Score Golf Top 100 Golf Courses List Released

Score Golf came out with their biennial Top 100 Golf Courses in Canada list this past weekend, and as always there is controversy. As you can see in the comments on their website, everyone always has a way to take issue with the list. This course made it over this course?…Where’s this course?...I can’t believe that course ranked higher than my favourite course!...kinda stuff.

The question that I ask is “How is the Score Golf Top 100 List compiled?” Here’s what I found out:

There are 87 panellists that comprise of a mixture of golf professionals, superintendents, journalists, and weekend duffers. They each have two years to submit their rankings of courses that they have played and think deserve to be ranked in the Top 100. They are not allowed to submit a course that they own shares, are a member, or otherwise affiliated to in any way. There are no architects on the panel and Score Golf Editor Bob Weeks also has no vote. July 30 was the deadline for ranking submissions.

The panellists are asked to rank courses based on nine areas that are each given a weighted value. The rubric breaks down like this:

Beauty – 15
Strategy – 15
Challenge – 15
Design – 15
Par 3’s – 5
Par 4’s – 5
Par 5’s – 5
Conditioning – 5
Fun – 20

Score golf then assigns a Top 100 historical value to each course and the rankings are compiled.

I don’t get too bent out of shape about the list like some people do, but it is fun to follow. I know what my favourite courses are and no list can change that. What I do like to do is go through the list and pick out the courses that I have played to see where they rank and try to find courses I haven’t played (or heard of) that I should think about getting to.

Here’s the courses I’ve played on the list and where they ranked:

11. Banff Springs Golf Club – The Thompson Course – Banff, AB – Stanley Thompson
15. Blackhawk Golf Club – Main Course – Spruce Grove, AB – Rod Whitman
20. Wolf Creek Golf Course – South/West – Ponoka, AB – Rod Whitman
27. Kananaskis Country Golf Course – Mount Kidd Course – Kananaskis, AB – Robert Trent Jones
30. Stewart Creek Golf Resort – Main Course – Canmore, AB – Gary Browning
37. Greywolf Golf Course – Main Course – Panorama, BC – Doug Carrick
40. Kananaskis Country Golf Course – Mount Lorette Course – Kananaskis, AB – Robert Trent Jones
44. Dakota Dunes Golf Links – Dakota Dunes Golf Course – Saskatoon, SK – Graham Cooke
70. Eagle Ranch Golf Course – Main Course – Invermere, BC – Bill Robinson
75. Royal Mayfair Golf and Country Club – Main Course – Stanley Thompson – Edmonton, AB
91. Links of GlenEagles Golf Course – Main Course – Cochrane, AB – Les Furber

Some of the sub-categories mentioned a few of the courses I’ve played as well. Of note were the Mount Kidd Course at Kananaskis ranking #5 for Top Public Course, Banff Springs ranking #3 for Top Resort Course, Stewart Creek ranking #2 for Best Conditioned Course, and Silvertip ranking as Stephen Ames’ second favourite golf course in Canada (full disclosure – I believe he’s sponsored by Silvertip so he has an obligation that way – even if it is a great golf course).

As you can tell from the list, most of my golf has been played in the west. There’s a few that I think could probably make the list, but the list is regionalized to an extent, which it probably should be. If Ontario has 800+ golf courses and the biggest population in Canada, the law of large numbers says that they should probably have the most courses on the list. Since Saskatchewan has a low population and small number of top calibre golf courses, they probably won’t have much representation on the list (I’ll have to come up with a Saskatchewan list later on this summer).

I think Robert Thompson of the National Post said it best in the TSN broadcast of the Score Top 100 List when he said (I’m paraphrasing) “Everyone has their favourite course, but that might be different from the best course”. In my view, as long as you enjoy the courses you play, that’s all that matters.

I also think that the more courses you play, the more you’ll find your personal list of best courses changes. As you can see above, I’ve played 11 courses on the Top 100 list. I’d like to think that I’ve played a ton of golf (albeit mostly in the west) and I’ve got my list of favourite courses but I’m willing to bet that my list would change if I got to play a few courses in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes.

Above all, the Score Golf Top 100 Golf Course List is a great way to get the country talking about golf. It gives golf tourists a jumping off point to start their list of must visit courses. Along the way they may find a few that never made the list. And that’s good for the game.

If you missed the TSN broadcast, you can watch it at http://scoregolf.com/video/index.cfm?event=top-100-golf-courses-2008.