How are courses evaluated?

When you look at any given golf magazine’s “Top 100” in the world or US or public or anything, they are some variation of the exact same courses. You would probably get fired if you didn’t put Pinehurst #2 in the top 10 public courses each year but if you go there is it a top 10 course or the combination of history, lore and difficulty make it a shoe in? This isn’t to say that Pinehurst #2 is not deserving, but the how and why is every single list so similar and is that an accurate representation of your experience?

The other big takeaway from those rating (besides the fact there are only 150 or so courses that ever get recognized) is how do these individuals actual score the course? 50% of Golf Digest’s scoring criteria (Shot options, Character, Challenge and Layout Variety) are basically the exact same thing… Difficulty! I don’t disagree that its important, but why waste time say lot word when few do trick?

For example: TPC Sawgrass is $600 in peak season, at that price most would expect the course to be immaculate. Compare that to somewhere like Riverdale Dunes near Denver, also a Pete Dye design that was at one point a top 75 course in the US, costs *checks notes… $54 to walk. If I am planning a golf trip, is it worth an extra $550 to say you played where one of the biggest PGA tour events is hosted, or would something similar suffice for that level of savings?

I am getting a bit wordy here, but really the point is more often than not these standards seem very arbitrary. If you dropped an average person on one of these top 100 courses do the benefits really outweigh the costs? Linked is the breakdown of how we score these courses and what goes into each criteria… The detail is a bit thiccc, but worth it to attempt to get an unbiased picture of finding the best quality golf.