other format.

In total, about half the courses are on either the A or B list (812 of 1615).

Dar

[SteveHorn]

Dar! I've often wondered how often you update and repost your A list or now also B list to the utilities page?

[tincup]

Steve,
I try to keep them current. We don't have all that many new courses these days... 2-3/month on average. At worst, the lists would be a course or two out of date.

Dar

[SteveHorn]

Wow ! I just noticed glancing at both your A & B list that Augusta National 2001 isn't listed. I'm very suprised by that omission.

[Indy Anna Jones]

There are some (IMO) really great courses that aren't on Dar's "A" list (I did find most of them on his "B" list) and I figured out that the main reason they don't qualify for "A" is because the big dogs can only shoot around -5 for 9 holes on D and VD greens.

[tincup]

Indy,
Nope. One reason a course might NOT be a A-Lister is because it is way too easy and gives up ridiculously low scores. Those type of courses aren't really all that much fun to play... and are certainly not top tier courses in my mind.

In the case of Augusta 2001, my guess is that we were playing it and with the pin placements we had, we ran into a bunch of spikes or something like that. Besides that, the graphics are dated and the course has a grungy look compared to what designers are doing today.

As I have always said, ranking courses is subjective business. You don't have to agree.

Dar

[SteveHorn]

Dar! I didn't mean to step on your toes. I think its great that you took all the time and effort to play all these courses and rate them. I just thought maybe you accidently forgot to list one.

[ADC]

So, do the actual rankings mean anything, or is it just purely alphabetical? For istance, is Chilton Hills really that much better than Fox Den GC?

[hookster]

Actually Indy it is pretty much the opposite from what you posted. As Dar said in general if the course is too straight or greens are too easy, we usually don`t add it to the A list because we shoot -8 or -9 for nine holes. That doesn`t mean it`s not a good course it just means we usually find it to easy and there is no challenge if you tear it up everytime you play it. Therefor it becomes boring when you can pull out a driver on just about every tee and just whack the snot out of it without any danger of getting in too much trouble. Doglegs, lay up shots and tough greens are what I think the majority of us find the most fun. I would much rather post a -3 on a good course than a -9 anyday because I feel like i`ve earned the -3. Just my opinion. Keep em coming folks. Looking forward to your next 1 Robert. Make it tough lol

[tincup]

So, do the actual rankings mean anything, or is it just purely alphabetical? For istance, is Chilton Hills really that much better than Fox Den GC?

ADC,

Well, that is really the question isn't it? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For some, Fox Den might be the far better course... for others, maybe not. It is to an extent, subjective.

The rankings I use are from 1-10, with some use of fractions like 8.5 or 9.5. I think the system does a pretty good job of separating the good courses from the poor ones or really bad ones (the broad axe). Whether or not the ranking system does a good job of differentiating a good course from a great one is harder to know (the scalpel).

During the last contest, we saw that there are literally 100+ criteria you could use to rate a course. So it really depends a lot on what criteria you are using when you are rating a course. Most of us, including me, don't go to that much work to rate courses.

The only reason I published such lists is because I had been asked to by people who had limited bandwidth or limited disk drive space. With a list of better courses, at least one can focus on getting some of the better ones and not burn resources on the junkier ones.

I know there are disagreements about course ratings. I hear them every day... lol. In fact, I just up just upgraded Innusbruck from a B to an A yesterday. So, it changes all the time. Take it for what it is... just my opinion.

Dar