The GOLF Course Guide has featured a list of courses available for Green Fee Play for two decades, and coined the term 'public access' to describe these courses.

Golf Australia magazine now publishes a similar list every two years, so here we compare the 2019 results:

Comment

Little difference at the top of the lists except that The GOLF Course Guide ranks THE DUNES and JOONDALUP more highly and GA judges like OCEAN DUNES better. GA does not include several courses where a hotel stay is required in order to play.

The glaring differences commence with the Guide's #24 course KOORALBYN - ignored by GA despite being open with new management for over two years now. ARUNDEL HILLS #32 in the Guide is similarly omitted by GA who also did not mention CRANBOURNE, ROYAL HOBART (although both are available for green fee play), HORIZONS or COPPERCLUB.

GA favour BROOKWATER, considered too penal by the Guide, but rank RIVERSIDE OAKS - BUNGOOL, KALGOORLIE, CAPE SCHANCK, LINKS LADY BAY, NOOSA SPRINGS, CAPRICORN, HORSHAM, CLUB MANDALAY, PALMER GOLD COAST, PORTARLINGTON, SHEPPARTON, FOSTER-TUNCURRY, PALMER COOLUM and ARALUEN well down, whilst scoring THIRTEENTH BEACH - CREEK, ST MICHAEL'S, SANCTUARY LAKES, THE VINTAGE, CURLEWIS, NAROOMA, RANFURLIE, EYNESBURY, LONG REEF, WARRNAMBOOL, PALM MEADOWS, YARRAWONGA - MURRAY and FEDERAL more highly.

Commencing with BELMONT, GA Magazine ranks quite a number of courses that do not appear in The GOLF Course Guide list - either because they were overlooked or considered unworthy.

The Criteria

GCG Criteria: 40% Design, 40% Conditions, 20% Aesthetics

GA Criteria: 50% Design, 40% Conditions, 10% Visual   (WAS 60%, 20%, 20% 2 years ago so now very similar to The Guide)

2018 Public Access Rankings Compared

Here we compare the Public Access Rankings from The GOLF Course Guide 2018 with Golf Australia Magazine and Golf Digest  respective Top 100 rankings for 2018, from which we are able to extract the Public Access courses - see table below.

The Criteria

GCG Criteria: 40% Design, 40% Conditions, 20% Aesthetics

GA Criteria: 60% Design, 20% Conditions, 20% Visual - but see comment below

GD Criteria (Updated this year): 25% Shot Values, 12.5% each - Resistance to Scoring, Design Variety, Memorability, Aesthetics, Conditioning, Ambience.

The Guide process always adjusts for a particular judge's harshness/leniency and also discards 'spurious' numbers that are well out of line with the consensus. There is no mention of these factors in either magazine. Even more strangely, Golf Australia mentions a second method of ranking that appears to us quite unscientific - they state that each judge's top course is given 100 points, second course 99 and so on, and then the final rankings are the number of points awarded divided by the number of judges scoring that course!

Comment

Right at the top of the list it is noteworthy that GA have Barnbougle Dunes ahead of Cape Wickham whilst the other publications have the latter a clear winner, as did GA in 2017.

GA ranks The Dunes lower than the others, and The Guide judges looked more favourably on Kennedy Bay and Bonville.  Both magazines ranked the new Ocean Dunes at #4 and perhaps the small number of GCG judges able to visit in time for our rankings and the earlier conditioning issues worked against the course. The Guide traditionally penalises tough layouts such as Brookwater and Newcastle. With criteria geared towards green fee players, the Guide judges ranked Arundel, Kooralbyn, Cape Schanck and Noosa Springs more favourably than the magazines. By contrast, Guide judges were harsh or failed to note improvements at Links Lady Bay, Riverside Oaks - Bungool, Black Bull, Curlewis and Sun City.

 We invite your feedback, email us or visit us on Facebook

2017 Comparisons

Recently, Golf Australia Magazine has published a bi-annual Top 100 ranking of its own, based largely on readers' input and using very similar criteria:

GCG Criteria: 40% Design, 40% Conditions, 20% Aesthetics
GA Criteria: 50% Design, 40% Conditions, 10% Visuals

Interestingly, GA include 'memorability' under Design, whereas GCG would consider this aesthetic. Importantly, for golfers who do not necessarily agree with the above weightings, The GOLF Course Guide publishes separate lists for each criteria.

Here are the recent lists with our comments below:

Whilst the Top three courses are undisputed, the most obvious difference at the top of the lists is that GA ranked Ocean Dunes at #4, whereas the course was not fully playable when the GCG ranking period closed in August 2016.

As with previous comparisons the GCG judges regard THE DUNES more highly, and likewise JOONDALUP, KALGOORLIE, NOOSA SPRINGS,  LINKS LADY BAY and HORSHAM.  GA have excluded MAGENTA SHORES, SANCTUARY COVE and HERITAGE as a hotel stay is required to play, but strangely also CRANBOURNE and SETTLERS RUN where there is plenty of Public Access and SANDS TORQUAY where a handicap is a requirement.

Highly ranked by GA but not included in The Guide's list include SUN CITY (#45), SANDHURST - CHAMPIONS (#62) considered as Private by GCG, BELMONT (#70), WATERFORD VALLEY (#72), INDOOROOPILLY – EAST (#74), EASTLAKE (75), COOLANGATTA – RIVER (76), YARRAWONGA – LAKES (77), BRIBIE ISLAND (80), ALBANY (85), COOLANGATTA – WEST (91), BYRON BAY (92), RIVERSIDE OAKS – GANGURRU (96), SANDRINGHAM (99)