RATING GAME: Pinehurst course designer Tom Doak describes what makes a course great.

• Author: Pomeranz, Jim

When Tom Doak was selected to transform 900 acres in Aberdeen in Moore County into the Pinehurst Resort s tenth course, I recalled his 2016 LINKS Magazine story tided "How To Rate Your Home Course."

Ask 10 people to rate the same courses and scores can vary all over the board. The North Carolina Golf Panel uses 10 rating categories to create the North Carolina's top 100 list: routing, flow, design, strategy, fairness, memorability, condition, variety, aesthetics, and ambiance.

Three courses--Grandfather Golf and Country Club, Elk River Club, the Country Club of North Carolina (Dogwood)--have perfect 100 scores on my ballot. Pinehurst No. 2, is a 99, falling from 10 to 9 in the fairness category. Have you played those greens ?

Doak rates a course using nine categories and rates courses from 1 to 10. He starts with a 3 average, not a 5, to avoid the "all above average" approach made famous by Garrison Keillor s Lake Wobegon children.

Doak offers six factors that might add a point or two to a courses rating, plus three that can take it down a notch.

SIX WAYS TO ADD POINTS

GREAT LAND: Land for a course is great only if the architect uses it right. Courses near an ocean may make for great viewing, but the layout needs to use the breezes to force golfers to hit a variety of shots. "Great land is actually worth a lot more than one point in the Doak Scale," Doak wrote in his column, if the designer takes advantage of it.

GREAT HOLES: Champion Hills, a Tom Fazio design in Hendersonville, has great mountain views and interesting holes. After the 18th hole, a playing partner said, "We just played 18 terrific holes, but all together, they do not make a good golf course." In his column, Doak wrote, "A great course may be more than the sum of its parts, but usually not much more." Pine Valley Golf Club in Pine Valley, New Jersey, is long known as the worlds finest course because it has the best set of 18 holes.

GREAT ROUTING: This is the "least understood part" of golf course design. In addition to finding spaces for great...