Javier Reviriego is the only Spaniard included among the 100 panellists of America’s Golf Magazine, and he has played more than 700 courses, 60 of them included in the Top 100 in the world.
Every two years, the world's leading golf publications publish their "famous" course rankings. None of them escapes controversy: it is patently clear that all are subjective and they lend themselves to debate. It is an entertaining debate and one which every good golfer enjoys. We all believe there are courses that shouldn’t have been included and others that are missing; courses that are too highly ranked and others that have a lower ranking than they deserve.
Obviously they create interest and influence the decisions of many golfers when they plan their trips, and they generate publicity and media exposure for the courses that appear in them. It must also be said that they influence the architectural style of future courses: all designers want to have their courses in the Top 100, so these listings have a direct influence in the industry.
I have always been very interested in course design and I still have doubts about how a layout should be evaluated and the parameters that determine its level of quality. The first thing we must be very clear about is the great difficulty involved in comparing and evaluating courses with distinctive idiosyncrasies. Can you imagine comparing a links like St. Andrews with a TPC Sawgrass type course (to quote one diametrically opposite example)? Two great courses in completely different environments, but with notable work by the designers in both cases.
In recent years, there has also been a clear tendency to build courses that are more sustainable and more integrated into the site or natural land where they are developed. Courses where there is less dirt-moving during the construction phase, where irrigation areas are reduced, and where there are more waste areas that require little maintenance… these aspects are the order of the day. Designers like Gil Hanse, Coore & Crenshaw and Tom Doak lead this trend. Far off in the distant past are courses built in the 1980s where tonnes of earth were artificially moved to adapt the site to the taste of the designer. Tom Fazio and Pete Dye are good examples of this.
What makes a golf course excellent? I think the first thing that comes to mind when you visit a course for the first time is the quality of the site. The beauty of the sea that surrounds it, the luxuriant growth of the forest in which it is located, or the dunes that give shape to its fairways… All the great designers dream about creating courses in such spectacular places as Kingsbarns or Cypress Point. It is evident that the beauty of the area and its surroundings have a great emotional impact on golfers.
We must not forget the architect’s "routing": that is, the ability to link some holes with others and ensure they fit naturally into the landscape. Here lies one of the main talents of a good designer. Good courses seem to flow at the same time as the holes can be perfectly differentiated from each other.
Another important factor, in my opinion, is the ability of the course to challenge players of all levels and make them think strategically. Good courses demand creativity, the ability to play all kinds of shots and, above all, the capacity to overcome challenges and obstacles that the designer has created. This is how golf has always been. In the classic designs of A.W. Tillinghast (Winged Foot, Bethpage), Alister Mackenzie (Cypress Point, Royal Melbourne) and Harry Colt (Royal County Down, Sunningdale) the strategic component has always reigned. They are not long courses but they have survived the passage of time and still pose a great challenge for big-hitters.
Finally, we must not overlook the maintenance and conditions of a course to evaluate it. The architect "delivers" his work to the greenkeeper and he must ensure his best efforts to maintain it in the best possible conditions. There are courses known for their high level of maintenance (Augusta National, Valderrama) and there is no doubt that this is a very important variable when the panellists vote for their rankings. In many cases it can make the difference when architecture and site are of a similar quality. We must never overlook the fact that most golfers have the ability to assess whether the maintenance of a course is at a high level, but the same does not apply for its architecture.
Now let's analyse the individual features of the industry’s main rankings and the criteria by which they are governed in order to compile their listings.
Golf Digest USA – World’s Greatest 100 Courses
Probably the best-known and most prestigious golf publication in the world, it publishes several rankings: Top 100 of the World, Top 100 of the World without the USA, Top 100 in the USA and Top 100 Public Courses in the USA. It has more than 1,000 panellists around the world and several delegations in different countries. It began publishing rankings in the 1960s.
The evaluation criteria is based on seven parameters:
"Design Variety" (ratio of 12.5% in the total score): variety in the length of the holes, location of hazards, shape of the greens, etc.
“Resistance to Scoring” (12.5%): difficulty of the course for a scratch player from the back markers and fairness.
"Shot value" (25%): capacity of the holes to test the power, precision and finesse of the player.
"Memorability" (12.5%): continuity in the style of the 18 holes but with an individual signature for each hole. Ease with which all of them are remembered.
"Aesthetics" (12.5%): contribution of the views and surroundings to the experience of playing the course.
"Ambience" (12.5%): when the course and its environment have the ability to convey traditional golf values.
"Conditioning" (12.5%): firmness of the greens, quality of the approach areas, general condition of the fairways, bunkers, details, etc.
According to the Golf Digest ranking, the best courses in the world are Royal County Down (#1), Augusta National (#2) and Pine Valley (#3). The only Spanish course that appears in the Top 100 is Valderrama in 71st position (#2 in Europe).
Golf Architecture Magazine – Architects Choice World Top 100
This is a particularly interesting ranking and for me it has great value. Only course designers around the world vote. They launched the list for the first time in 2015 and the entire industry was curious to see the differences in criteria between architects and panellists. For the compilation of this ranking it was decided to give the designers full freedom to establish their own criteria based on the quality of the design, environment and history. The only conditions were that they could not evaluate their own courses and the architectural component should prevail over maintenance.
In this ranking, number one in the world is the Old Course at St. Andrews followed by Cypress Point and Pine Valley. The only Spanish course that appears is Valderrama in 41st place (#1 in Europe).
Golf Magazine USA – “World Top 100”
The panel of experts consists of only 100 panellists from 18 countries, including professional golfers, designers, top-level amateurs, journalists, photographers and several club managers. To be selected you have to be recommended by two other panellists and have played a good number of courses around the world. Before being appointed to the panel you have to send a full report of your 10 favourite courses in the world. In the case of Golf Magazine, a much less rigorous voting system than Golf Digest’s is used because it is assumed that the panellists have considerable knowledge and can easily determine what constitutes a “great course”. A point-based voting system is used in which 500 courses are evaluated with the indispensable condition that the panellist must have played it during the last 10 years.
In the latest ranking published in January, number one in the world is Pine Valley, followed by Cypress Point and St. Andrews. Again, the only Spanish course that appears in the ranking is Valderrama in 95th place.
To check out these rankings, I recommend an excellent website that includes them all: www.planetgolf.com
