What’s the best criteria to review a golf course?

[Argonne69]

2 hours ago, me05501 said:

 

Ah yes...the scale of 1-10 where every rating is 4, 5 or 6.

 

 

:) 

 

Definitely needs to be better courses. Lol. 

 

[Argonne69]

Conditions are certainly a factor, but they have to be adjusted for the season and price. 

 

If it's prime season, and the $400 course has iffy fairways, ungroomed bunkers, and bumpy greens, then it's getting a major ding. Same course in the off-season when the other area courses are iffy, then I'll let it slide. 

 

Cheap $30 muni with excellent greens and spotty turf tee to green? I can live with a few bare patches. 

 

I think it basically boils down to expectations for the season and price of the course. If a course is charging a premium for the area, they had better deliver above average conditions. 

 

[act0fgod]

On 5/28/2025 at 7:32 PM, Argonne69 said:

Conditions are certainly a factor, but they have to be adjusted for the season and price. 

 

If it's prime season, and the $400 course has iffy fairways, ungroomed bunkers, and bumpy greens, then it's getting a major ding. Same course in the off-season when the other area courses are iffy, then I'll let it slide. 

 

Cheap $30 muni with excellent greens and spotty turf tee to green? I can live with a few bare patches. 

 

I think it basically boils down to expectations for the season and price of the course. If a course is charging a premium for the area, they had better deliver above average conditions. 

 

I've played one of my favorite courses the past couple days.  Multiple tee boxes are dust and portions of a couple fairways are bare.  It's  been a dry spring here so grass isn't growing much and the course has more cart traffic than I think is appropriate.  When it was a remote bargain course that sort of conditioning is acceptable but at 200+ I'm surprised I haven't seen complaints on various golf sites.

 

I don't know how I really rate my favorite courses but things that I appreciate are courses with great settings such that I forget about the day to day grind, one where pace is such that I'm not waiting to hit shots, a course where I'm unlikely to loose a ball but a poor shot makes par a challenge and the hardest to define is one that provides good value.

[Chanceman]

Walkability is a big factor for me. Never been a fan of goat tracks.

[James the Hogan Fan]

To me, conditioning winds up having a big factor on my impressions of a course. If Augusta National were maintained to the standards of Podunk Municipal, would it be held in the same reverence as it is?

 

On 5/28/2025 at 6:50 PM, teejaywhy said:

Exactly, conditions can be improved, a poor design cannot.

 

In my experience, it is extremely uncommon for a course's conditioning to improve without a temporary closure/remodel situation; a course's conditions become part of that course's identity.

 

A course can have a great design, but if all the bunkers are hardpan, the rough is a coinflip between 70's US Open and bare lie, and the greens are made of broccoli, I can't enjoy that design and will choose to play elsewhere. And if I would rather play at course B than course A, is course A really "better"?

 

 I can think of a couple courses where I have thought "if this place wasn't a dump it'd be a pretty fun golf course"... But I don't hurry to play those places again. 

 

 

[Golferpaul]

On 5/27/2025 at 1:56 PM, Abh159 said:

I'm sure there are others, but these are the ones that immediately came to mind in no specific order...

• Course conditions
  • Greens conditions and also green speed (are they an appropriate speed for their contouring?)
  • Bunker conditions
  • Level tee boxes 
  • Turf conditions (grass abundant in fairways and rough or a lot of bare spots?)
• Design / layout
  • Strategy (am I just pulling out driver on every tee or do I have to actually think about what shot to hit?)
  • Memorability (after a month or so, how many holes can I recall right away from memory?)
  • Risk reward holes (I think every great course needs at least one good r/r par 5 and par 4)
  • Variety (mixed yardages or do all par 3s, 4s, and 5s play close to the same length?)
• Cost
  • Overpriced, underpriced, or competitively priced
  • Availability (can anyone book a tee time or are there stipulations like being forced to stay on site or etc.?)
• Experience
  • Pace of play
  • Walkability
  • Friendliness of staff
  • Facility cleanliness

My criteria are similar to yours. I play golf for fun, not to become an expert on course architecture, so my ratings include the entire experience.

[Golferpaul]

On 6/1/2025 at 3:31 AM, Chanceman said:

Walkability is a big factor for me. Never been a fan of goat tracks.

What is the connection between "walkability" and "goat tracks"?   If a course is not walkable does that make it a goat track?

[mallrat]

I always start with the basics…

 

1. options - do I have to hit the same club off all tees? Is every par 4 or 5 a driver or can I play different shots?

     - par 3’s, do the distances very or am I hitting the same club multiple times. The fascination with 200+ yard par 3’s drives me nuts. 1 should be standard, any more than that is too much and I love a good short par 3, GW through 9 

 

2. conditions - are they a good value for what the round costs? Greens smooth, heathy, bumpy, soft?

 

3. course design/layout - are all holes straight? Are there some dog legs? What’s the walk/distance between greens and tee boxes?

 

4. is the course walkable? 
 

5. service - always use this as an example of a horrible experience. Wife and I tee’s off around 2 on a 90+ degree day. Asked if we should walk or take a cart, they said walk. They didn’t tell us that there was no bev cart and that after 1 the course never came back by the clubhouse. By 9 we needed water bad and had to pack it in after 13 or 14 because we were dehydrated. 
 

6. this is weird but is the course reliant on the land. Bandon Dunes is one of my favorite courses ever but, IMO it is land dependent. Now Bandon Trails which is my favorite course I’ve ever played, I feel if they could put it anywhere it would work or not dependent on where it is. 
 

7. pace of play

[mallrat]

7 hours ago, Golferpaul said:

What is the connection between "walkability" and "goat tracks"?   If a course is not walkable does that make it a goat track?

