The Week That Was, january 24, 2016

     Two years ago, when it published its inaugural ranking of the World’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses, Golf Digest apologized for seeming to favor tracks in the United States and Great Britain & Ireland and promised that it wouldn’t happen again. With this year’s ranking, the magazine makes amends.
     In 2014, the United States and Great Britain & Ireland combined to place 72 courses on Golf Digest’s list, and the magazine’s evaluators found it difficult to identify worthy venues in Europe (only two made the grade), Africa (two), the Caribbean (one), and Mexico (one), let alone the Middle East (none) and South America (none). By contrast, only about half of the courses on this year’s list are in the United States (32) and Great Britain & Ireland (20). The current inventory includes 11 venues in Australia & New Zealand, nine in Asia, five in Canada, three apiece in Africa, Europe, Mexico, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, and two in the Caribbean (both of them in the Dominican Republic).
     Worldly enough for you?
     The magazine ranks Royal County Down, in Northern Ireland, as the world’s top course (“On a clear spring day,” it writes, “there is no lovelier place in golf”), and its list, particularly near the top, has plenty of familiar venues. Among them: The Old Course at St. Andrews, in Scotland (“ground zero for all golf architecture”), Cape Kidnappers Golf Course, in New Zealand (“stratospheric Pebble Beach”), Sand Hills Golf Course, in Nebraska (“undoubtedly the most natural golf course in America”), and the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island, in South Carolina (it “might well be Pete Dye's most diabolical creation”).
     Needless to say, though, the list is full of first-time callers -- 24 in all -- and two that have opened in recent months -- Cabot Cliffs (#19), in Nova Scotia, Canada, and Cape Wickham Links (#24), on King Island in Tasmania -- apparently didn’t need any seasoning before they were ranked among the planet’s true elites. Of course, by and large the newcomers don’t rank high. Only five won a place among the top 57, and 13 check in at #76 and lower.
     And if Golf Digest added new courses to its list, then it also had to subtract some. Among those that no longer rate: The Old course at Ballybunion Golf Club, in Ireland; the Black course at Bethpage State Park, in New York; Ballyneal Golf Club, in Colorado; Castle Stuart Golf Links, in Scotland; the Stadium course at TPC Sawgrass, in Florida; and Loch Lomond Golf Club, in Scotland.
     Finally, like all best-of lists, Golf Digest’s World 100 features a popular side competition: The count of courses by architect. Among living designers, the big winners are Coore & Crenshaw, Pete Dye, and Tom Fazio, all of whom place five properties on the list. (Nota bene: I’m not counting renovations.) Norman has four, Tom Doak and Jack Nicklaus have three apiece, and Gary Player, Kyle Phillips, Ron Fream, and Robert Trent Jones, Jr. each have two. (Extra credit goes to Doak and Nicklaus, who also share a point for their collaboration at Sebonack Golf Club in New York.)
     Golf Digest claims to have more than 600 international course raters, and it gives them credit for discovering the new courses on this year’s World 100. Finally, their voices are being heard.