The short version
Every public golf course gets a score out of 100.
It’s built from what the experts, the golfers and the course itself tell us, and every input is cited on the course’s page.
A great architect and a real story earn bonus points. A missing one never costs a course anything.
The score is national. An 85 in Kansas means the same thing as an 85 in North Carolina.
The formula
Total Score = min(100, Core + Story) Core = (E + G + C + A + T + D) × 100 / 85 when we know the architect Core = (E + G + C + A + T) × 100 / 75 when we don't
| Symbol | Part | Points |
|---|---|---|
| E | Expert lists | 0–40 |
| G | Golfer stars | 0–20 |
| C | Challenge | 0–5 |
| A | Access | 0–5 |
| T | Threads and blogs | 0–5 |
| D | Architect | 3–10 (bonus) |
| Story | Story and heritage | 0–15 (bonus) |
If we don’t know who designed a course, we don’t guess and we don’t punish it. We leave D out and score the course on everything else, stretched to the same 100 scale.
The parts
E — Expert lists (0–40)
E = 40 × (0.7 × P + 0.3 × L / 4) P = 1 − (rank − 1) / list size ← the course's best showing on any list L = number of lists the course is on (out of 4)
The lists:
- Golf Digest Best in State
- Golfweek Best Courses You Can Play
- GOLF.com Best in State
- Top 100 Golf Courses
How it reads:
- #1 on a list of 25 gives P = 1.00.
- #13 of 45 gives P = 0.73.
- Not on any list scores 0 here. That’s honest: no expert put it on a list.
G — Golfer stars (0–20)
S = (stars × reviews + 3.5 × 10) / (reviews + 10) G = 20 × clamp((S − 3) / 2, 0, 1)
Source: GolfPass golfer reviews.
What S does: every course starts as if it had ten extra 3.5-star reviews. A 5.0 from two reviews can’t beat a 4.6 from two hundred. The more reviews a course has, the more its real rating shows through.
| Adjusted rating (S) | Points |
|---|---|
| 3.0 or lower | 0 |
| 4.0 | 10 |
| 5.0 | 20 |
C — Challenge (0–5)
C = 5 × clamp((slope − 113) / 32, 0, 1)
Source: the USGA slope from the longest tee.
| Slope | Points |
|---|---|
| 113 (average) | 0 |
| 145 or harder | 5 |
| No rating on file | 2 |
A — Access (0–5)
| Who can play | Points |
|---|---|
| Public, municipal, county | 5 |
| Resort, university | 4 |
| Semi-private | 3 |
Private clubs aren’t ranked at all. If you can’t book a tee time, it’s not on the list.
T — Threads and blogs (0–5)
One point for each independent, cited mention, up to 5.
Mentions come from golfers writing about the course on their own: forums, blogs and trip reports.
D — Architect (3–10, bonus)
D = 3 + 3.5 × V + 3.5 × R V = ln(courses built) / ln(most courses built by any architect) R = max( min(1, listed / 5), min(1, (listed / built) / 0.25) )
What goes in:
- Built is the architect’s career total of original designs, not how many we happen to have on file.
- Listed is how many of their courses appear on Golf Digest’s America’s 100 Greatest, Golf Digest’s 100 Greatest Public and the state lists above.
How the three numbers work:
- The 3 floor: anyone who designed a course starts at 3.
- V (volume): uses a log scale, so going from 1 course to 10 counts as much as going from 10 to 100. The busiest architect in our data, Tom Bendelow at about 600 courses, sets the top.
- R (recognition): an architect earns full credit either way: 5 or more listed courses, or a quarter of everything they built made a list. Big careers and small, brilliant ones both get their due.
| Architect | Built | Listed | D |
|---|---|---|---|
| Donald Ross | ~400 | 32 | 9.8 |
| Pete Dye | ~200 | 16 | 9.4 |
| Tom Doak | ~40 | 11 | 8.5 |
| Mike Strantz | 9 | 3 | 7.7 |
| Arthur Hills | ~200 | 1 | 6.6 |
| A one-course architect | 1 | 0 | 3.0 |
Story — Story and heritage (0–15, bonus)
Story = min(15, History + Heritage + Milestones + Era)
| What | Points |
|---|---|
| The course’s history is researched and published on its page | 5 |
| A published Heritage story | 5 |
| Milestones | up to 5 total |
| · A renovation or restoration in the last 25 years | 2 (+1 by a recognized architect) |
| · Hosted a major event: pro tour, USGA, state or college championship | 2 |
| · A documented first: first public course in the county, first integrated course and more | 1 |
| · An award: Golf Digest or Golfweek Best New, design and “best of” honors | 2 |
| Era | course-building history |
| · Opened before 1930 | 3 |
| · Opened 1930–1959 | 2 |
| · 1960 or later, or unknown | 1 |
Era is a small nod to course-building history, so a brand-new course is never more than two points behind a classic. New courses catch up through milestones: awards, the events they host and the work done on them. Every milestone is cited, like everything else in the score.
Story is added after the 100-point scale, so it can lift a course but never sink one.
Worked example: Pinehurst No. 4 = 93
Illustration under the new Story bonus, which is rolling out now. Course pages show 92 until it’s live.
| Part | Inputs | Points |
|---|---|---|
| E | Best showing: Top 100 Golf Courses #9 of 107 → P = 0.925; on all 4 lists | 40 × (0.648 + 0.300) = 37.9 |
| G | 4.9 stars from 21 reviews → S = 4.45 | 20 × 0.72 = 14.5 |
| C | Slope 138 | 5 × 0.78 = 3.9 |
| A | Resort | 4 |
| T | Not yet collected | 0 |
| D | Donald Ross | 9.8 |
| Core = (37.9 + 14.5 + 3.9 + 4 + 0 + 9.8) × 100 / 85 | 82.5 | |
| Story | History published 5 + Gil Hanse renovation, 2018 → 3 + opened 1919 → 3 | +11 |
| Total Score = 82.5 + 11 = 93.5 → 93 | 93 |
The rules we hold ourselves to
- Every number is cited. The course page shows each list, rank and star rating with a link to the source.
- No paid placement. A course can’t buy points or position.
- No curve across states. The score is national. On a state’s Top 10/50/100 page, we may also show how each course compares with that state’s #1.
- Missing data never counts against a course. That covers an unknown architect, no story yet, or no threads collected yet.
- The score moves when the evidence moves. New lists, new reviews and new stories update it automatically.
Coming next: ratings from Formula 18 Golf players themselves, and rounds played on Formula 18 Golf.
See it in action: Best Public Golf Courses in North Carolina →