How You Ranked BC Courses
August 12, 2014
Jim Lee, (British Columbia Golf)
In the August 6 British Columbia Golf Newsletter, we included an article based on the ScoreGolf top 100 courses in Canada ranking, and provided the list of the top courses in BC. We asked for your feedback on the ranking of courses, as well as on some other related issues. We wouild have liked more responses, but following are the rankings and responses that you came up with. If you would like to see the architects of each and the year they were constructed, click here.
Following is the list of courses, the ScoreGolf ranking in Canada (on the left) and the ranking provided by our readers of the BC courses.
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There are some subtle differences in the two rankings. The top 10 are the same, but within the top 10 courses, Sagebrush drops to #4 with Royal Colwood making a big move up from #7 to #3. Tobiano drops from #4 to #8. Our readers show a preference for the older, more traditional courses, including Victoria at #7 so that four of the top 10 are what might be considered traditional courses. They are also private clubs. The remainder of the top 16, except Tower Ranch, would be considered resort courses.
This change in the rankings could be due to the nature of our respondents. We asked a few questions about their golf. 56% of our readers play more than 60 rounds a year and most (42%) are between 61 and 70 years of age. Over half (53%) are members of private or semi-private clubs. These factors could influence their choices.
We had a write-in option for readers to add a course that they think should be included on the list. Two newer courses – Fairview Mountain and Storey Creek had the most mentions, but there were a wide range of courses mentioned.
We also asked how many of the top 16 courses readers had played. 57% had played less than eight, with 28% playing between four and six, and only a few had played more than 14.
Finally, in order to settle a previous discussion on BC golf course architects, we asked which of 7 course architects “best represent golf in BC?”. In the previous discussion, AV Macan led in the feedback from the July 23 edition and this was confirmed in these responses. with Macan receiving 44% of the votes. Les Furber came second with 30% of votes and none of the other architects received more than 10% of votes. We will follow up on some of the work by Macan in a subsequent issue.
Thanks for responding!