Course Rater Confidential: What course should make GOLF’s next Top 100 Courses in the World ranking?
Old Sandwich Golf Club in Plymouth, Mass.
Evan Schiller
GOLF’s Top 100 course panelists are among the most respected and well-traveled course evaluators in the game. They’re also keen to share their opinions. In this GOLF.com series, we’ll unlock their unvarnished views on all questions course-related. Check out GOLF’s latest Top 100 Courses in the U.S., Top 100 Courses in the World, Top 100 Courses You Can Play, Best Municipal Courses in the U.S., and 100 Best Short Courses. Meet all of our Top 100 panelists here.
Any course (or courses) that didn’t make GOLF’s recent Top 100 Courses in the World ranking that you’d like to see on it the next time around?
Steve Lapper (has played 84 of the World Top 100): I was surprised not to see Eastward Ho!, Essex Country Club, Walton Heath, St. Enodoc, or Notts make the Top 100. These five all reside on unique terrain and represent some of the very best work of their respective architects. In my book, they all easily outweigh at least a handful of tired big name tour-stop venues. The best example might well be Herbert Fowler’s brilliantly routed and designed Eastward Ho!. A true links set along Little Pleasant Bay on Cape Cod and ultimately restored by Keith Foster, this gem is literally a rollercoaster of 18 wonderful holes and pure fun. It is, in my opinion, vastly superior to a number of courses that made this year’s list.
John Cornish (has played 92 of the World Top 100): I’m disappointed Old Sandwich doesn’t receive the love from our panel that I give it. It’s another creative modern course with narrower playing avenues than others in the Coore and Crenshaw portfolio, and it has a collection of interesting holes providing a myriad of options from the tee all the way to the rolling green complexes. I’m a great supporter of Victoria Golf Club in Melbourne and love the understated Paraparaumu Beach, north of Wellington in New Zealand. In the U.K., Royal Cinque Ports and St. Enodoc are two unsung heroes that could easily be a part of the Top 100 conversation.
Gordon Dalgleish (has played 73 of the World Top 100): If golf’s underlying and overwhelming focus is on architecture and use of land with the tools available, why not include Askernish on the Outer Hebrides of Scotland? It is not pristine or subject to renovation, but rather as natural a use of the land as you will find.
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