[captainidiot]

Golf Digest spends a lot of effort on rating courses. For a long time - they had the top 100 US courses - which were largely private. Now they have the following in the May issue:

1) Top 100 US.
2) Top 100 Public
3) Top courses in each state.
4) Top courses in the world outside of the US.

To determine the world courses, they sent questionaires to golf organizations in each country across the world soliciting nominations. From this, they received 1005 nominations. Then they distributed the names of these courses to their raters, which include low handicap golfers in many areas of the world...

I was perusing the list last night and did a quick country count...

1) Scotland (not surprisingly) was 1st with 13 courses.
2) Canada (shows my ignorance) was Tied for 1st - also with 13. I never would have thought this.
3) England was a strong 2nd with 10.
4) Australia/New Zealand (combined) had 14.
5) Ireland/Northern Ireland had 7 - which was impressive.

Here in the states, we get such tremendous TV coverage of the Open Championship, that we have fairly high awareness of the Open rota courses...

On the other hand, Canada only has one televised event per year - the Canadian Open. I guess this is why I was surprised Canada tied Scotland for 1st place. I just don't get any exposure to the great courses on TV.

But I was really blown away by the Australia/New Zealand numbers with 14. I'll bet I have never seen a single hole televised from Australia, seriously.

I recommend you buy this issue of Golf Digest because I think they do a fairly good job and spend a lot of effort on this.