From conversations, there are 2 definitions of “goat tracks.”

 

1. a literally path goats would take, very hilly and not comfortable to walk 

 

2. a course in poor condition 

[sabram]

The best criteria depend on who your review or recommendation is for.  For some people views and scenery are very important, for others conditioning, walkability, amenities or course style are very important. For myself, it's the design of the course itself including the routing (flow of the round), variety of the holes and shots required, fairways that have some movement and elevation changes with enough width to provide approach options and reduce searching for balls,  and most importantly  greens with internal movement to make putting  fun but not crazy. I prefer true links and heathland courses but appreciate parkland courses that have the foregoing characteristics. When I review a course those are the things that I focus on, but will  also mention cost and travel distance and views etc because I know those are important factors for many people. I don't focus on conditioning as conditions can vary from week to week weather and season, but I will mention if a course is always in excellent shape   or chronically bad from my own experience  based on multiple plays over time.

 

Edited June 10 by sabram
to correct typo

[vallygolf]

If you want to get the most objective ratings, you have to at least make an attempt to control for the golfer.  Plenty of ignorant people who subjectively rant how poor Torrey Pines, or Pebble Beach, or (insert ANY well regarded course here).  There are always "outliers and know it all's" who will subjectively hate on any attempt to normalize or standardize what good is.  They can always make the point that good is in the eye of the beholder..... so to make any valid attempt at rating a course, you have to make an assumption about the golfer, and standardize the golfers perspective.  Obviously there is no right way to do this, but for ease of use, looking at a course from the perspective of the scratch golfer is a good baseline.  In fact isnt this what we do to arrive at a slope rating?  I like this method because it removes the "experience" factor, which is useless except for one person, the person whos experience it was.  I have had far more experiences where a personal "review" had nothing to do with my experience, than personal experiences helping me have a better time or enjoying the course more.  From a scratch golf perspective I would use a few different points of evaluation:

 

Did the course test my mind?  Any course that can be mindlessly played isnt a great design.  Doesnt mean it cant be a great experience or even fun, but it isnt a great design.

 

Did the course test my game?   If I leave the course having hit driver (straight or not) and wedge on every hole and all the par 3's were similar length  with flat lies and no trouble anywhere, it doesnt matter how well or poor I played the course is a dud, it hasnt asked me to hit any quality shots.

 

Did I have more than one option on the majority of shots?  If a course constantly dictates the only way to play it, then this is IMO a design flaw.  (This is why links golf is considered king by many)

 

Does the conditioning allow me to play a variety of shots as well?  Slow or wet conditions on a non rain soaked course are the enemy of variety.  Color would be irrelevant in my discussion of conditions.  If brown can be healthy for the turf... let it ride.  Greens and fairways should be smooth and true.

 

Is the course overly repetitive or predictable, oh another 200 yard par 3 with a huge push up green.  Is the bunkering strategic and varied and even suprising at times.  (Cog hill #4 has lobed bunkers right and left of the green on nearly every hole.  Great course ruined by repetitive slog of the sameness on every hole)

 

Great intangibles.  This has nothing to do with tacos at the turn or what the cart girl looks like.  You know them when you see them  Examples Spyglass #4 green, Pebble Beach #7 green and tee shot, Oakmont church Pew bunkers, a well executed Biarritz green, etc, etc, etc.  The list is endless, but they are unique features well placed and executed that not only define the course, but also typically add to the strategy of the game.

 

 

Experience, History, cost, accessability, etc can add to a personal experience, but cant really change the hard facts of a course design.  Im not saying they have no merit, and one certainly could make ratings to include these things, but then it is just a subjective slog, useless to anyone but the rater.

[Golferpaul]

19 hours ago, vallygolf said:

 Obviously there is no right way to do this, but for ease of use, looking at a course from the perspective of the scratch golfer is a good baseline.  In fact isnt this what we do to arrive at a slope rating? 

No, it is not.  The Course Rating is based on a scratch golfer.  Slope rating is the ratio of the Course Rating (assumes a scratch golfer) and the Bogey Rating (assumes a bogey golfer).

[vallygolf]

29 minutes ago, Golferpaul said:

No, it is not.  The Course Rating is based on a scratch golfer.  Slope rating is the ratio of the Course Rating (assumes a scratch golfer) and the Bogey Rating (assumes a bogey golfer).

Yep, so the rating controls for the golfer (uses scratch as the metric).  The slope also controls for the golfer scratch/bogey.  That is my point.  A more valid (objective) course review (rating) must control for the golfer. 

[Warrior42111]

16 hours ago, vallygolf said:

Yep, so the rating controls for the golfer (uses scratch as the metric).  The slope also controls for the golfer scratch/bogey.  That is my point.  A more valid (objective) course review (rating) must control for the golfer. 

But should it really be controlled at a scratch golfers level? Statistically 1.8% of golfers are 0.0 or better, we know in the US at least most golfers do not carry a handicap. 

 

Maybe a bogey golfer because at least  24% of holders are 18-14 HCs there. 

 

[vallygolf]

1 hour ago, Warrior42111 said:

But should it really be controlled at a scratch golfers level? Statistically 1.8% of golfers are 0.0 or better, we know in the US at least most golfers do not carry a handicap. 

 

Maybe a bogey golfer because at least  24% of holders are 18-14 HCs there. 

 

You could control it wherever you want, however there is more variation in the game of a bogey or higher golfer and so the control is less predictable. Is it the chipping, driving, putting that is causing lost strokes?  The worse the golfer the more the variation and dispersion in their games.  IMO harder to control.

[smashdn]

Found it.  The pickle rating does it for me.