SCOREGolf has long been known for its rankings of Canadian Golf Courses, and we are happy to announce we will be partnering as the presenting sponsor of this year’s Top 100 Golf Courses in Canada list, hitting newsstands at the end of July.  

With over 2,200 golf courses, Canadians have the second largest selection to choose from in the world (only the United States has more). There are enough that you could play a new course everyday for the next six years and still not play every one.

SCOREGolf’s panellists use a rating scale that measures criteria such as beauty, strategy, challenge, design, Par 3s/4s/5s, conditioning, and of course, fun factor. As we lead up to the 2018 list being released later this month, let’s take a deeper look at some of the factors.

Beauty

There’s no better feeling than stepping up to the first tee box and looking out at the eye popping backdrop of mountains, oceans, prairies, pines or parklands. That’s what makes Beauty, worth 15 per cent of a course’s rating, a tough category to judge. Whether you’re playing well or not, at the very least the natural beauty you are surrounded by during your round has a lasting impact on what you think of the golf course. It’s what you remember years later.

Design

Another category used to rank SCOREGolf’s Top 100 Golf Courses is Design, which essentially rates a course’s collection of 18 holes and how each one flows together. How do you begin the round? What happens in the middle and how do you end? How are the challenges presented to the golfer as they move through the golf course? Up hill, downhill, what type of terrain do they take in? It counts for 15 per cent of the total ranking criteria and is what makes the course captivating and interesting. Bonus points for embracing natural landscape.

Next week, we’ll take a closer look at strategy, challenge and Par 3s/4s/5s in determining Canada’s Top 100 Golf Courses.