Have you ever played a golf course that was for sure a ten? I do not know if I have. The Wilderness at Fortune Bay might be a ten. So could ThunderHawk or Blackwolf Run. But in the hundreds of courses I’ve played in my life, I can’t know for sure.
For this reason, there is difficulty in rating courses on a one-to-ten basis when unsure of perfection, and this creates an entirely too one-dimensional scale when reviewing new tracks.
Over the past few days, I have developed a new rating system for my blog, and with much trepidation have trimmed the deciding factors down from about 20 to five key categories:
- Value – Given the price, how good of a value is the course? Rated 0 to 4.
- Greens – Speed, fairness/difficulty and variety are all taken in to consideration. Rated 0 to 4.
- Condition/Upkeep – Is the course well-maintained? Rated 0 to 6.
- Overall Challenge/Playability/Layout – Is the course playable to both bogey and scratch golfers? Rated 0 to 8.
- Mystique/Wow Factor – Is it memorable, and will you want to pay to play it again? Rated 0 to 8.
With a maximum of 30 points, the total will then be multiplied by 3-1/3 to get a 0-100 overall score, and then rounded up and/or down to result in a rating between zero and ten. My hope is that this will be a more consistent method of rating new courses.