Although I usually scroll Twitter and become triggered by the latest stupidity of the Packers or Chelsea, today (May 30th), conversely, I was triggered by Golf Digest’s 100 ranking of the 100 best holes in America. Yet, in turn, I was also reminded of the article, when looking back, that, I think, initially got me interested in Golf Architecture, before the topic jumped the shark, when its study was reserved merely for us weirdos with too much time on our hands to be interested less in the playing or the played than the playing field, itself.
However, its relative unpopularity and the inherent lack of resources, both due to the less developed state of the internet at the time and the countless research that has been added subsequently, over the last decade or so, produced, I feel, a much more knowledgeable discourse among those interested in, what was still then, a niche topic. Of course, wider society’s progression (or digression) has, undoubtedly, seeped into the discourse surrounding golf course architecture, too, although it has always been a subject prone to induce passionate response. In effect, going back to the mid 00s, if you wanted to know anything about GCA, you had to dig, and dig deep, a process during which you not only learned about what you were specifically interested in but also waded through a whole host of other, adjacent, off topic information that, in turn, disseminated itself into the researcher through osmosis, if you will. For example, if you wanted to learn about a certain architect’s approach or timeline, you probably had to order his book and read through it, because there were not neat, tidy, and curated bits and quotes and summary pieces readily available, as is the case now. Or, most commonly, you had to read through lengthy GolfClubAtlas threads in which the likes of Tom MacWood, TE Paul, Peter Palotta, George Pazin, Ran Morrissett, George Bahto, and, of course, Ian Andrew and Tom Doak, among other architects who would go on to great careers, would debate, dissect, and argue the history and minutiae, sometimes very minutiae, of the topic.
Now, conversely, because of the wealth of information readily available and the various tools that allow the researcher to pin-point their search, that aforementioned need to dive deeply into the topic of GCA has, in far too many instances, produced an audience that knows a broad, wide ranging of array of subjects pertaining to the topic but with essentially no depth or ability and willingness to progress beyond a surface level discussion about templates, for example. As Sianne Ngai claimed, the modern condition is that we simultaneously know too much and too little. Everyday, it seems, there are now 50 new posts about this top 100 or the other, with captions essentially saying the same thing, albeit with a couple different adjectives. The point seems not to know as much as to collect, and to collect as quickly as possible.
That being said, Golf Digest’s latest ranking of the 100 best holes in America is about what one would expect from them: basically, the two or three best holes from the 50 most famous courses in America, along with three holes from Sand Hollow (a ringing endorsement for Andy Staples (although you wonder how a course can feature, supposedly, 3 of the 100 best holes in America, yet be ranked outside of the top 200)). Moreover, their eminently capable editors were at the mercy of the judgment of the magazine’s thousand plus panelists when compiling the list.
Still, being how I am, I couldn’t resist a comment that, in turn, engendered a reply that, in turn, engendered another one in which I mentioned that their 2007 ranking of “America’s 50 Toughest Courses” should be the model to follow for such an exercise. Rather than simply comprise of the usual suspects, as their next related ranking of difficulty did, in 2021, this initial one featured a plethora of off-the-beaten path golf courses that, unless you were local, you weren’t likely to know beforehand, especially back when it was published, in 2007. The International in Massachusett, The Monster at the Concord Resort, Silver Lakes in Alabama, Purgatory in Indiana, Rochelle Ranch in Wyoming, Crystal Springs in New Jersey, and Diamante in Arkansas, among others, were all included among some familiar names, such as Oakmont, Pine Valley, and Medinah, as well as some other, lukewarmly familiar ones, such as Loblolly Pines, Tobacco Road, etc.
Personally, as a plus handicap player, I find some backwoods, cagey, and patchy golf course, with less-than-ideal greens, rock hewn bunkers, and out of play areas that are instant reload, far more difficult, in most cases, than a perfectly manicured and turfed “championship” one. St George’s, to use a Canadian example, scares me far less than playing Eagle Creek, in Ottawa.
However, my gripe with Golf Digest’s ranking of the 100 best holes is that essentially it seems to say that golf holes cannot be deemed world class unless surrounded by seventeen others that, on the whole, make it the golf course worthy of a place in the top 100. Just to stay in the Northeast, as I wrote on Twitter, the 1st at Hooper, the 7th at Ekwanok, the 4th at the Country Club of Troy are superior to, at least, half of the holes on the list, if not more; but they are located on golf courses that are either out of the way or have not hosted major event. Had the editors, themselves, been responsible for the list, then I would have accused them of laziness, close-mindedness, and even elitism. However, results tend to nullify themselves when the pool of responders is as large as this one was.
Yet, considering the enormous resources and reach of Golf Digest, I find it a shame that such a list of holes with an aim and ethos and scope to mirror its 2007 ranking of the toughest courses in America could not be produced. For me, that article, when I read it as a twelve year old subscriber to the physical edition, opened a world of intrigue and wonder that, because there were courses that I’d never heard of included, made me dig and search and scour a rabbit hole from which I’ve never emerged.