GolfLink.com unveils list of Top 100 US Courses

GolfLink.com, a substantial online golf community today unveiled its 2008 rankings for Top 100 golf courses in the United States using a significant amount of input from visitors to its site and its more than 200,000 community members.

The people have spoken and there are some surprises throughout the list.

Coming in at No. 1 is the Black Course at Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale, NY. In 2002 the Black Course became the first publicly owned and operated course to host the U.S. Open and will again host the event in 2009.

The course is widely regarded as one of the very best courses in the country that you can actually play. Bethpage is known for its allotment of first come, first serve tee times which makes for a one-of-a-kind experience as players line up before dawn in order to be beaten up by the extremely severe Black Course. Its accessibility and reasonable price tag might just have taken Bethpage to the top of the list.

Another notable public course, if you can really call it that, was conspicuous by its absence from the top of the list.

Pebble Beach Golf Links, which typically sits atop lists such as this one finds itself at No. 81, quite a departure from its normal standing somewhere inside of the top 10. The price tag for Pebble Beach is as much as $500 per round and that is merely the base rate. With additional hotel costs and golf fees, it's no surprise that Pebble may not be the best bargain out there. Setting the bar so high can almost certainly leave to disappointment.

Some courses occupying the Top 15 have no business being ahead of Pebble Beach but when you factor in price tag, user experiences could certainly reflect a letdown.

While Pebble suffered a significant slide in these particular rankings, all the big boys didn't go home unhappy.

Augusta National Golf Club (No. 2), Pine Valley Golf Club (No. 3), Riviera Country Club (No. 5), Bay Hill Club & Lodge Championship Course (No. 12) and Pinehurst No. 2 (No. 15), Bandon Dunes Golf Club (No. 18) and Cypress Point (No. 20) all secured spots in the top 20.

Some of the biggest surprises were Kearney Hill Links (No. 4) located in Lexington, KY, Tobacco Road Golf Course (No. 8) in Sanford, NC and Glen Mills Golf Club (No. 11) in Glen Mills, PA.

To be sure these rankings were a definite deviation from the norm.

"It was important for us to rank courses not on reputation, but on actual feedback from our members," said Doug Colbeck, general manager, GolfLink.com. "Golf Link Community members and site users represent a perfect cross-section of players who not only love golf, but love to spread the word about experiences they've had on the links - both good and bad. When they talk, we listen, and their input is reflected in this year's list."

Relying on user feedback is an exciting way to rank golf courses and is certainly the wave of the future. But it's still an arbitrary practice that is very subjective. I can't say that one set of course rankings should carry weight over another, which is what makes it so much fun and why we are obsessed with every such list that comes out. So let the debate begin, is the Baywood Greens Course in Long Neck, DE really greater than Pebble Beach? I'll let you decide.